THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPAEDIA.* WE offer our warm congratulations to Dr.
Singer and his colleagues, and to the publishers, on the successful completion of this great enterprise. There was a time, it appears from a statement which accompanies the eleventh volume, when it seemed doubtful whether the undertaking could be carried out. Some of the original subscribers had withdrawn or were unable to continue their support, and it became a question whether the publication should not be suspended. Addi- tional support, however, was forthcoming, and the difficulties were overcome. The cost, we are told, amounted to nearly £150,000, and we do not see how this has been defrayed, even by a magnificent list of between seven and eight thousand sub- scriptions. But that is no concern of ours ; all that we have to say is that there seems to have been no stint of all that was needed to fulfil the promises made at the inception of the work.
"Saul," in Christian nomenclature St. Paul, is an article to which one naturally turns. It is the work of Dr. Kaufmann Kohler, President of the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati. We must own that we are disappointed in it. Our chief com- plaint is that Dr. Kohler takes as generally accepted conclu- sions many critical statements which are scarcely worth considering. No one, excepting a few extremists of what may be called the Dutch school, denies the genuineness of four of the Pauline Epistles : Romans, Galatians, and 1 and 2 Corinthians. Dr. Kohler tells us that "the spuriousness of Galatians has been shown by Bruno Baur [sic], Stock, and most convincingly by Friedrich Machliss." He considers other Epistles to have been interpolated. The curious thing is that he uses citations from them to prove the points which he seeks to mace. Obviously, be ought to have begun his article
• The Jewish Rneyclopaedia. Projector and Managing Editor, Isidore Singer, Ph.D. Vols. 11.-XIL London : Funk and Wagnalls. [25s. net per vol.] with a definite statement of what was or was not to be regarded as genuinely Pauline. It is surely going too far to say that the claim to be of the tribe of Benjamin is "false because "there were no tribal lists or pedigrees in existence at that time." This is a bold statement ; and even if it be well founded, the only conclusion to be drawn from it is that the claim was not susceptible of demonstration. To declare that any Jew who affirmed at this time that be belonged to one tribe or another was lying—this is what Dr. Kohler's words come to—is extravagant. (In Ezra x. 9 we read of "the men of Judah and Benjamin," indicating that the returned exiles did so distinguish them- selves.). To affirm, again, that "the Ada Paulae et Theelae has been proved to be older and in some respects of more historic value than the Acts of the Apostles," is nothing less than absurd. We do not quarrel with Dr. Kohler's adverse views of "Saurs " beliefs and aims—he allows him integrity of purpose and sincerity—but we say that he has wholly misrepresented the critical position.
The article on "Saul" the King is a specimen of the good sense with which historical questions are treated. The method followed is to give the "Biblical Data," and then to supply a critical account. The general conclu- sion is that there were two narratives, "built on the same original event." As to the closing scene of the King's life, it seems likely that the Amalekite's story was not true so far as his alleged slaying of Saul was concerned. He was wandering over the field of battle in search of plunder, saw and appropriated the King's ornaments, and thought to get credit with David for having put his rival's death beyond all doubt. The article "Solomon" seems to us hardly so well balanced and judicious. It is not likely that a Hebrew writer would have inter- polated passages which were to remove a stigma from Solomon's character at the expense of David. Yet this is the view which Dr. Hirsch takes of the passages which represent David as enjoining on his son the punishment of Shimei and Joab. The historian probably saw nothing censurable in them. Shimei had never got his deserts for cursing the "Lord's Anointed," and Joab bad tyrannised over a much better man than himself. Nor can we accept the conclusion that "a critical sifting of the sources leaves the picture of a petty Asiatic despot remarkable, perhaps, only for a love of luxury and for polygamous inclinations." Surely such a wonder- ful structure of story as was gathered round the name of Solomon could not have been built on so small a foundation. Legends do not come into existence in this fashion. We may apply to them, as to other things, the aphorism, Where there is smoke there is fire. The article makes, as may be supposed, interesting reading, for the wise King became the hero of Arabian as well as Hebrew story, and though the Rabbis were no contemptible fabulists, the Arab story-tellers surpassed them. Dr. Hirsch's article is supplemented by a valuable account of the apocryphal books wliich bear Solomon's name, not those, it must be understood, with which we are familiar as " deutero-canonical," but the magical and medical books ascribed to him in Arab literature.
In Vol. XIL perhaps the most important article is that by Professor Wilhelm Bacher of Budapest on the "Talmud," supplemented by "Talmud Commentaries" and "Talmud Hermeneutics." The Talmud is treated in its literary as well as in its historical aspect;, the latter, of course, is the more important, but the former is of no small consequence. In spite of its aphoristic form, and though, as we are told, "undertaken with no distinct literary purpose, it contains, especially in its haggadic [anecdotal or legendary] portions, many passages which are noteworthy as literature, and which for many centuries were the sole repositories of Jewish poetry." A sub- ject akin to this, especially on its literary side, and full of interesting matter of a kind that will be unfamilar to most readers, is treated in the article "Translations." It gives a notable picture of the intellectual activities of the Jewish race. A not unnatural transition takes us to "Typography." Hebrew printing began in 1475, but was exercised only in Italy and Spain up to the end of the fifteenth century. "Conditions in Germany did not admit" of the exercise of the art. It is a little surprising to find more freedom in the land of the Papacy and the Papacy's most faithful adherent. The article, with its copious reproductions of type and its list of printers (containing between one and two thousand names), is a model of care and industry. Of special literary subjects, as dis- cussed in this volume, we may mention that on the "Book of Tobit" as an excellent specimen of caution and good. sense.
Vast as is the multitude of topics which present themselves for notice, we must not pass over "Zionism," the work of Professor Richard Gottheil, and, as coming almost at the end of the publication, brought up to the latest date. Zionism is now split up, if the expression is not too strong, into many parties. That which, to outside eyes, seems best to answer to the ideal is the section called the Misrahi. Its adherents are orthodox Jews, describing themselves as an organisation of orthodox Zionists who "believe a faithful adherence to the Torah and the tradition in all matters pertaining to Jewish life, and a longing for the land of the fathers, to constitute the task of the Jewish people and the conditions favourable to its preser- vation." Jewish settlements in Argentina or Africa may be accepted as a pie-alter, but the true Zion is in Palestine. The whole question does not become less pressing. Again and again we hear of massacres of Jewish populations, recalling the old horrors of mediaeval times, even to the fictitious pro- vocations which are alleged to bring them about. That there are grave causes for anti-Semitism cannot be denied; but with the history of the past in one's mind, it is natural to suspect that the bomb thrown at a Christian procession at Bialystok is a "fact" of much the same kind as ritual murders. (Since this was written the suspicion has become a certainty.) Unfortunately it is not only the ignoram Russian peasant or townsman who believes, or pretends to believe, in these falsehoods.. Did not a Ritualistic clergyman the other day actually bring into a form of devotion the • hideous falsehood of "St. William of Norwich " ? The real facts in this case may be seen sub verbo as they are set forth by Mr. Joseph Jacobs.
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