A Guide to the • Bible
HOWEVER much or little of the Bible particular persons may believe, there will be few to deny that it is the most interesting book in the world. But in parts it is perplexing and obscure. To Philip's question " Understandest thou what thou readest ? " how often is it necessary to return a negative answer ? Hence the importance, in reading the Bible, of taking advantage of the guidance of scholars who have devoted their lives to its study. There are, of course, commen- taries on all scales, but for the man whose chief purpose—it is often, indeed, all he has time for—is to resolve difficulties as he goes along the value of a good, one-volume commentary is great. It is time for a new venture in this field. It is more than thirty years since Professor A. S. Peake's admirable Commentary on the Bible appeared, and fifteen since the two volumes (0. and N.T.) of Gore, Goudge and Guillaume were published. Since then new light has been shed on various dark places. Dr. Clarke, for example, dwells on the value of the recently-discovered Dead Sea Scrolls for an understanding of Isaiah ; he has laid toll on so recent a contribution as that. His Commentary consists of just on a thousand pages, of which precisely a third are devoted to articles on various relevant subjects, and two-thirds to notes, necessarily brief, on Old and New Testaments and Apocrypha. It is essentially a book for laymen, and no one reading the articles systematically, and studying the Bible with the aid of the notes, could fail to find his mind greatly enriched. It is, of course, not necessary to agree with Dr. Clarke at all points. A large part of the value' of a commentary consists in the challenge writer offers to reader. Dr. Lowther Clarke is neither traditional nor radical. He would not for a moment follow Dr. Cadoux, who holds that the birth of Jesus took place quite naturally at Nazareth, in rejecting the historicity of the first two chapters of Matthew and of Luke. On the other- hand, he does not think of accepting the story of the feeding of the five thousand as it is told in the Gospels. The whole of his chapter on miracles, indeed, from the Virgin Birth to the Resurrection, is both instructive and suggestive in itself and a clear indication of the .writer's general attitude. And of course some of his interpretations are disputable, as any commentator's must be. Compare, for example, his treatment of the Isaian " Behold a virgin [R.V. margin " maiden "I shall conceive and bear a son," with Peake's or Gore-Goudge-Guillaume's or Sir George Adam Smith's in his classic " Isaiah."
The Bible is not a simple book. Anyone who thinks it is has not begun to understand it. But the methodical, no less than the most cursory, student of it will find Dr. Lowther Clarke perpetually
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