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[Reprint from BiBLlOTHECA Sacra, October, 1892.] 
 
596 Driver on the Literature of [Oct. 
 
 ARTICLE IV. 
 
 DRIVER ON THE LITERATURE OF THE OLD 
 TESTAMENT.! 
 
 BY THE REV. W. E. BARTON, B. D. , OF WELLINGTON, OHIO. 
 
 This is the first volume of the "International Theolog- 
 ical Library," which is to be published simultaneously in 
 this country and England, and is designed to cover the 
 whole field of Christian theology. Of the twelve volumes 
 already arranged for, six are to be by American and six by 
 English scholars. While the Library is interconfessionai as 
 u^ell as international, its authors are for the most part among 
 the advocates of the results of the Higher Criticism, and the 
 editors are Professors Charles A. Briggs, and Stewart D. F. 
 Salmond. From such a series, the Christian scholar has rea- 
 son to expect much; and the successive issues will be looked 
 for with interest, not unmingled, in the case of some of the 
 volumes, with anxiety. 
 
 Canon Driver makes no attempt to set forth the theol- 
 ogy of the Old Testament, — a book on that subject by Pro- 
 fessor A. B. Davidson being one of those arranged for in 
 this library: his attempt is to give an account of the con- 
 tents, structure, and general character and aim of the several 
 books; and this he does in the main with candor, cogency 
 and conciseness. Whatever one's opinions on the points in 
 controversy, the book is of great value. It would be diffi- 
 cult to name any recent work on the Old Testament con- 
 
 ^An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament. By S. R. 
 Driver, D. D., Regius Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christ Church, 
 Oxford; formerly Fellow of New College, Oxford. New York: Charles 
 Scribner's Sons. (Pp. 522, 3^x6^.) $2.50, net. 
 
1892.] the Old Testament. 597 
 
 taining so much that is of interest and value to the Bible 
 student of the present day. In speaking of its characteristic 
 features, general statements must suffice for the most part; 
 as it would be difficult to state the author's views adequately 
 in fewer words than he himself employs, and a satisfactory 
 critique upon it would require a volume at least as large. 
 Yet, that the book may not pass with the necessarily super- 
 ficial criticism of general statements, we shall indicate briefly 
 but in detail, a few of Dr. Driver's most characterestic 
 positions. 
 
 Canon Driver is a higher critic of the moderate type. 
 He believes thoroughly in the methods of the modern school 
 of criticism, and accepts the most important of its results. 
 He is, however, a believer in the supernatural, and while 
 treating the books of the Bible " as literature," recognizes 
 their divine origin. His preface defends his book against the 
 anticipated charge that his conclusions antagonize estab- 
 ished truths concerning inspiration: his introduction defends 
 it from attacks on the ground of the supposed sacredness of 
 the canon of Scripture. 
 
 On these points he says: — 
 
 "It is not the case that critical conclusions, such as those expressed in 
 the present volume, are in conflict either with the Christian creeds, or with 
 the articles of the Christian faith. Those conclusions affect not the fact of 
 revelation, but only its form. . . . They do not touch either the authority or 
 the inspiration of the Scriptures of the Old Testament. They imply no change 
 in respect to the divine attributes revealed in the Old Testament; no change in 
 the lessons of human duty to be derived from it; no change as to the ger.eral 
 position (apart from the interpretation of particular passages) that the'Old 
 Testament points forward prophetically to Christ. That both the religicJn of 
 Israel itself and the record of its history embodied in the Old Testament, are 
 the work of men whose hearts have been touched, and minds illumined in 
 different degrees, by the Spirit of God, is manifest : but the recognition of 
 this truth does not decide the question of the author by whom or the date at 
 which, particular parts of the Old Testament were committed to writing; nor 
 does it' determine the precise literary character of a given narrative or book. 
 No part of the Bible, nor even the Bible as a whole, is a logically articulated 
 system of theology: the Bible is a 'library,' showing how men variously 
 gifted by the Spirit of God cast the truth which they received into many dif- 
 
