or less importance, suggested by his own continued studies, or by works of other scholars which have appeared since the original publication of this volume.

I have also to express my obligations to Mr. W. Blake Odgers, of the Middle Temple, who has looked through all the proofs, and, while by no means responsible for any blemishes of style yet remaining in this translation, has done much to reduce their number.

I must also offer my warmest thanks to the friends whose liberality has enabled me to publish this volume.

It only remains to give the reader some indication of the share which each of the three scholars, whose names appear on the title-page, has had in the execution of the work. Dr. Oort is responsible for the portion which deals with the Old Testament; but his work has always been submitted, before publication, to the careful examination of Dr. Hooykaas and Dr. Kuenen. By this means the chance of any inaccuracies finding their way into the book has been made as small as possible, and at the same time the author has secured the advantage of suggestions from two independent

sources.

In the same way, Dr. Hooykaas, who has undertaken the New Testament, has throughout enjoyed the assistance and advice of Dr. Oort and Dr. Kuenen.

P. H. W.

A WORD OF PREFACE.

DEAR READER,

BE good enough not to skip this Word of Preface, for we have one or two things to tell you which it is absolutely necessary for you to know, if you are really to understand what follows; things, too, which may serve to show you the quickest way into the heart of our book.

We are ready to take a long walk with you; and if we did not think ourselves pretty well acquainted with the district through which our path will run, we should not venture to offer ourselves as guides. But our studies, our social calling, and our personal inclination have led us through the country so often that we know where to look for all the lovely little spots, all the magnificent views, all the wonderful panoramas, which it will be our delight to point out to you. And if there are places with which we are not very familiar. the way is so long and we have so many little excursions to make to the right or left- if there are places, then, to which some one else perhaps might be a better guide, we trust that we shall always keep in the right direction at least. Be this as it may, we venture to promise our companions that they will not regret having accompanied us.

You may see from the title-page of our book that the country through which our walk will lead us is the Bible.

Of course you have already gained some knowledge of this book. And yet, properly speaking, it is not a book at all, but two collections joined together. The first of these collections, which includes thirty-nine books according to the usual reckoning, is the Sacred Book of the Jews; while this same collection, together with the second, which embraces twenty-seven writings, makes up the Sacred Book of the Christians.

Several of the most important religions have a Sacred Book of this sort. Thus, the Koran is the Sacred Book of the Mohammedan, the Zend-Avesta of the Persian, the Veda

of the Brahmin, the Kings of the Chinese religion. Of course we Christians attach most importance to the Bible; and, indeed, every impartial judge must allow that no other Sacred Book can bear comparison with it, or approaches it in beauty, truth, and value. It does not lie in our way, however, to make any such comparisons; but we hope that what we have to say will convince you that we may safely call our Bible a mine of gold, and that some parts of it are of priceless worth. So we will not speak in praise of it just now, as it will be better for you to end, than for us to begin, by doing so.

Just one remark, however, on the character of the Bible.

From various points of view it deserves to be highly prized. It is of inestimable value, for instance, for our knowledge of antiquity, since it contains almost our only authorities for the history of Israel and the origin of Christianity. Some parts of it, too, have seldom been equalled as works of art, and may therefore serve to ennoble our taste and elevate our sense of beauty. But, above all, the Bible is the book of religion.

Observe, we do not say the book of our religion, but of religion. Not that we would treat the other Sacred Books as of no value. Far from it. Hindoos and Persians, Egyptians and Greeks, have thought of God and the invisible as earnestly as the Israelites; and what the men of greatest piety and genius among these peoples have believed, what the founders of religion or the philosophers among them have declared, so far as it has been preserved to us in writing, not only in their sacred books but elsewhere too, furnishes no small amount that might safely be placed by the side of many portions of the Old Testament at least. Nor can we assert that every part of the Bible gives us a pure reflection of God's being and God's will. Time after time we shall be compelled to allow that the writers of the books of the Bible were men

