THE LIFE OF CHRIST ACCORDING TO ST. MARK.
The Life of Christ according to St. Mark. By W. H. Bennett, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton. 6s.)—Professor Bennett's object in this book is, as he says, "to present the impression of Christ which would be derived from St. Mark's Gospel by a reader
who knew nothing of the other Gospels or of Christian theology." And this he does in a very interesting and instructive way. Naturally, the reader of the Gospel, at least as he is found here, starts with a conception of the person and nature of Christ, and practically, if he studies the document thoughtfully, more or less consciously accommodates it to this conception. To do what Dr. Bennett seeks to do is really a great mental effort. Nor, indeed, can the thing be thoroughly done. Dr. Bennett himself is compelled to discuss questions which it is scarcely possible to dis- sociate from theology. There is the story, for instance, of the raising or healing of the daughter of Jairus. Are we to say " raising " or "healing " ? Dr. Bennett says "healing." Ho is convinced that the child was not dead. Christ was conscious of a mission to heal her ; when He is met with the news that she had died, He feels that this could not be true. It was a sleep, not death, that had come upon her. Generally on miracles Dr. Bennett assumes something like a neutral attitude. It may well be that this would be the position that a twentieth-century reader, if we can imagine him with the mental conditions of the time, but wholly untouched by Christian or non-Christian influences, would
assume. It is a most interesting and informing volume. One thing is fairly clear. It tends to put the Henotio theory in a stronger position.
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