598 Driver 07i the Literature of [Oct. 
 
 ferent literary forms, as genius permitted or occasion demanded." (P. xi.) 
 " It is sometimes supposed that conclusions such as those expressed in the 
 present volume on the age and authorship of certain parts of the Old Testa- 
 ment are in conflict with trustworthy historical statements derived from 
 ancient Jewish sources. This, however, is not the case. . . . For the opinion, 
 often met with in modern books, that the canon of the Old Testament was 
 closed by Ezra, or in Ezra's time, there is no foundation in antiquity what- 
 ever. . , . The opinion referred to is not a tradition at all: it is a conjecture, 
 based no doubt on the passages that have just been cited, [from the Son of 
 Sirach, the Second Book of Maccabees, the Fourth Book of Ezra, and the 
 Talmud,] but inferring from them more than they actually express or justify. 
 This conjecture was first distinctly propounded in the Sixteenth Century by 
 Elias Levita, a learned Jew. . . . But it is destitute of historical foundation ; 
 and the authority of Ezra cannot, any more than that of the Great Synagogue, 
 be invoked against the conclusions of critical investigation. . . . The age 
 and authorship of the books of the Old Testament can be determined (so far 
 as this is possible) solely upon the basis of the internal evidence supplied by 
 the books themselves, by methods such as those followed in the present vol- 
 ume: no external evidence worthy of credit exists." (Pp. xxiii. , xxxi.) 
 
 Having thus severed all a priori considerations, he pro- 
 ceeds to an examination of the books in detail, arriving at 
 the following general conclusions: 
 
 "The historical books of the Old Testament form two series; one, con- 
 sisting of the books from Genesis to 2 Kings, embracing the period from the 
 creation to the release of Jehoiachin from his imprisonment in Babylon, B. c. 
 562, the other comprising the books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, 
 beginning with Adam and ending with the second visit of Nehemiah to Jeru- 
 salem in B. c. 432. . . . Noentire book in either series consists of a single, 
 original work; but older writings, 01 sources, have been combined by a com- 
 piler in such a manner that the points of juncture are often plainly discernible, 
 and the sources are in consequence capable of being separated from one 
 another." (Pp. 2, 3.) 
 
 The Book of Joshua, since it includes elements homo- 
 geneous with those of the Pentateuch, is to be consid- 
 ered with it. This "Hexateuch" has at least three authors. 
 After Deuteronomy and the Priests' Code have been con- 
 sidered, the remainder appears composite; but the analysis 
 of JE is much less satisfactory than that which establishes 
 the limits of P and D; ^ but "that P and JE form two 
 
 ^ To Dillman, De Wette and others, the easiest problem in Pentateuchal 
 analysis seems to have been the separation of J and E. Dr. Driver always 
 
1892.] the Old Testament. 599 
 
 clearly definable, independent sources, is a conclusion abun- 
 dantly justified by the facts." J and E appear to have 
 cast into a literary form the traditions respecting the begin- 
 nings of the nation that were current in the early centuries 
 of the monarchy, (p. iio.) The terminus ad qiiem of Deu- 
 teronomy, 621 B. C, is not probably the date of its compo- 
 sition: it is unlikely that its finding in the temple was a 
 ruse of Hilkiah; but it can hardly be older than the reign 
 of Mannassah. (pp. 81-2.) The Priests' Code belongs to 
 the exilic or early post-exilic period: not that it was "man- 
 ufactured" by priests during the exile; "it is based upon 
 pre-existing temple usage, and exhibits the form which it 
 finally assumed." (p. 135.) 
 
