SCHULTZ'S OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY.* THIS work has been before the
German public for nearly a quarter of a century; it has been brought up to date in suc- cessive editions, and it still holds its place as the best complete account of Old Testament religion written from the standpoint of advanced historical criticism. Although the author belongs to the advanced school—at least he would be so reckoned in this country—he is not, like some of his fellow-workers, an irresponsible Orientalist, but a Professor of Theology and a preacher of note, who does not decline the task of reconciling his critical conclusions with the doctrines of his Church. This feature in his work will recommend it to English theologians, who will listen to a writer to whom the Old Testament is still the record of the religion of Revelation, although he finds in it myth and legend. The divergence of the author from the views till recently universally accepted in this country, is most apparent in his treatment of the early history. According to his view, Genesis is not history, but a book of legends, for Israel, like other nations, emerged from the darkness of the prehistoric period, not with a library of histories, but with a garland of legends. As the oldest documents which go to make up Genesis were certainly not committed to writing before the time of the Kings, it is misleading to use them as historical sources in the ordinary acceptation of the term. It cannot even be affirmed that Abraham ever lived; he is an ideal personage, the creation of the Hebrew Muse. But the legend of Abraham and similar legends are by no means destitute of religious, and even of historical significance; for while the personages and events are largely imaginary, they preserve the characteristic spirit of the race amid whom they arose. There is always in legend a historical kernel; but it is not the business of the critic to attempt to separate the kernel from the adornment, but to accept the legend itself as a weighty historical fact, embody- ing, as it does, the inmost heart of the people. Legend there- fore, says Dr. Schultz, was better fitted than history to become the medium of the communications of the Divine Spirit. "In history every figure expresses, only in an approximate and imperfect fashion, what the spirit at work in that particular people desires. In the legend, however, it is this very spirit which moulds those figures and gives them flesh and blood. They become model figures, ideal characters." The same may be said of myth, from which doctrine springs, as history from legend; many of the myths of the early Scriptures maybe regarded as true Revelation Myths ; for though they are akin to those of the Phoenicians and Chaldeans, they "were born again by the creative power of a self-revealing God." In this manner, the least historical portions of the Old Testament Scriptures are conserved as portions of Revelation, and per- manent possessions of the Christian Church.
The conspicuous difference between. Hebrew religion and that of the Aryan peoples was characteristically explained by M. Renan by ascribing a monotheistic instinct to the Semitic race. This, however, Dr. Schultz points out, cannot be affirmed of the civilised peoples of that race, who possessed an elaborate mythology, from which were derived many Hellenic myths. But the theory contains a partial truth when applied to the warlike shepherd tribes which, issuing from the Arabian Peninsula, overran Mesopotamia, Syria, and Canaan. These were not monotheists, but their strongly personal and particularistic conceptions of their gods was a fitter preparation for monotheism than an elaborate mythology, for it was easily possible for the tribal god whom they exclusively worshipped, to become the sole God ; all other gods, without having their existenee denied, being shrivelled up into subordinate or hostile and helpless powers. By this means, we can explain how Moses found the Hebrews in pos- session of views of religion which could be made the basis of his work. This theory does not, of course, fully explain the ori- gin of the religion of Israel; it is only one side of the answer ; the other side of the answer, writes Dr. Schultz, must be given by faith. Israel had prophets, and experienced a revelation of God, who willed that the Religion of Redemption should be made known through this race. What we have to observe in Israel is a gradual progress to a higher faith, and to a purer morality, under the twofold influence of natural and yet pro- * Old Testament Thoo/ogy : tho Religion of Revelation in Re pro-Christian Stage ctrDevolopment. By Dr. Hermann Schultz, Profee.or of Theology in the Univer- sity of Gdttingen. Translated from the Fourth Gorman Edition by the Rev, J. A. Paterson, M.A. Oxon., Profe.sor of Hebrew and Old Testament Literature in the United Presbyterian College, Edinburgh. 