ANOTHER DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE.* THE editors in their very
interesting preface assign the in• ception of the Biblical Encyclopcedia to the late W. Robertson Smith. That distinguished scholar, in editing the Encyclo- • Eneydopadta BibIlea. Edited by the Rev. T. R. Cherie, D.D., and T. Sutherland Black, LL.D. Vol. I., A-D. London ; A. and C. Black. [20e. net.] pcedia Britannica, had made Biblical criticism a prominent feature of his work, and it occurred to him that a special republication of the articles dealing with this class of subjects might be undertaken. This was not actually done, but a good deal of work in this direction was planned and completed. In 1892 Professor Smith felt that the task was one which it was not for him to accomplish. With this con- viction coincided a suggestion from Professor Cheyne of a similar undertaking. The suggestion was welcomed, and Mr. J. Sutherland Black, who had co-operated with Professor Smith, was associated with Professor Cheyne. We have now, as the result of their labours, the first instalment of the Encyclopaedia Biblica.
An examination of the list of contributors gives some significant figures. Nearly a third of the names are of German, Swiss, and Dutch scholars; the Scottish contingent is but small, numbering two only, besides the original founder of the work. (One of them is the acknowledged chief of Biblical geographers, Professor G. Adam Smith.) Six occupy Chairs in American Universities. One significant feature in the personnel of the contributors, in view of the general character of the Biblical criticism, is the repre- sentation of the Nonconformist Theological Colleges, Mans- field, Cheshunt, and New College. It is noticeable, if not strange, that nothing comes, either here or elsewhere, from the largest divisions of Christendom.
The first article of the first importance that we reach is that by Professor Paul W. Schmiedel, of Zurich, on the "Acts of the Apostles." He begins by a confident assertion that while the "we" sections, otherwise the "Journey Record," may be "implicitly accepted," it is "equally certain that they are not by the same writer as the other parts of the book." We are perfectly aware of the diffi- culties which surround the question of the authorship of the Acts. The most serious of them, perhaps, is that which arises out of St. Paul's attitude to the Judaising party in the Church. The difficulty is most formidable to those who hold by the old theory of the absolute coherence and unanimity of all the New Testament writers. Differences of opinion, ending in a harmonious settlement, are to be seen in the narrative of the Acts; St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians discloses a hostility which seems to make a reconciliation, to say the least, highly im- probable. If the narrative and the letter were alike dic- tated by the Divine Spirit there is no way out of the contra- diction. But why may we not suppose that the letter was written in the first impulse of disappointment and distress, that the narrative, composed several years later, represented the compromise which was afterwards found to be possible ? The hypothesis that a later and generally ill-informed writer got hold of a genuine record and made out of it and his own notions a composite book does not approve itself to common sense. Where are we to look for another example of the same curious admixture of the authentic and the spurious ? This does not exclude the concession that Luke may sometimes have gone, in matters outside his own ex- perience, to imperfect sources of information. This is, we believe, the opinion of Professor W. M. Ramsay, who holds to the Lukian authorship of the whole book, and considers it to be generally an historical document of the greatest value. Professor Ramsay, who has studied the whole subject in the field as well as in the chair, is to our mind an authority not easily disposed of. He is not, it must be remembered, in any way bound, as some of the conservative theologians are, to previously formed conclusions.
We pass on to an article which falls under the same category,—Professor Jill icher's account of the two Epistles, Colossians and Ephesians. Here we may observe the notes of a more oonservative spirit. The writer accepts Colossians as undoubtedly Pauline, while be holds his judgment in sus- pense about Ephesians, not without some indications, how- ever, of a tendency to affirm rather than deny. Affirmation would, indeed, necessitate the theory that the address to Ephesus was a later addition to the text. " The only thing quite certain is that if the Epistle was written by Paul it cannot have been addressed to Ephesus." It is, indeed, in- credible that the Apostle should have addressed a letter wholly without any personal references to a church which he had practically founded, and in the midst of which he had spent three years of life so crowded with emotion and adventure. The hypothesis that the letter was a circular pastoral addressed to the Asian Churches is a probable solution which evidently commends itself to Professor Jiilicher. At the same time it is perfectly fair to remark that if the views on the authority of the impersonal part of the Acts narrative already noticed are correct, any argument founded on its details falls to the ground. "All in the Acts that contradicts the Pauline Epistles must be given up," says Professor Schmiedel. Why, then, may we not reject the whole story of St. Paul's sojourn in Ephesus ? Suppose that the words iy EVae.) are genuine—and there is considerable authority for them, for they were certainly read, though not universally, in the second century—then we are in this dilemma : Either it was not written by St. Paul, for he could not have omitted all notes of personal interest in writing to the Ephesian Christians, or, being written by him, the story of his long and intimate acquaintance with them, as given in the Acts, must be a fiction. We are sometimes inclined to think that Biblical criticism is at present in such a state of flux that all these dictionaries and encyclops3dias are premature.
Later on we come to Professor Moore's (of Andover, Mass.) article on Deuteronomy. It is a notable indication of how rapidly we have moved in the matter of Biblical criticism that Professor Moore may almost be ranked as a conservative for holding to a view which, forty years ago, was regarded as dangerously revolutionary. The orthodox regarded with dismay the suggestion that Deuteronomy was the "Book of the Law" found in the Temple in the reign of Josiah. Anything short of the traditionary Mosaic authorship was peremptorily rejected. Now a writer who maintains that "evidence of every kind concurs to prove that the primitive Deuteronomy was a product of the seventh century," is regarded as conservative. (By "primitive Deuteronomy" is meant v.-xxviii. as far as verse 46.) Yet another article of the same class is Professor Sanday's contri- bution on the two Epistles to the Corinthians, a very closely- reasoned piece of argument, in which the various theories as to the communications that passed between the Apostle and the Corinthian Church are carefully discussed. Briefly put, his theory is that there were four letters written by the Apostle to Corinth, the first and third of which have been lost. The suggestion that one of these lost letters may be partially traced in 2 Corinthians, vi. 14, vii. 1, and x.-xiii. is rejected, though not in a peremptory way, which, indeed, it is not Professor Sanday's habit to use. Again, we notice that the non-personal Acts' narrative is really essential to piecing together the notices of events that are implicit in the Epistles. A very different book of which the date, authorship, and significance are discussed is Canticles, treated by Protessor Cheyne himself. He attributes it to the early Ptolemaic period, making no definite suggestion as to authorship. Whatever significance it may have, it is certainly not, in his view, religious. It " opens a window into the heart of ordinary Israelites," it " shows a genuine love of nature," gives some possible hints as to "race-psychology," and finally proves that in the post-exilic period " legalism " did not overpower joyousness; no wonderful revelation if the Jews were like other human beings. Their legalism had nothing ascetic about it. All the elaborate structure of mystical interpretation disappears. The book, in this view, has no claim to be considered canonical in any practical sense of that word. We must be content with giving the titles of some other important articles with the names of their writers. "Amos;" "David," by Professor Cheyne ; " Bishop," by Canon Armitage Robinson ; " Apocalypse," by Professor Bonnet, of Gottingen; "Apocalyptic Literature," by Professor Charles ; "Apocrypha," by Dr. M. R. James ; " Babylonia and Assyria," by Mr. L. W. King; and " Chronology," by Baron Hermann von Soden (with addi- tions from other sources). The minor articles are numerous, and, as far as we are able to judge, of excellent quality. The volume, as a whole, is indeed a monument of learning which we do not undervalue because we are not able to accept some of its critical conclusions.
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