 It will be noticed that this is a very different theory 
 from that which regards Deuteronomy a forgery and the 
 Priests' Code a dishonest invention — different at least in 
 spirit, — and for that spirit Dr. Driver deserves credit, even 
 though the results of his theory seem to shade easily into 
 the other. It is in part because of this spirit, and the fact 
 that there is much in the book to be heartily commended, 
 that we may presume to speak with freedom in criticism of 
 a few of those features of the work from which we find ourselves 
 constrained to dissent. There is no other book in which the 
 alleged established results of the higher criticism have been 
 set forth at once so fully, so concisely, so reverently, and so 
 recently; nor is there any which is more accessible or intel- 
 ligible to the pastor or thoughtful layman. There can be 
 
 vises from a study of this part of the Hexateuch with the conviction that it 
 is composite, but doubts if it will ever be analized satisfactorily. The fact 
 that one critic finds an analysis self evident does not seem to render it impossi- 
 ble for the next one to hesitate even to pronounce it composite, much less to 
 assert that its analysis is beyond dispute. Such facts are worth considering. 
 What seems to the present critic to indicate very plainly a line of demarca- 
 tion between two portions of a book may be the one thing which the next 
 generation of critics will feel constrained to deny. In an age when every- 
 thing else that was once thought to have been established is called in ques- 
 tion, the opinions of critics cannot escape counter-criticism. 
 
6oo Driver on the Literature of [Oct. 
 
 no fairer method than to let these results stand or fall with 
 this book. An adequate presentation of the facts neces- 
 sary for such a trial this article does not attempt, but only 
 a few particular points illustrative of general positions. 
 
 There are a few things that ought to be said in advance 
 about the competence of ordinary pastors and common 
 Bible students to pass on these questions where doctors 
 disagree. First of these is the fact that the question of 
 authorship, date, etc., is in very slight degree one of lan- 
 guage. Where there is a large body of contemporary liter- 
 ature for comparison, linguistic arguments at times are con- 
 vincing: but where, as in the case of most of the books of 
 the Bible, no such comparison is possible, and the whole 
 theory must be built upon the fact that certain words ap- 
 pear in one place more frequently than in another, with pos- 
 sible conjectures as to the reason, the critic's linguistic 
 tables and subjoined conjectures prove as much as Prof C. 
 M. Meade has proved concerning the composite character 
 of Romans, and usually no more. ^ It is due to Canon 
 Driver to say that he makes comparatively little use of the 
 argument from language, as is also true of other of the 
 more thoughtful and candid of the higher critics. It is im- 
 portant to remember that the essential questions involved 
 in the discussion of the higher criticism, are questions which 
 may be understood by ordinary students of the Bible, and 
 answered by such a knowledge of it as may be obtained 
 without extensive knowledge of the Hebrew. 
 
 Again, it is well to be on one's guard against a too 
 ready acceptance of whatever is believed by a great man, 
 though he be a specialist in the department of knowledge 
 concerned. One has but to examine in the order of their 
 appearance, the commentaries extant on a controverted 
 book to see how narrow a field even great men are able 
 
 1 Romans Dissected. A New Critical Analysis of the Epistle to the 
 Romans, by E. D. McRealsham. A valuable satire. 
 
1892.] the Old Test anient. 60 1 
 
 to work thoroughly. A man has new, and as he beheves, 
 important views regarding a certain book, and puts them 
 into print. The work attracts attention, and its author is 
 soon quoted as authority on the entire book of which it treats. 
 But a careful comparison shows often that his own line of 
 research has been a limited one, and that he has, in the 
 main, appropriated the results of his contemporaries or pre- 
 decessors. Often an error can be traced through a whole 
 shelf of commentaries of great and "original" authors, 
 each of whom was original in a few points only, and followed, 
 in the main, his predecessors, who in their turn followed 
 others except as their studies led them to conclusions of 
 their own in other and comparatively limited fields. And, 
 even when an idea is clearly original, and its discoverer a great 
 man, those who are wont to take all matters of opinion on 
 the basis of "expert testimony," need the warning of a 
 noted scientist, whose observations in his own field apply 
 with equal force to matters of biblical criticism: "No one 
 who has attentively studied the results of the numerous 
 investigators in this field of research, can help being struck 
 by the want of harmony, and even positive contradictions, 
 among the conclusions which apparently the same experi- 
 ments and the same facts have led to in difterent hands." ^ 
 Wisdom did not begin, and it is not likely to die with the 
 critics. Their results are themselves subject to the higher 
 criticism of the common sense of the ordinary, intelligent 
 students of the Bible. 
 
