BIBLICAL FOLK-LORE.*
WHEN thirty years ago and more Sir James Frazer set out to explain the strange system which regulated the succession to the priesthood of Diana in Arieia, he found it necessary to search through the folk-lore, magic and religion of the entire world for a satisfactory interpretation. The results -Of his researches finally grew into twelve large (now classic) volumes, entitled The Golden Bough. It is certain that from the point of view of the reader of that remarkable work, the primary aim of the author was of secondary importance. As one read through that collection of strange customs and fascinating myths, the fruit of supreme scholarship and observation, the question of the priestly succession in Aricia faded far into the distance, and one realized that The Golden Bough was the greatest example of the application of the "comparative method" which had yet been attempted. It was inevitable that Sir James Frazer should one 'day apply this method to the Old Testament, and no one was surprised at the appearance in the year 1918 of three volumes called Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law. Following the success of the abridged one-volume edition of The Golden Bough, Sir James Frazer has brotight out a one-volume edition of his work on the Old Testament. In the preface to this edition the author states that his object has been "to view the history of Israel in a truer if less romantic light, as that of a people not miraculously differentiated from all other races by divine revelation, but evolved like them by a -slow process of natural selection from an embryonic condition of ignorance and savagery." It is not our intention to dissertate on the success or failure of this attempt to dispose of Divine Revelation, for the very good reason that ifs avowed thesis is of as small consequence to Folk4-ore in- the Old Testament as was the solution of the mystery.ef Nemi to The Golden- Bough. Indeed, we would think it a pity should the book, on account of this after-thought thesis, come' to be regarded as a work of religious controversy instead of as a piece of scientific" research • Folk-Lore in the Old Te"tarnen1: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legendnn Laze. By Slr James Frazer, F.B.S., I.R.A. London: Macmillan. Ms.] . which happens at the same time to be great literature. More, ovei, we feel that the uncompromising Rationalist will in vain seek good grist for his mill in the pages of Folk-Lore in the Oki Testament—God reduced to His lowest terms still, remains infinite ; whereas there is little in this book which the skilled apologist and orthodox exegete could not successfully tackle without ever doing violence to the author's adduced facts. In the first part of the book Sir James deals with the Book of Genesis. He compares the biblical account of the Creation and Fall of Man with the cosmogenetie stories of other races. Stories of a great flood are collected from all quarters of the globe and compared with the story in Genesis. He believes all these stories to be of comparatively recent date. In Part II. he deals with the Patriarchal Age. He is an apologist for Jacob, and suggests that the tale of the mean trick which he brought off at his father's death-bed really covers the account of a primitive legal ceremony connected with ultimogeniture. The third part of the book treats of the times of the Judges and the Kings ; and the fourth and final section is a profoundly interesting study of the Jewish Law. The skill with which Sit James Frazer has abridged his work excites our sincere admiration. The book in its present form is still a veritable storehouse of rare knowledge for the ethnologist and biblical scholar ; as a piece of literature it will satisfy the most exacting stylist, and as another compendium of bizarre facts it will not disappoint readers and admirers of The Golden Bough.
E. B. STRAUSS.
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