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I need hardly say, perhaps, that I have no antiquated prejudice against Biblical criticism. Assuredly the Bible must be studied like any other collection of documents, linguistically, historically, and in the light of the comparative method. The leading ideas of Wellhausen, for example, are conspicuous for acumen: the humblest layman can see that.
In the Omayyads the ancient aristocracy of Mecca came to the helm, and under them, the Mohammedan state was above all, as Wellhausen styled it, "the Arabian Empire." The best khalifs of this house had the political wisdom to give the governors of the provinces sufficient independence to prevent schism, and to secure to themselves the authority in important matters.
The truth is, as Wellhausen has admirably shown, that the working religion of the country had become before the period of Islam entirely effete. Arab religion was based on the ideas and usages which have been described in chap. x. of this book; it is mainly from Arabia, indeed, that the original character of Semitic religion is known to us.
Wellhausen says that Jehovah was 'originally a family or tribal god, either of the family of Moses or of the tribe of Joseph. How a family could develop a Supreme Being all to itself, we are not informed, and we know of no such analogous case in the ethnographic field. Again, Jehovah was 'only a special name of El, current within a powerful circle. And who was El?
Yet it is assuredly a gross excess to deny the historical reality of Moses, as even distinguished scholars such as Edward Meyer and Bernhard Stade have done. Far wiser here is Wellhausen, who finds, in the very greatness and fixity of orientation of the development in the Law and in the figure of the Lawgiver, a conclusive proof of the rich reality and greatness of the Man of God, Moses.
"Yes," added Wellhausen, "and how much else besides." It was the singling out of this great principle and laying the whole emphasis upon it that made the difference. To a man who believes that Christ came to set up the Kingdom of God, clearly neither the Conservative nor Liberal Party can appeal with any compelling force of divinity.
The post-exilian prophets, Haggai, Zachariah, Malackt, Jonah., Daniel, Joel, Obadiah, and considerable portions of Isaiah and Jeremiah. They are instructive as to that intermediate period. Israel by Wellhausen, in the Encycl. Brit., and the one by Guthe in the Encycl. Bibl. The historical works of Jewish scholars, Herzfeld, Jost, Zunz, Graetz, DERENBOURG, etc., are valuable.
As the author puts it, "If the Pentateuch was not written by Moses it is a forgery." To do this he quotes quite elaborately from the higher critics, Bauer, Davidson, Bleek, Ewald, Kuenen, Wellhausen, and others, for the ostensible purpose of answering and refuting them. Now I had, up to this time, never read a line of such Biblical criticism, except that quoted by this author.
'We see that even in its rudest forms Religion was a moral force, the powers that man reveres were on the side of social order and moral law; and the fear of the gods was a motive to enforce the laws of society, which were also the laws of morality. Wellhausen has already been cited to the same effect.
This phonetic writing furnishes the reading for Nin in Nin-Klgal. See pp. 418, 419. See p. 428. See below, p. 588 seq. See below, p. 590. See above, p. 79. See pp. 448, 511. See Farnell, The Cults of the Greek States, ii. 627. See the reference in note 3 to p. 519. Wellhausen, Reste Arabischen Heidenthums, pp. 28, 29.
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