SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not been reserved for review in other forms.] Studies in the Religion of Israel. By the Rev. L. A. Pooler. (Hodder and Stoughton. 5s.)—We have seldom been so favour- ably impressed by a critical study of Old Testament history and theology as we have been by these "lectures,"—the volume con- tains the substance of the Donnellan Lectures of 1902-3. Mr. Pooler unites in a quite uncommon degree the freedom of the inquirer and the devout and reverent spirit of one to whom, after all is said, the Holy Scripture is "profitable for doctrine." The day of obscurantism is past,—Mr. Pooler says that a child in his Sunday school asked him what was meant by the "Priestly Code " ; she had been reading about it in a magazine. The critical questions must be faced. Mr. Pooler is no destructive. He does not relegate the Old Testament heroes to myth-land. Why should not we accept the reality of Abraham as we do that of the correspondents of the Tell-el-Amarna tablets, or, to go further back, that of King Menes or King Khammurabi ? We cannot follow our author in his dealing with the religious history of Israel ; we may say generally that he treats the problems which it suggests with both freedom and soberness. He points out various things which we are apt to pass over. It is clear, for instance, that Samuel and Elijah did not follow the Deuteronomic ritual by which sacrifice was limited to the one chosen place. " Gilgal, Bethel, Carmel, all the old religious sites were dear to them." So also he puts the other side of the King v. Prophet question which confronts us in the story of Samuel. "Samuel seems to have played the part of a Bismarck to the new kingdom of Israel " ; something was lost when the kingdom was set up; but "a central authority was absolutely necessary if the tribes were to make headway against the Philistines." Here, too, is a fine utterance on a very hard matter :—" Men ask, What is inspiration? The Church has never formulated a definition of the inspiration of Holy Scripture. Where is inspiration ? we can point you to a herdsman prophet coming from the lonely wilderness, the fire burning within him, to proclaim the eternal principles of the
righteousness of God." If we look for the supernatural, where can we see it more clearly than in the elevation of the prophetic message as it was delivered in a petty and half-barbarous Eastern tribe ?
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