Book Reviews
"HEBREW LIFE AND THOUGHT"
The appearance of books like the one before us is an encouraging sign that at last the popular misapprehension of the meaning of the so-called “higher criticism” is coming to an end. Here is a manual of Biblical literature, popular in tone, embodying in readable form the results of the latest conclusions of archaeologists and scholars on the structure and development of the Old Testament, which nevertheless approaches the Bible, not in the tone of malicious depreciation that is so common, but with an enthusiasm and an insight that is the result of a fine and typically American culture. Mrs. Houghton indeed has long been favorably known to Christian audiences of this country as a writer and lecturer on religious subjects; the substance of this book has been delivered in spoken form to many such audiences throughout the land, and lately there has been more and more demand for work of this sort. No fitter medium for the popular dissemination of the truths of biblical criticism could have been found than Mrs. Houghton. Never pretending to be more than “suggestive,” much of what she says will be old matter even to those who have gone but a little way into the subject; yet of how many can even that be said? It is no work of supererogation to commend a book like this.
Yet in a way it is a rather sad thing that it should at all be necessary to write elementary manuals of introduction like the present. For what is the gist of books of this kind? To emphasize the fact that the Bible is literaure, and great literature! They have eyes and see not, cars and hear not. Science has so monopolized the imagination and insight of the age that it has become necessary to point out the poetry of
the Psalnıs, to demonstrate the beauty of the Canticles, to Justify the exaltation of the prophets! But all truth, all value, fortunately, do not lie in Huxley and Haeckel. It is barely possible, indeed, that despite the former’s sneers at the anticipation of the Bible account of the flood by the code of Hammurabi and the latter’s sentie atheism, that ihe story of Noah will be read by large literature classes in Mac- aulay's famous University of New Zealand, and God be praised in the 104th Psalm by the latest generations of the earth, at a time when Huxley, if remembered at all, will be confused with the inventor of rubber heels, and to Haeckel will be attributed the authorship of a voluminous collection of acrosties and puzzle pietures. But to-day Mrs. Hougrhton’s book is stıll necessary,
Throughout her volume Mrs. Houghton takes the traditional view of the ancient Hebrews as a people permeated in every act and thought of life with the religious animus—the spirit of God. She dwells on the naive and childlike qualities of their intensely single conception of the universe; she calls especial attention to the lack of time-sequence in their thought, and employs this characteristic of the Hebrews to explain much that otherwise gives rise to much misconception. Her treatment is always fresh and interesting, and illuminated with much reading in secular literature. No more excellent introduction to the Bible as literature and art can be recommended—but, let it be repeated, the book does not go very far.
Beautiful height! O joy! The whole world's gladness!
O great King's City, mountain blest!My soul is yearning unto thee—is yearning,From limits of the west.