Shorter Notice
The Reading of the Bible. By Sir Frederic Kenyon. (Murray. 4s. 6d.)
IN his The Story of the Bible, published some eight years ago, Sir Frederic Kenyon showed how clearly and rationally the results of recent scholarship in the field of Biblical study can be presented to the normally intelligent layman. To say that his new volume is as admirable as the former is to give it all the praise that Sir Frederic himself could ask. He deals here with the Bible in three aspects,—as history, as literature and as religion (meaning rather as guide to or vehicle of religion), and one of the features of his criticism is his high appreciation of the historical value of both Old and New Testaments by comparison with other contemporary history. His presentation of the Old Testament as a record of progressive revelation, in which discrepancies of fact as the result of the fusidn of two or more traditional accounts are frankly recognised is a valuable correction to superficial criticism which sees in such occasional contradiction a proof of the fallibility of the Bible. Occasionally Sir Frederic Kenyon assumes rather too much know- ledge in his readers ; not all of them, for example, are familiar with the meaning of the Massoretic text ; but in the main his book serves its purpose admirably as an interpretation of modern Biblical scholar- ship for the common reader.
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