 It is also true that when a man adopts, even tentatively, 
 an hypothesis, he is likely to undergo a temptation to cease 
 to be impartial in his research. It may almost be said that 
 with some men a theory is fatal to investigation. Once 
 adopted, the facts must adjust themselves to the theory or 
 suffer the consequences. The ease with which the higher 
 criticism makes an assumption and states that there is noth- 
 1 Fenier's Funclioiis of the Brain, p. xxi. 
 
6o2 Driver 07i the Literature of [Oct. 
 
 ing in the Old Testament to conflict with it, treating as in- 
 terpolations whatever passages seem to contradict their 
 sweeping generalizations, is as good an illustration of this as 
 of the circle which their reasoning as frequently displays. 
 The method of the doctor in Mrs. Stowe's story, "The 
 Minister's Housekeeper," is not unknown to them: "He 
 was great on texts, the doctor was. When he had a p'int 
 to prove, he'd jest go thro' the Bible, and drive all the texts 
 ahead o' him like a flock o' sheep; and then, if there was 
 a text that seemed agin him, why, he'd come out with his 
 Greek and Hebrew, and kind o' chase 'round a spell, jest as 
 ye see a fellar chase a contrary bell-wether, and make him 
 jump the fence arter the rest. I tell yeu, there wa'n't no 
 text in the Bible that could stand agin the doctor when his 
 blood was up!" " Oldtown Stories." (Pp. 58-9.) 
 
 One of the best places to test the criticism of Dr. 
 Driver's book and its school, is in regard to the authorship 
 and date of Deuteronomy. Our author begins about it thus: 
 
 "Even though it were clear that the first four books of the Pentateuch 
 were written by Moses, it would be difficult to sustain the Mosaic authorship 
 of Deuteronomy. . . . For, in Deuteronomy language is used implying that 
 fundamental institutions of P are unknown to the author. Thus, while Le- 
 viticus XXV. 39-43 enjoins the release of the Hebrew slave in the year of Jubi- 
 lee, in Deuteronomy xv. 12-18 the legislator, without bringing his new law 
 into relation with the different one of Leviticus, prescribes the release of the 
 Hebrew slave in the seventh year of his service." (P. 77.) 
 
 To test the connection of these statements let us place 
 these two passages in parallel columns: 
 
 DEUTERONOMY XV. I2-l8. 
 
 LEVITICUS XXV. 39-43. 
 
 39 And if thy brother that dwellelh 
 b y thee be waxen poor, and be sold 
 unto thee; thou shalt not compel him 
 to serve as a bondservant: 
 
 40 But as a hired servant, and as a 
 sojourner, he shall be with thee, and 
 shall serve thee unto the year of jubi- 
 lee: 
 
 12 And if thy brother, a Hebrew 
 man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold un- 
 to thee, and serve thee six years; then 
 in the seventh year thou shalt let him 
 go free from thee. 
 
 13 And when thou sendest him out 
 free from thee, thou shalt not let him 
 go away empty : 
 
1892.] 
 
 the Old Testament. 
 
 603 
 
 41 And then shall he depart froml 
 thee, both he and his children with 
 him, and shall return unto his ownl 
 family, and unto the possession of his 
 fathers shall he return. 
 
 42 For they are my servants, which | 
 I brought forth out of the land of 
 Egypt : they shall not be sold as bond- 
 men. 
 
 43 Thou shalt not rule over him 
 with rigor ; but shalt fear thy God. 
 
 14 Thou shalt furnish him liberally 
 out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, 
 and out of thy winepress : of that 
 wherewith the Lord thy God hath 
 blessed thee thou shalt give unto him. 
 
 15 And thou shalt remember that 
 thou wast a bondman in the land of 
 Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeem- 
 ed thee : therefore I command thee 
 this thing to day. 
 
