Down to Earth
QUEEN VICTORIA is said to have been surprised and perturbed when she was informed that Abraham was not the same kind of poten- tate as she was, but a wandering nomadic chieftain. We all tend to clothe the great figures of the past in our own likeness, and the seventeenth-century language of the Authorised Version, with its magnificent diction and cadencies, tends to take the earthiness out of Old Testament life and to surround its characters with a rather remote religiosity. Canon Heaton here has restored what is lacking by describing the everyday life of the Jews of old. His aim is to deepen the understanding and to kindle the imagination of those who read the Old Testament, and, aided by splendid illustra- tions, he has brilliantly succeeded. This book is written in a style that is readable and almost racy : moreover, it is accurate and abreast of modern scholarship. The Jews not only worshipped and prophesied and sacrificed : they also had families and farms and industries—and, of course, taxes. If we would understand their divinity, we must also know about their drains—or the lack of them : in a historical religion, nothing is irrelevant. If their standard of living and culture dismays us, we are in a better posi- tion to appreciate their 'genius for religion' and the marvel of God's election. This is not only a book for bulk orders from schools : it is a volume which all can read with instruction and enjoyment.
HUGH MONTEFIORE
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