Historical Geography
THE BIBLE AS HISTORY. By Werner Keller. Translated from the
German by William Neil. (Hodder and Stoughton, 25s.) This magnificent book is modestly described as an Atlas, but it is far more than that. It must be classed among the most remark• able achievements in the sphere of serious Biblical study, and it will prove invaluable to the scholar as well as the general reader. Its influence for good must be incalculable, and no one who gives his full attention to its perusal can fail to be enthralled. The price is low, considering the wealth of research which has gone into its production. Fr. Grollenberg is a Dominican, aged forty, an archeologist who knows the lands of the Bible, a sure-footed scholar and a skilled teacher. He is also a brilliant photographer. The book contains between 400 and 500 illustrations, many of them taken from the air. It gives also thirty-five maps in varying colours which contain every place in the Bible which can be
identified with any degree of certainty and also notes printed on the maps themselves, which will greatly help the student in his eager appreciation of the Atlas. - The Bible as History is also splendidly produced, with admirable illustrations and maps and it is readable and informative. Dr. Keller is among the foremost journalists in the scientific field, and we have here very fine journalism. Anyone of scholarly mind, anxious to be convinced, is constantly thwarted by the lack of references. Where he knows that much has been written on both sides, dogmatic statement takes the place of balanced judgement. He notes discrepancies passed over by Dr. Keller. Chronology is over-simplified. The facts about when the people of Israel reached Egypt and how long they remained there are far from clear in the Biblical story. Our author is content to assert a 400-year interval, during which the Old Testament is silent. Traditional beliefs are sometimes unthinkingly accepted, such as the numbering of the Magi (St. Matthew does not say how many there were). The Flight into Egypt is hard to fit in to any harmony of the Gospels: no light is here thrown on this very real problem. The Resurrection of Christ is surprisingly ignored. In a chapter on the Creation story in Genesis i, no mention is made of the alternative account in Genesis ii. It is encouraging to know that we live in an age of revived Biblical studies: but no ultimate good can come from failure to face problems as they really are. The unparalleled greatness of the Scriptures can bear microscopic scrutiny and
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