 16 And it shall be, if he say unto 
 thee, I will not go away from thee ; 
 because he loveth thee and thine 
 house, because he is well with thee ; 
 
 17 Then thou shalt take an awl, and 
 thrust it through his ear unto the 
 door, and he shall be thy servant for 
 ever. And also unto thy maidservant 
 thou shalt do likewise. 
 
 18 It shall not seem hard unto thee, 
 when thou sendest him away free from 
 thee ; for he hath been worth a double 
 hired servant to thee, in serving thee 
 six years : and the Lord thy God shall 
 bless thee in all that thou doest. 
 
 By what process can a contradiction be wrung from 
 these passages .'' The seventh year and the fiftieth might 
 both be years of emancipation. The law which provides 
 that a laboring man may have July 4th as a legal holiday 
 probably says nothing about the fact that every seventh 
 day already belongs to him. This does not prove that the 
 authors of these statutes were mutually ignorant of each 
 other's work, nor even that the two laws interfere in their 
 operation. The laboring man has his Sunday, and his hol- 
 iday, whether they coincide or not. The year of Jubilee, 
 and the Sabbatical year, were each marked by joy and en- 
 largement of freedom. In the founding of the Hebrew 
 commonwealth the design was prominent of having a nation 
 of freemen, and every possible opportunity consistent with 
 the character of the people was taken of enlarging the 
 area of freedom and equalizing the distribution of wealth 
 among the people. With a law already in operation 
 for a general emancipation once in fifty years, and with a 
 return to the possessions of the family, what is more likely 
 
6o4 Driver on the Literature of [Oct. 
 
 than that the establishment of another year of joy, 
 more frequently recurring, would bring with it another, 
 though somewhat less complete emancipation ? The two 
 are not only not contradictory, since they involve no condi- 
 tions inherently improbable, but more than this, they are 
 just what our knowledge of the Hebrews and the intent of 
 the Mosaic legislation would lead us to expect. Not even 
 Dr. Driver's unqualified statement and his unstinted use of 
 italics, prove or even make it appear likely that any other 
 than the traditional view is the correct one. 
 
 So also the statements which Dr. Driver makes concern- 
 ing the priests and Levites, appear stronger than the text 
 warrants. " In the laws of P in Leviticus and Numbers a 
 sharp distinction is drawn between the priests and the 
 common Levites: in Deuteronomy it is implied (i8:i^) 
 that all members of the tribe of Levi are qualified to exer- 
 cise priestly functions." (P. jjJ) But if the margin of the 
 Revision is correct, as seems probable, the same distinction 
 is made here in Deuteronomy xviii:i^ between the Levites 
 who are priests and those who are not. "The priests, the 
 Levites, and all the tribe of Levi shall have no portion nor 
 inheritance with Israel." That Deuteronomy xviii. 6 is in 
 conflict with Leviticus vii. 32—34," appears as certain as would 
 be the case if the church records were to show that a minister 
 receives a stipulated salary, Avdiile the local papers chronicled 
 a donation party at his house. In other words, where there 
 is no direct contradiction in the Old Testament statements 
 in different parts, the presumption is in favor of harmony ; 
 and our ignorance of much that belongs to the history, jus- 
 tifies such harmony where it can be brought about by a 
 reasonable hypothesis. 
 
 Of course. Dr. Driver divides Isaiah, "There is no 
 thought in this prophecy [chs. xl.— Ixvi.] of the troubles or 
 dangers to which Judah was exposed at the hands of Sar- 
 gon or Senacherib; the empire of Assyria has been sue- 
 