2 vole. Edinburgh : T, and T. Clark, 1 2. vidential development, and direct divine guidance through the prophets. So much has been written of recent years in England on the Prophets of Israel, that Dr. Schultz's chapters have been largely anticipated for English readers ; but his succinct and clear presentation of the character of the Prophetic Order will be useful to students. In his remarks on the false prophets, he brings out with great distinctness that, like the false teachers of New Testament times, they differed less in the substance of their prophecies, than in their moral spirit. He thus writes of them Some took to prophesying just for the sake of a livelihood. There were also not a few women who, for a pitiable wage, deceived people with a stereotyped form of soothsaying ; who, as Ezekiel puts it, hunted for souls and killed them. Lying prophets appear at all periods in the Kingdom of Judah, and even among the exiles, and Jeremiah evidently draws no real distinction between such prophets and the soothsayers of Edom, Moab, Amnion, Tyre, and Sidon. They have, as it were, conspired together to deceive the people as to its true salvation. Their object is an easy and luxurious life. They never think of standing in the breach and fighting for the people, in the day of the Lord. Their anxiety is to stand well with the people, who do not want to have the truth prophesied to them, but desire to hear flattering words. The thought of effecting a reformation, a conversion of the people, never once occurs to them. They steal the words of the true prophets, to wit, their prophecies of good, in order to employ them on the wrong occasion, without the condition of penitence and conversion on the part of the people."
The view of the Old Testament History advocated by Dr. Schultz and his school will be accepted without question by students of history as the inevitable result of the application of the historical method to the Old Testament. The early history of all nations is legendary, and in later stages, the chronicles, which are our guides, have to be carefully sifted and compared, and used with extreme caution. No student of the history of the Middle Ages, for example, will find any difficulty with the conclusions of the new school re- garding Genesis and the Books of Chronicles. It is to the theologian, and especially to the Protestant theologian, that they appear disquieting; for he has been accustomed to claim that Protestant doctrine is not founded upon legend, but upon well-authenticated history. Polemical theology, and even dogmatic theology as far as it is founded upon proof texts, appear to be seriously compro- mised by the new reading of Old Testament History. Mr. Gore and Canon Driver seek to allay the panic by giving an undertaking that the New Criticism will confine itself to the Old Testament ; but the history of Biblical Science in Germany and Holland does not encourage the hope that such limitation is at all probable. It is therefore only reasonable that theologians should proceed with caution, and not admit conclusions which will require a reconstruction of their entire theology,—at all events until these conclusions are placed beyond doubt. The New Criticism brings with it, however, certain religious gains which ought not to be overlooked. Those who follow it will have, as teachers of Religion, to appeal more to the spirit and less to the letter.
In tracing the course of Revelation, and observing the con- flict of the Revealing Spirit in history with the resistance of nature and of imperfect media, we shall have to call to aid more than formerly the Christian consciousness, and the col- halve consciousness of the Church. We shall likewise have to recognise more fully the analogies between past revelations and those which the living Spirit of God is still communicating to men. We shall not, of course, escape the dangers of a period of transition ; but it does not appear to be an unfounded hope that the Church, although weaker as a polemical institu- tion, will become stronger to persuade those who, with an honest and good heart, are searching for the presence and guidance of God among men. It does not come within the scope of a newspaper article to examine in detail the critical conclusions of Dr. Schultz. He is not an extreme representative of his school, and he is a temperate and conciliating advocate ; but one may be allowed to reserve judgment on some of his conclusions. While the New Criticism has shown that the traditional view of the unity of the Books of the Old Testament is no longer tenable, it has not as yet been able to fix, save in a very approximate fashion, the exact age of the numerous frag- ments of which the Books are composed. Many of those fragments may have been preserved from a remote antiquity by the retentive Oriental memory. It is evident, however, that questions of authorship and date cannot any longer be made a matter of faith ; men will be more disposed to think of them reasonably and calmly, if no terrorism is practised, and if they are allowed to give an impartial consideration to whatever evidence is now available.
We cannot part with Dr. Schultz's volume without a word of praise for the translation. It is executed with care and skill ; it is quite an unwonted pleasure to meet with a trans- lator who has a complete mastery of the German language, and does not violate the idioms of his own.
Previous page