In

constantly going astray, as such, in their search for the way to God. But we call the Bible the book of religion because the place of honor in the religious life of mankind and of each man in particular belongs to the person of Jesus, and because it is upon Jesus that the whole Bible turns. this lies the value not only of the New Testament, a great part of which refers to him directly, but of the Old Testament. as well. It is true that many of the Israelite writings are important even in themselves, for they give us a glance into the spiritual life of the nations of antiquity, into their social, political, moral, and religious condition; but yet the Old

Testament would lose very much of its charm, and the whole course of the Israelite religion would have much less interest for us, had not Jesus been a child of Israel, and were not Christianity in so many respects connected with the religion of this race.

We hope that we shall never lose sight of the fact that the Bible is the book of religion while we are speaking of its stories, and that so we may gradually find a direct or indirect answer to the questions, "Who and what is God for us?” and "What are we to do and what to leave undone ?" for it is our heartfelt desire and the highest object of our efforts, to quicken the conscience of our readers, and to make their religious feelings deeper and purer. Nor do we leave this object out of view in contributing to their knowledge, more especially of the history of the Israelite and the Christian religion, for we believe that this history clears our insight into the ways of God with man, and gives us the key to many perplexing facts in the region of religion.

In thus looking at the Bible from a distinctly religious point of view, we are in perfect harmony with its writers; even with such of them as adopt the narrative style, and will therefore engage the greatest share of our attention. For when the books of the Old Testament were set aside and preserved as a Sacred Book by the Jews, and those of the New Testament were added to them by the Christians, it was with no idea of drawing knowledge of nature or history from them, but because they recognized them as the rule of faith and conduct; and in the same way the writers themselves prepared their works and gave publicity to them, not simply or chiefly in order to make their readers accurately acquainted with the past, but to promulgate and recommend what seemed to them to be religious truth. Even the historical writings, both of the Old and the New Testaments, were composed with a religious object, to instruct and to guide, to rouse or to encourage, to exhort or to console contemporaries or posterity.

Up to a certain point it falls in very happily with our purpose, that the writers of the Bible made use of their narratives as the vehicle of religious truths; for it gives us the opportunity, without our having to seek it, of treating them in the same spirit. But, on the other hand, it throws many difficulties in our way. For, in the eyes of the writers, every thing was subordinate to their object, so that they often sacrificed what we consider very important interests to it — histori

cal truth, for example. As a rule, they concerned themselves very little with the question whether what they narrated really happened so or not; and their readers were just as far from exercising what is now known as "historical criticism." If a narrative was edifying, if its tendency fell in with the tastes of the readers, then they called it true; while those whose point of view or whose sympathies were opposed to theirs called it untrue, and sometimes set up another story, purely invented, which agreed better with their ideas, in opposition to it. Thus a legend might serve the purpose of the writers just as well as the true account of something that really happened. This is why the Old and New Testaments are so full of legends.

Now, if our only object were to make religious and moral sketches, then these characteristics of so many of the Biblical narratives would give us but little trouble; but since we wish at the same time to explain the history of Israel and its religion, of Jesus and the apostolic age, the character of many of the narratives from which we draw, in the first place, makes it our duty always to apply a severe criticism to them, to see whether they are reliable or not, and, in the second place, compels us to prefix an introduction to our exposition of the narratives of the Old Testament, and another to those of the New, and now and then to speak of them in a different order from that in which they come before us in the Bible.

II.

We have

We must illustrate this matter more in detail. spoken of "legends," and before we go on we must give ourselves some account of their significance and value. Let us take one that is not borrowed from the Bible as an example. Do you know the legend of the Drachenfels? 1

When the tourist, as he ascends the Rhine, has left Bonn behind him, he comes to the Siebengebirge. Right in front the Drachenfels rears its head to a height of nearly a thousand feet. The aspect of this mountain when looked at from below is very impressive, and there is something about it which works powerfully upon the imagination. If you climb its slope to enjoy from its summit one of those entrancing views far away over the river, on the ridge of the mountain

1 That is Dragon Cliff.

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