MR. MONTEFIORE'S BIBLE FOR HOME READING.* THE old controversy between
Science and Religion has now entered another phase. The difficulties with which the theologian is confronted do not come from the vast periods which the geologists demand, from the evidences of an antiquity of man far exceeding the utmost limits of Biblical chronology, or even from the theory of evolution. To all these things orthodoxy is ready to reconcile itself. It is critical Science that seems to be the enemy. What will be left when this terrible solvent has been applied to the sacred books of the Jew and the Christian, when the characteristics that have always been regarded as essential to their authority, their unity, antiquity, and authenticity disappear under its action ? Is here, too, a reconciliation possible P That is a practical question which it is immensely important to have answered in the affirmative. Mr. Montefiore's book is directed to this end, an end which a thoughtful Jew is bound to esti- mate very highly. He addresses the children of his people. Be takes it for granted that the obscurantism of the past is no longer possible. They will learn for themselves that the Bible is not what the simpler belief of bygone generations took it to be, that its records frequently belong to an age much later than the incidents which they describe, that its characters are idealised, that the utterances which it attributes to its heroes have been put into their mouths by the sages and poets of far later days. It is well, therefore, to anticipate the inevitable. Let the child be taught to form such conceptions of the history, the prophecy, the psalm, as will not be liable to overthrow by sceptical inquiry when he passes into the free atmosphere of the world.
Mr. Montefiore does not attempt to minimise the results of modern thought and discovery. Sometimes he exaggerates them. Surely it is too much to say that the story of creation, as we have it in the first chapter of Genesis, is "the pure work of phantasy." It is absurd, indeed, to seek for scientific truth in the "six days," but yet this cosmogony has what no other equally possesses,—the essential conception of gradual development. We may demur, again, to the statement that "the first chapter of the Bible had probably not yet been written at the time of the Second Isaiah." There can, however, be little question as to the general convenience of the arrangement which our author has adopted in putting the first eleven chapters of Genesis at the end of the book, and beginning his narrative with the call of Abraham. In his Hibbert Lectures Mr. Montefiore treated Abraham as a myth. This view he does not exactly retract. We are told that "the Jews always dated the true beginning of their history as a people, of their national life, from the time when they left Egypt," but that "they had stories about mighty and famous heroes of old, their ancestors and progenitors, long before," and that Abraham was one of those heroes. But he proceeds to treat the story of Abraham as a record of genuine life. He could hardly have done otherwise. Whatever importance the Jew may have assigned to the great deliverance of the Exodus, he always thought of himself as a child of Abraham. That the people that sojourned in Egypt was made up of "wandering tribes or clans," the most prominent clan among them being that which traced its descent to Abraham, is quite probable.
Mr. Montefiore accompanies the story as it is given in the Bible with a succession of interesting comments and explanations, which he is careful always to keep within moderate limits of space. Sometimes, as we have before hinted, he seems to see difficulties where none exist. In Gen. xxix. 10 it is not necessary to suppose that Jacob is represented as a man of mighty strength, who unaided rolls away the atone which all the shepherds could not move, and that he is roused to exhibit it by the presence of RacheL May it not have been that it was the etiquette to water the flock of Laban first, he being the chief owner of the well, and that the appearance of his daughter was the signal for beginning P The idea of gigantic strength is quite out of keeping with the narrative. In the story of Joseph, again, we do not see that there are manifestly two versions, in one of which Reuben, in the other Judah, appears as the merciful brother. Reuben, always represented as a creature of impulse, is moved with compassion by the sight of the helpless lad, and
• The Bible for Home Reading. Edited, with Comments and Reflections for the
Use of Jewish Parents and Children, by 0. G. Montefiore. First Part. London : Macmillan and 0o.
saves his life. Judah is eminently practical. To sell the lad as a slave would be to get rid of him as effectually as to slay him ; it would be profitable; it would prevent the uneasy feeling of blood-guiltiness. But there is no mercy.
The book of Joshua is wholly omitted, and only the story of Samson is retained from Judges. "Tales of bloodshed and slaughter, unredeemed by moral teaching, set too often in a pseudo-religious framework, are very unsuitable in a Bible for Home Reading." This is indeed to cut the knot. It is a startling and dubious proceeding, but it is certainly better than the disingenuous explanations to which orthodox commentators are often driven. But why, it may be asked, are we to lose the story of Barak, and that of Gideon and his three hundred, surely as wholesome as that of Leonidas and another three hundred at Thermopylm
But we do not wish to multiply these criticisms. The book is a courageous and, we think, generally useful attempt to deal with a very difficult problem. The one quotation which we shall make from it shows the writer in a temper of mind which his non-Jewish countrymen cannot but regard with the greatest admiration ;—
" Thus Ruth, a foreigner and a Moabitess. was the great grand- mother of the famous king David. And in all prolability the moral which the gentle and tender story was intended to teach was this. The Jews at one time became proudly and foolishly concerned about purity of blood, as if God looked to race and lineage rather than to piety and goodness, as if he cared for purity of blood rather than for purity of life. Instead of being anxious to spread their own higher knowledge of God and goodness among the nations around, they shut themselves up in a ring fence of isolation and contempt. They forgot their mission. They for- got that they can only then be a ' peculiar treasure' if they seek to impart to others what they themselves possess. They forget that if they have been given more, more is expected of them in return. There were, indeed, several circumstances which made their fault excusable, but it was none the less a fault and not a virtue. They should have said to themselves, the more willing Jews there are in the world the better, be their race and lineage what it may.' But they wanted the word 'Jew' to denote exclusively the members of a single nation, instead of (what they had the chance of making it denote) the members of a religious brotherhood. Not long after one of the greatest teachers they ever possessed had shadowed forth an ideal so much richer and purer, they wanted to keep Judaism to the old ideas, one of which was that every race and people had quite naturally its own religion and its own God. And yet all tbe time they were well aware that there was only one true God, whe in his oneness and purity was known and worshipped by them- selves alone ! The book of Ruth teaches quietly and indirectly a noble and necessary lesson. It shows that fidelity is wider than race. Ruth the foreigner can be as good a Jewess as the bluest-blooded in the land. It cannot be a dishonour to have foreign blood in one's veins, when David, the national hero, the greatest of the kings, was descended from a foreigner. Ruth left her own people,' and 'reward was given her of the God of Israel under whose wings she took refuge.' The bond which binds Jews together is therefore not a bond of race, but a bond of religion. The ideal would be not that all the Jews should be of one race, but that men of many races should be Jews. It was well said by a wise Jew of long ago : The most potent love- charm, and the indissoluble bond of good will that makes for unity, is the common worship of the one God.'"
Breathe this spirit into all the race, and there muzt be an entl of anti-Semitism.
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