Review.

Waiapu Church Gazette, Volume V, Issue 5, 1 November 1914, Page 58

Review.

"Religious Development between the Old and New Testaments."

(By .Canon R. H. Charles.)

(Home University Library, Williams & Norgate, London, Is.) This is an interestingly written and readable book for the general reader. The current view on the subject m the near past, not only amongst the laity, but amongst scholars generally, was that to prophecy was due all or practically all the religious development of Israel : that between Malachi and the Christian era there was a period of silence, m which there was no inspiration and no prophet, and no development m religious thought and experience, and that Christianity practically leapt full-grown into life at the beginning of the Christian era, unbeholden to those socalled years of silence. These ideas have been rudely shattered by the research of recent years, and the vast services of apocalyptic, not only to Judaism, but still more to Christianity, are now coming steadily into recognition. In the religious development of Israel the chief agents m pre-exile times were seers and prophets, and, during- the exile and after it, prophets, biblical students, and apocalyptists. So far from the Old Testament having- been closed m the fifth century 8.C., it is now acknowledged even by the most conservative Old Testament critics, that portions of it, such as Daniel, Isaiah xxivxxvii, and the Maccabean Psalms, belong to the second century B.C. ; while, "progressive scholars are more and more recognising- that late elements are to be found m the Old Testament m a far larger degree than had hitherto been surmised. Old Testament criticism has therefore narrowed down the period of silence to something under two centuries. ' ! ! i But more recent research has shown that no such period of silence ever existed . In fact we are now m a position to prove that, these two centuries were m many respects ceuturies of greater spiritual progress than any two that had preceded them m Israel. The materials for such proof are to be found m the Apocrypha, but mainly fa tb a t not inconsiderable body of

literature which- was, written between 180 B.C. and A.D. 100. These were issued pseudonymously, i.e., 1 under assumed names, which are always the names of various ancient worthies m Israel anterior to the time of Ezra. Owing to the efforts of Ezra and his spiritual successors the Law came to be regarded as the complete and last word of God to man. When this view of the Law became dominant, it is obvious that no man, howsoever keenly he felt himself to be the bearer of a divine mbssage to his countrymen, could expect a hearing. Hence to gain such a hearing such men published a series of books — only a portion of which are preserved— under the names of Ezra, Baruch,. Jeremiah, Isaiah, Moses, Enoch, etc. This literature was written probably for the most part m Galilee, the home of the religious seer and the mystic. The development was not only of a religious but also of an ethical character. In both these respects the way was prepared by this literature for the advent of Christianity, while a study of the New Testament makes it clear that its writers had been brought up m the atmosphere created by these books and were themselves directly acquainted with many of them. Owing to these religious thinkers and visionaries — which include the writers of Daniel, Isaiah xxiv-xxvii, and of Psalms xlix and lxxiii — the hopeless outlook of the faithful individual m the Old Testament was transformed into one of joy. The doctrine of the last thingrs m the prophets dealt only with the destiny of Israel as a nation, and the destinies of the Gentile nations, but it had no message of light and comfort for the individual beyond the prave. For all men ultimately, whether of Israel or of the Gentiles, the unblessed abode of the shades, was the final and everlasting habitation. « ' . It was this school of writers which transformed that expectation into the hope of a blessed immortality. With this doctrine the Old Testament prophet as a prophet was not concerned. Not even a h ; nt of it is to be found m the Old Testament prophecy. On the other hand the apocalyptist made it a fundamental postulate of his belief m God. Further the Christian expectation of a new heaven, and a new earth is derived not from prophecy, but

from apocalyptic; Old Testament - prophecy looked forward to an eternal Messianic kingdom on the present earth which should be initiated by the final judgment, But m apocalyptic this underwent a gradual transformatiori, till the hopes of the righteous were transferred from a kingdom of material blessedness to a spiritual kingdom. This transference of the hopes of the faithful took place about 100 B.C. At this period the earth had come to be regarded as wholly unfit for the kingdom, and it was taught by many that the Messianic kingdom was to be of temporary duration, and the goal of the risen righteous would be heaven itself. There is a stirrine chapter which fills the gap of ethical evolution between the imprecatory Psalms and the teaching of the New Testament with regard to forgiveness. The section of the volume which dea^s with the reinterpretation of traditional forms of dogma and symbols of belief is an eloquent and fearless plea for a proeressive restatement of theological beliefs. Other works on the same period worth reading are Fairweather's " The Background of the Gospels " 'T. and T. Clark*), and Professor Bacon's Berkley Lectures " Christianity, Old and New " (Oxford University Press, 2/6). F.W.M.