23 JUNE 1838, Page 20

BAUER'S THEOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

THIS is a laborious, learned, and curious work, but on a subject very liable to misconception if it falls into unguarded hands. The purpose of BAUER was to investigate with critical mi- nuteness the composition of the Old Testament—to ascertain the dates of its respective books—to what extent they are the work of the author whose name they popularly bear, or the produc- tion of any single mind ; and then to deduce from their repre- sentations of the character of God the theological opinions which successively obtained among the Jews, touching the nature of the Deity. How far the translator may have extended or softened the free rationalism of the German, we know not ; but the following description embraces the scope and tendency of the arguments. That the early books passing under the name of Moses were not written by Moses, but are of a later age, compiled from several independent and discordant works or traditions of a more ancient period ; as may be seen from the different charac- ters given of the Deity in " Genesis," as well as the jarring inter- mixture of polytheism and monotheism it presents. In "Exodus" and the following books, the author professes to trace an embody- meat of a national God of the Jews, in accordance with what he deems to have been the prevalent opinions of the Jewish vulgar, whilst through both periods lie maintains that the Deity was more or less represented with the passions, feelings, and even the form of man, though endowed with a nature loftier in degree. At a later time, these opinions, be conceives, were extended and partially modified ; God being considered the creator and ruler of the world, but still retaining, in the gross apprehensions of the people, a na- tional and human character. It was not till the time of Solomon that a true idea of the unity of the Godhead was conceived, even by the philosophical part of the nation ; and not received by the vulgar till the return from the Babylunish captivity. But the justest and most elevated notions of the subject are displayed in the "Ecclesiastes" and " Job," though tinged, like the " Pro- verbs," by the hopelessness of the Sadduccan philosophy. As the arguments very often turn upon exact niceties of expres- sion, it follows that no one but a profound Hebrew scholar and Biblical critic is in a fit condition to pass judgment upon all the conclusions of the book. Any one, however, may see that the author occasionally strains his argument beyond legitimate con• struction, even from the texts he himself adduces: But, putting aside the theological part of the question, the treatise offers some very curious views upon the vulgar religions notions prevalent amongst the Jews in the different ages of their history, and ex- hibits in consecutive order and juxtaposition the different lights in which ingenuity may present the character of the "Jehovah" of the Jews.