BIBLICAL HISTORY AND CRITICISM IN THE " ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA."* IT

would be an interesting pastime to compare the articles on Scriptural subjects in the successive editions of the Enoyclo- prdia Britannic°. They would grave to have grown in importance relatively to the rest of the contents-of the work; later writers would appear to count more assuredly on a large and thoughtful circle of readers, and, in consequence, to write with more freedom, geniality, and sometimes fairness. With all the defects that still remain in English faith, the national Encycloprdia witnesses to its deepening in the last few generations ; and this deepening has proceeded step by step with the more scientific treatment of the problems. This is what is remarkable in the Scriptural articles of the new issue : they are as severely scientific as the articles on "Physics" or "Secular History "; they claim attention and convince the • The Eneyclopiedie Britannica (Eleventh Edition). Cambridge : at ths University mind; and they are all written with reverent good taste— reverence has become good taste since honest scholarship baa been freed from obloquy.

The scientific spirit is sober as well as frank, and that may explain why Dr. Cheyne is represented hy an article on Isaiah which notices in its bibliography Dr. Kennett's quite new Schweich Lectures, but is otherwise far from expressing its author's latest opinions. No doubt those opinions are toc vaguely supported to be admitted as scientific. Yet it is a pleasure to read Dr. Buchanan Gray's respectful notice ("Bible: Higher Criticism") of this "indefatigable worker" and " resourceful pioneer," and it is a curious turn of fortune that " The Two Religions of Israel " should appear in the same year as this article on Isaiah.

A vast undertaking like the Encycloprdia suffers certain inevitable limitations. One is that the articles must be pre- pared some little time before they are published. This will be specially felt in the articles on Scriptural subjects, because so much has been discovered and discussed quite lately. Most readers would have been glad to find more pages allotted to that brilliant writer, Dr. Burkitt, for his treatment of the " Higher Criticism of the New Testament." In the small space at his disposal it is interesting to read his allusion to the Fragments of Reimarus, for it shows the direotion. in which his mind was working even when he wrote. But if he could have completed his article last year, how much more he would have had to say about that movement in New Testament eschatological interpretation which Reimarus so prematurely inaugurated. There is, indeed, nothing about this movement in the article on " Bible," nor does Dr. Charles touch it in his articles on " Apocalyptic Literature " or " Eschatology." The omission was, no doubt, inevitable, yet it cannot but be regretted, for the matter is of more than academic interest. When all the necessary corrections and modifications have been made, this eschatological line of thought must lead to a moral revival ; to a return to the "forsake all and follow" as the heart of the Faith ; and this addition would be just the one desirable complement to the intellectual thoroughness of the Encyclopxdia. Certainly these articles of Dr. Charles lack nothing in thoroughness ; and if any one feels that these authoritative lists of ancient works, with their businesslike descriptions and analyses, leave him unsatisfied; if he still desires a discriminating exposition of the purpose of these strange classes of books, he must be referred to Dr. Charles' own History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, which will in some measure meet his need. The " Odes of Solomon," most beautiful of New Testament Apocrypha, were discovered in their nearly complete Syriac form too late to be included in his list; nor could he refer to the valuable discussions of Howorth on I Esdras, or C. Torrey's enchanting Ezra Studies, a book of Homeric vigour and freshness. The article on Ephesians," which is happily styled ".a true letter, but in the grand style," discusses the objections raised against its Apostolic authorship, and probably represents the trend of latest scholarship in finding "the balance of evidence to lie on the side of the genuineness of the Epistle." Mr. Bartlett, in dating the Epistle to the Hebrews at the period of St. Paul's martyrdom, is bolder. In spite of the increasing opposition of those beat qualified to judge, an early date would seem at least possible. Yet this article leaves the im- pression that its author has hardly done justice to the arguments on the other aide. He does, indeed, insist upon its being a real letter ; yet his analysis makes it very like a sermon. Does he not lay too much stress on its references to the Jewish ritual, too little on the sense of strain mad stress than runs through it ? If there is an argument for the early date, it is this strain and stress which can be explained so much more simply by the outbreak of the war with Rome than by anything else. Of that war, however, the article says nothing, and a certain old-fashioned bias betrays itself in the desire to claim for the author a name that happens to be mentioned in the New Testament. " Hauck " in the biblio- graphy should be "Herzog," the general reference to "the large New Testament Introductions and Biblical Theologies " might be taken for granted; and Oxyrynchus Papyri IV. (1904) should be mentioned for its edition of the papyrus con- taining a large part of the Epistle in the NB type of text. Yet the article is good. The writer has a point of view of his own, and he skilfully works into his limited space allusions to most of the important criticism of recent times.

There are many other articles on special books which would be well worth attention, but economy of space compels us to turn from them to the long article on "Bible." This is most important, and the editors have made wise choice in the distinguished scholars to whom they have entrusted the various divisions.. To " Canon of Old Testament" the well- known initals of " S.R.D." are appended. The debt which

Englishmen owe to. Dr. Driver is almost inestimable. He has

reopened the Old Testament to them, as the printing of the Greek Testament reopened the Gospel to their forefathers.

Skilled in all the learning of his predecessors, excellent him- aelf in judgment, and exercised in sympathy to understand the reverent fears and the impatient protests of uninstructed yet sincere believers, he gently but firmly guided a generation of pupils and teachers into recovered zeal for the Old Testa- ment. Parents, masters and mistresses in all kinds of schools are handing on the light received from him, and this generous labour for the people has but deepened his influence on the rising school of Semitic specialists. If "G.B.G." (well-known initials also) is able to add something of value to the opening sections in his articles on "Textual and Higher Criticism," it is very evident that the way has been prepared for him by the thorough treatment of the preliminary subject. Of these additions, the most important is the brief and guarded state- ment of certain new problems which are arising from "the

-radical examination of the prophetic writings introduced and developed by Stade, Wellhausen, Duhm, Cheyne, Marti." The starting-point of this newer criticism is :— " the clearer practical recognition of the fact that all pre-exilic prophecy has come down to us in the works of post-exilic editors, and that for the old statement of the problem of the prophetic books—What prophecies or elements in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the rest are later than these prophets?- is to be substituted the new critical question—From these post-exilic collections how are the pre-exilic elements to be extracted? Bound up with this question of literary criticism is the very important question of the origin and development of the Messianic idea."