1892.] the Old Testament. 605 
 
 ceeded (b. C. 607) by that of Babylon: Jerusalem and the 
 Temple have long been in ruins (58, 12; 61, 4, 'the old 
 waste places;' 64, 10); Israel is in exile (47, 6; 48, 20, 
 etc.)." (p. 217). There is no occasion to discuss these 
 points: they have received full consideration in recent num- 
 bers of the BiBLIOTHECA Sacra. There are many men to 
 whom these arguments seem cogent and who would accept 
 them without hesitation if they could rest there: but once 
 having admitted the composite authorship of Isaiah, and 
 having assigned the date of the last twenty-seven chapters 
 to the time of the exile, one must next begin to split up the 
 first part, and find another author for the thirteenth chapter, 
 and send the twenty-third in search of the man who wrote 
 it: and a conservative man must be indulged in some re- 
 luctance to assent to even the more plausible of such con- 
 clusions until he ascertains where his method is likely to 
 land him. 
 
 Space forbids the consideration of any of the other 
 prophets at length. We venture to allude, however, to his 
 views of the Book of Jonah. Holding to its historic basis, 
 — that Jonah was a real character, that he actually preached 
 in Nineveh and that a great reformation followed' — the au- 
 thor considers the facts which make it appear to him that it 
 cannot be regarded as entirely historical, and states, appar- 
 ently with approval, and in as concise and satisfactory a 
 manner as we have seen anywhere, the allegorical interpreta- 
 tion of Kleinert and others: 
 
 "According to this view, Jonah does not merely represent the unspirit- 
 ual Israelites, he symbolizes Israel as a nation, and the narrative is an alle- 
 gory of Israel's history. Israel, as a nation, was entrusted with a propheti- 
 cal commission, to be a witness and upholder of Divine truth; but Israel 
 shrank from executing this commission, and often apostatized: it vi'as in con- 
 sequence " swallowed up " by the world-power, Babylon (see esp. Jer. 51, 
 34), as Jonah was swallowed by the fish ; in exile, however, like Jonah (c. 2), 
 it sought its Lord, and thus was afterward disgorged uninjured (cf. ih. v. 
 44); after the return from exile, there were many who were disappointed 
 that the judgments uttered by the prophets did not at once take effect, and 
 
6o6 Driver on the Literature of [Oct. 
 
 that the cities of the nations still stood secure, just as Jonah was disappointed 
 that the judgments pronounced against Neneveh had been averted." (p. 304.) 
 
 In his treatment of the Psalms, the author is usually- 
 suggestive rather than dogmatic: and where his conclusions 
 seem, — as they sometimes seem to the present writer, — to 
 be unsupported by the facts as we have them in the 
 Psalter, the reasons for the author's views are usually given, 
 so that the reader may judge for himself of their merit. Of 
 the general considerations which have influenced him. Dr. 
 Driver says, "It is to be owned that these criteria are less 
 definite than might be desired, and that when applied by 
 different hands they do not always lead to identical results. 
 Nevertheless, some conclusions may be fairly drawn from 
 them. It may be affirmed, for instance, with tolerable con- 
 fidence, that very few of the psalms are earlier than the 
 seventh century B. c." (p. 362). The psalms in Books I-II 
 alluding to the king (Ps. 2, 20, 21, 28, 61, 63, 72,) are pre- 
 sumably pre-exilic. Of the psalms describing the suffer- 
 ings or persecution of the writers (which are numerous in 
 these two books) a few may be pre-exilic, but most were 
 probably written by contemporaries of Jeremiah, or possi- 
 bly in some cases spring from the early part of the Persian 
 period (B. C. 536-C 400). Psalms 44, 74, 79, and perhaps 
 83, appear to belong to the Maccabean period, and it may" 
 be that there are other psalms dating from this period;" but 
 there is no sufficient reason for supposing this to have been the 
 case on the scale supposed by Olshausen and Reuss," and 
 we may add Cheyne. " Had so many psalms dated from 
 this age, it is difficult not to think that they would have 
 borne more prominent marks of it in their diction and style. 
 Reuss' exegesis is arbitrary." (p. 364.) 
 
