28 JULY 1923, Page 20

RELIGION.

Old Testament Life and Literature. By Professor I. G. Matthews. (Macmillan. 12s. net.)

The author of this useful book, a professor in an American Theological Seminary, tells us, with equal truth and irony, that " to many devout people, even among religious leaders, the Old Testament is an almost entirely closed book." The reason is that the literature of the Old Testament is taken out of the category of relation, and apart from the life of its time. This is fatal to its understanding. History and literature must be " considered together. Indeed, all phases of human activity—economic, social, philosophic and religious —are but varying expressions of the unitary life of a people, the parts of one whole." The Bibliography should surely have included the Encyclopaedia Biblica.