The last sentence shows the practical interest of this new criticism. The older critics warned us against reading Christian dogma into ancient writings. But if these ancient

writings owe their present form to late Judaism, it is right to read much deep and almost Christian thought into them. Prophets and Psalms may, after all, contain as full a faith in immortality or mediation as our grandfathers discovered in them.

Excellent as are these articles on the Old Testament, they are in some ways even surpassed by parts of the articles on the New Testament. Here, again, we recognise in the "W.Sa."

at the end of " Canon " a venerated master. With his entry the style takes on a striking change. Dr. Buchanan Gray was more modern than Dr. Driver, but both wrote with the dignified pen of the professor. Dr. Sanday is less academic, more of a humanist. And it is wonderful to see how his own conservative taste is vivified by his sympathetic perception of the case for the other side. And he can afford this, for he knows all that every one has said, yet sees his own road clear before him. Among other things that should be pondered in this admirable article is Dr. Sanday's apparently unhesitating conviction that the Creed was founded on the Scriptures, and that always behind the Creed lay appeal to the Scriptures. His bibliography is a model ; no mere list, but a "reasoned list." Only it is a pity that there could not be here, or under

the next section, a reference to C. H. Turner's papers in the Journal of Theological Studies (1908-9), " Historical Introduc-

tion to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament."

Space will allow but a few notes on "K. L.'s" first-rate treat- ment of the textual criticism of the New Testament. Here we have plenty of the latest learning, a clear, unaffected style, and not a little instruction which will be really new to all but experts. The account of the codices, AT and B, is no dry summary nor repetition of things twice told already ; it is as compressed as can be, yet interesting all through. "Rousch" (p. 881) is a misprint for " Ronsch," and " Syrsch" (p. 882) should be divided "Syr Bch," or " Syr 'ch." A. Souter's hand edition of the Greek Testament, according to the text used by the English Revisers (Oxford, 1910), should now be added to the list of books. It gives a small selection of various readings, but these are taken from the wide field opened in the last few decades, and, though it is a pity that Dr. Souter was obliged to reprint the Revisers' rather conventional text, he has provided an aid to study which for the present no one can neglect : for the present, since this article shows how much new light we may presently expect. Will the publication

Von Soden's text -work a revolution in method as well as in nomenclature P And what of the Western text in the

near future P Dr. Kirsopp Lake writes on this burning question with remarkable restraint. Yet here is one who looks and marches forward, and a mighty phalanx of critics moves with him. Of course he has more to say than he can say here, and he is aware of all the arguments that may be used on the other side. And yet, again, is it mere sentiment or prejudice that makes the half-instructed feel an intrinsic merit in the text which Hort called "Neutral " ? Do the new discoveries as to the variety of the Western text really increase its authority P la not the Western text just what Hort; divined it to be—a popular use rather than a definite text which can be recovered from documents P Turn to his words in the introduction, sect. 170 :—

"In surveying a long succession of Western readings by the side of others, we seem to be in the presence of a, vigorous and popular ecclesiastical life, little scrupulous as to the letter of venerated writings, or as to their permanent function in the future, in comparison with supposed fitness for immediate and obvious edification."

Does not this description anticipate most of the later objec- tions to the Neutral text ? Even though it be a revision, it may be a correction of popular use, use and wont such as Clement

exemplifies, rather than of the "bad MSS." which "it is conceivable he used." We to-day commonly quote " Magna est veritas et praevalebit," but we do not take " praevalebit " from a document. Hort would not be content now with

the title "Western." He would admit some so-called Western authorities among his evidence for the "Neutral" :

perhaps his " Western non-interpolations" would thus win a less astonishing name. But would he see reason for considering the original text to have been "Western" in the sense of rough and vulgar, instead of " Neutral" in the sense of noble art ?

The section on "The English Bible" will be examined with special interest at the present moment, and perhaps with more critical attention than it might otherwise have received. It is a careful summary of most of the authorities up to the date of writing, but several points in its bibliography will require overhauling by comparison with Mr. Pollard's new

introduction, and a reference to his collection of records will make several pieces of the history more detailed and exact. But more use might have been made of some of the authorities which are quoted. A reference appears to Kingdon's Lives of Poyntz and Grafton, but the sketch of the history of the

Great Bible could scarcely have avoided, as it does, all

the real problems, if the book had been more carefully studied. Lupton's article in Hastings' Dictionary, also

referred to, supplies the means of correcting the account here given of the preparation of the Authorised Version, and the historical introduction to Dr. Carleton's book on the Rheims version ought to have prevented such a

phrase as "The Seminary at Douai and the English College at Reims." The paragraph on the Revised Version cannot be censured as behind the time ; on the contrary, it states as present facts what may be facts in another thirty years,

though we do not think they will, but are certainly not facts to-day.

" The use of the New Version has become general. Familiarity has mitigated the harshness of the Revisers' renderings ; scholar- ship, on the whole, has confirmed their readings. The version has been read in parish churches both in London and in the country. In Canterbury Cathedral [F] and Westminster Abbey DI it has definitely displaced the older version. It is no longer possible to maintain the plausible and damaging contention that the Revised Bible is ill-suited for public use."