 In general. Dr. Driver allows himself considerable lati- 
 tude in his conclusions with regard to the dates of the 
 psalms, with a tendency to unsettle views usually held rather 
 than to give definite views of his own. But the "wide 
 
1892.] the Old Testament. 607 
 
 limits" which he gives are narrower than they seem, as in 
 the following: "There is no doubt that the psalms upon 
 which Ewald's critical tact has thus fastened are marked by 
 a freshness and poetic force and feeling and a certain bright- 
 ness of language and expression which distinguish them 
 from most of the others attributed to David; and if Davidic 
 Psalms are to be preserved in the Psalter, we may safely say 
 that they are to be found among those which Ewald has 
 selected. At the same time, it must be admitted that the 
 aesthetic criterion upon which Ewald relies is a sjibjeetive 
 one. . . . On the whole, a non liquet must be our ver- 
 dict: it is possible that Ewald's list of Davidic psalms is too 
 large, but it is not clear that none of the psalms contained 
 in it are of David's composition." (p. 358.) Now, we sub- 
 mit that this, under color of allowing the widest possible 
 choice, really forces the reader into very narrow limits. 
 Ewald assigned to David ten psalms (3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 15, 18, 
 29, 32, loi) with portions of two others (19: 1-6; 24: 1-6, 
 7-10), and three fragments imbedded in later psalms (60: 
 6-9,68: 13-18, 144: 12-14.) Upon what ground may we 
 "safely say that if there are Davidic psalms preserved in the 
 Psalter that they are to be found among those which Ewald 
 has selected " .'' Why may there not be as many more 
 which upon other than aesthetic grounds may be assigned 
 to him .'' Dr. Driver himself warns us that Ewald's sub- 
 jective criterion is unreliable: is it reliable enough to deter- 
 mine beyond a peradventure the widest possible limit of 
 Davidic psalmody, and not reliable enough to afford any bar 
 to further diminution } May we upon the basis of " the 
 freshness and poetic force and feeling and a certain bright- 
 ness of expression" which we may imagine to have charac- 
 terized David, assume first that no psalm which does not 
 bear these characteristics is David's, and second that any 
 psalm bearing these characteristics may, notwithstanding, be 
 anyone's else than David's .'' We believe that Dr. Driver 
 
6o8 Driver on tJie- LiteraUire of [Oct. 
 
 means to be candid: but this is only one example of what 
 seems to us an unconscious lack of candor. Why may not 
 the rule work as well, na}' far better, the other way, and en- 
 able us to say that psalms exhibiting the characteristics de- 
 scribed seem certainly to belong to David, and that the list 
 may be increased indefinite!}' on other grounds ? It is more 
 than absurd to attempt to define the widest possible range 
 of an author's work by the marks which distinguish some 
 portions of it. There is "a freshness and poetic force and 
 feeling and a certain brightness of language and expression" 
 in L' Allegro not to be found in "Samson Agonistes" ; in " The 
 Princess" and not in "In Memoriam ;" in "Tam O'Shanter" 
 and not in "The Cotter's Saturday Night;" in "A Fable for 
 Critics" and not in "Commemoration Ode;" in "The 
 Bells" and not in "The Raven." A man may study the 
 character of Cowper until he becomes tolerably sure that 
 certain poems which have come to him anonymously betray 
 some moods characteristic of that poet: is he therefore jus- 
 tified in the assertion that if there are any writings of Cow- 
 per extant they are to be found among a dozen or fifteen 
 poems and scraps culled from his " Olney Hymns ".^ 
 Judged by such standards, what would become of "The 
 Task" and "John Gilpin".^ Who could ever collect Gray's 
 poems if he submitted each one to subjective tests derived 
 from a study of his "Elegy" i*' The fault in the method is 
 in the application: it may be used in helping to determine 
 in part what may be, but becomes extremely unreliable 
 when used to determine lohat may not he an author's work. 
 "An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog" is just as charac- 
 teristic of Goldsmith as "The Traveller": "A Vision of 
 Judgment" is as characteristic of Byron as "Childe Harold": 
 "Maud Muller" is as characteristic of Whittier as "Stanzas 
 for the Times "; the twenty-third psalm is probably as char- 
 acteristic of David as the twenty- fourth. 
 
