This is the title of a book which I was led to procure by seeing in the Biblical World for February last a highly commendatory notice of it. I wish our readers to see some of the things said in this notice, and then to see some of the things found in the book, that they may thus judge what kind of literature from Germany the Biblical World is helping to impose on American readers.

      The book is from the pen of Hermann Gunkel, Professor of Old Testament Theology in the University of Berlin, and it is a reprint of the "Introduction to a Commentary on Genesis" by the same author. Of this commentary the reviewer, who is Prof. Nathaniel Schmidt, of Cornell University, says: "There is no commentary on Genesis superior to Gunkel's. . . . It was a good idea to present to English readers this introduction; and the title given to it is quite appropriate. . . . Never has the modern conception of Genesis been presented with more lucidity and attractiveness. Never has the critical work been done so searchingly and yet so reverently. If the book had been written originally for the general public, it could not have been more admirably suited to the needs of the intelligent layman. It is popular in the best sense, and should be widely read."

      Now let us look at some of the contents of this lucid, attractive and reverent work; and, first, a specimen of the author's ignorance of the book on which he [432] comments. He says: "Many things are reported in Genesis which are directly against our better knowledge: we know that there are too many species of animals for all to have been assembled in any ark." We know no such thing. "That Ararat is not the highest mountain on earth." Genesis says not a word about the height of Ararat. "That the 'firmament of heaven' of which Gen. 1:6 ff. speaks, is not a reality, but an optical illusion." We know that it is a reality; for it is the atmosphere, as Genesis clearly indicates. "That the stars can not have come into existence after plants, as Gen. 1:10-14 reports." It does not so report. It says that God created "the heavens" in the beginning, and this expression includes the stars. He only made them light-bearers to the surface of the earth after the creation of plants. "That the rivers of the earth do not chiefly flow from four principal streams, as Genesis 2 thinks." Genesis 2 thinks no such thing. It says nothing like it. "That the Dead Sea had been in existence long before human beings came to live in Palestine, instead of originating in historic times." And Genesis says not a word to the contrary. It has not a hint as to when the Dead Sea came into existence. All these blunders are printed in one single paragraph on page 7 of this most accurate and scholarly book.

      On a later page (43) is found another blunder which a ten-year-old Sunday-school pupil ought to be ashamed of. It is his report of procuring Rebekah as a wife for Isaac. He says: "Abraham wishes to sue for a wife for his son; being too old himself, he sends out his oldest servant--thus the story opens. Then we are told how the old servant finds the right maiden and brings her home. Meantime, the aged master has died. The young master receives the bride, and he was comforted for the [433] death of his father." This is about as near the truth as the old negro preacher's account of Jezebel's death: "She was settin' in a winder while Paul was preachin', and she went to sleep and fell down from the third story. They all run down to see what had become of her, and they picked up seven baskets full of fragments."

      But I must give at least one specimen of the legends; for this profound scholar, who knows the book so well, declares that the question whether the narratives of Genesis are history or legend is no longer an open question. The reality in the story of Dinah and the prince of Shechem is this: "Dinah, an Israelitish family, is overpowered by the Canaanitish city of Shechem, and then treacherously avenged by Simeon and Levi, the most closely related tribes; but the other tribes of Israel renounce them and allow the two tribes to be destroyed" (20, 21).

      This author knows very well that in all his hair-brained speculations he contradicts Jesus Christ and his apostles; but this does not concern him in the least. He brushes them all aside, in the style of Kuenen, with these few words: "The objection is raised that Jesus and the apostles considered these accounts to be fact and not poetry. Suppose they did; the men of the New Testament are not presumed to have been exceptional men in such matters, but shared the point of view of their time" (3).

      What a fine Biblical scholar Prof. Nathan Schmidt must be to eulogize such a book as this; what delightful reading his review of Gunkel must be to the editors and admirers of the Biblical World. So the procession moves on, and leaves "old fogies" behind. [434]

[SEBC 432-434]