A Short Commentary on the Book of Daniel. By A.
A. Bevan, M.A. (Cambridge University Press.)—Mr. Bevan takes a very decided line against the orthodox commentators on Daniel, such as Hengstenberg and Pusey. He is not content with relegating the purely predictive part to the Maccabean age, but denies that the narrative is anything like contemporary with the time to which it professes to relate, or that it possesses an historical character. It is, in his view, a didactic tale intended to suit the circumstances of the time when Jewish patriotism and religious zeal were contending against Antiochus Epiphanes. These are questions on which we do not offer any opinion. The student will find them carefully considered in the volume before us. One of the most interesting suggestions which Mr. Bevan, following Mons. Clermont-Garreau, makes, concerns the interpretation of the handwriting on the wall. According to this, the mysterious words are the names of weights : "A mina, a mina, a shekel, and half-minas." Mina, "God hath numbered thy kingdom ;" shekel, "Thou art weighed in the balances, and found wanting ;" half- mina, "Thy kingdom hath been divided" (the half-mina in the Mishna is called "division of the mina.")—In the series of the "Expositor's Bible," edited by the Rev. W. Robertson Nicholl, M.A. (Hodder and Stoughton), we have The Book of Job, by Robert A. Watson, D.D. Dr. Watson is in- clined to accept Ewald's suggestion that the author of Job was a member of the Northern Kingdom driven from his home by the overthrow of Samaria. An early date seems to him excluded by the literary character of the book. "A drama so elaborate could not have been produced until literature had become an art." Again, he finds a later addition in the intervention of Elihu. This seems
to him to breathe the spirit of the post-exilic times, and he characterises the weakness of its argument as the "failure of an
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attempt, made centuries after the book of Job was written, to bring it into the line of current religious opinion."—The Fourth Gospel. By Ezra Abbot, D.D., Andrew P. Peabody, D.D., and J. B. Lightfoot, D.D. (Same publishers.)—This volume consists of three essays, dealing respectively with the external evidences to the authorship of the Fourth Gospel, the internal tokens of authorship, and the internal evidence for authenticity and genuineness. The volume appears under the care of Dr. Peabody. The late Bishop of Durham's paper was originally written in 1871. He prepared it for publication but a little time before his death, and then found nothing to change in it. Dr. Abbot's argu- ment on Justin Martyr's use of the Gospel is particularly effective. The argument, again, from the analogy of modern writers is curious. Some critics never seem to think that what an ancient writer says or omits may have been said or omitted in mistake or forgetfulness. Yet, if they were human, what is more likely ? Dr. Abbot quotes the case of a theological professor of long standing, who declared that the account of the Transfiguration was found only in St. Matthew, whereas both Mark and Luke relate it, the latter in much fullness. Suppose that a Father had made the same statement, to what erroneous conclusions would it have led t Our Lord's Signs in the Fourth Gospel, by John Hutchinson, D.D. (T. and T. Clark), contains "discussions, chiefly exegetical and doctrinal, on the eight miracles in the Fourth Gospel." The writer finds a method and parallelism in the signs. The making of water into wine he regards as "inaugural ; " the healing of the courtier's son at Capernaum, and the healing of the impotent man at Bethesda, "depict our Lord's glory in HiS Kingdom in relation to the individual soul ; " the feeding of the five thousand, and the walking on the sea, depict "His glory in His Kingdom in relation to His Church on earth ; " and the healing of the man born blind, and the raising of Lazarus, "depict His glory in His Kingdom in relation to the world ; " while the supplemental sign of the miraculous draught of fishes signifies "the final fulfilment of the blessings of our Lord's Kingdom." This is distinctly ingenious. —The Leading Ideas of the Gospels, by William Alexander, Bishop of Derry (Macmillan), appears in a "new edition, revised and greatly enlarged."
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