 And, as an illustration of the workings of this method 
 
1892.] the Old Testament. 609 
 
 of criticism, let us ask, what becomes of the twenty-third 
 psalm under its manipulation ? We do not find the answer 
 directly given in the volume before us. It is not included in 
 Ewald's list: we are to infer therefore, tbat it cannot possi- 
 bly be David's. Why not .'' We must infer the answer 
 from some vague allusions. It is one of those numerous 
 psalms in the first and second books which represent their 
 authors as suffering: for it speaks of the Psalmist's enemies. 
 It was probably written then, we infer, by a contemporary 
 of Jeremiah, (p. 363.) Again, it refers to the "House of 
 the Lord:" this must indicate a later period than the 
 time of David's life and reign, (p. 353.) We infer this, 
 though neither of the references cited designate this 
 particular psalm. But had David no persecutions, that 
 all psalms alluding to sufferings or enemies must be assigned 
 to some other man, and of course to another time, and 
 ecjually of course to a later time } What of his flight for 
 his life from the court of Saul, of his residence in the cave, 
 of his exile among the Philistines, of his conflict with Saul, 
 of his strife for the conquest of his land, of the rebellion of 
 Absalom, of the troubled later years of his reign in which 
 the sword never departed from his house } Were the inci- 
 dents of his life so barren of strife or of persecution or of 
 suffering that every psalm which betrays a tinge of these 
 qualities must forthwith be wrenched from its associations 
 and sent down the ages on a hopeless hunt for an author 
 and a place in history .'' 
 
 In the face of such passages as Gen. xxviii. 17 can we 
 affirm that " the house of the Lord " of necessity refers to the 
 temple } And if it does, was the hope of being permitted 
 to erect a house for the Lord so foreign to the thought of 
 David that any psalm which expresses thought of dwelling 
 in the house of the Lord is forthwith to be cut off from 
 
6io Driver on the Literature of [Oct. 
 
 further consideration as Davidic ? (See 2 Sam. vii. 2 seq ; i 
 Ki. V. 3; viii. 19, 2 Chron. vi. 7.) 
 
 If it be objected to this process of reasoning that it 
 does not apply to the work before us, since it is based on 
 inferences from general statements instead of particular 
 affirmations, the answer is that the desired particular affirma- 
 tions are largely wanting, and that such inferences constitute 
 of necessity the reviewer's criteria. 
 
 But, judged entirely on the ground of its internal evi- 
 dence there is not in the whole Psalter a psalm which fits 
 more accurately into the place which the critics assign it than 
 this psalm fits into the time in David's life when he was flee- 
 ing from Absalom, and was fed by Barzillai the Gileadite. 
 (2 Sam. xvii. 27-9.) Let the historic imagination reproduce 
 the scene when the king, having left Jerusalem, barefoot and 
 weeping, forsaken by his friends, persecuted by his son, 
 plotted against by his counsellor, and with the memory of 
 Nathan's prophecy in his mind, comes at length, through a 
 way beset with dangers, and through plots against his life, 
 to Mahanaim, where he is provided with all that he needs 
 for himself and his followers. It is not enough to ask 
 whether he might have thought such thoughts as this psalm 
 expresses; viust he not have thought them.'' "I am no 
 longer a king: I am not even a shepherd: I am only a sheep. 
 Yet I am not shepherdless. I wander where my Shepherd 
 leads. I am in his wide pasture, and I shall not want. He 
 has given back my life, which seemed to have been taken 
 from me: he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his 
 name's sake. I walk in the midst of dangers, and in a valley 
 shadowed with death, but I fear not, for he is with me. 
 Even in the presence of my enemies he provides for me with 
 such lavish care that I have more than I could wish. Not 
 adversity alone, but his goodness and mercy follow, and 
 shall follow me. He who provides for me shall still care for 
 me ; and I shall return to Jerusalem, and dwell in God's 
 
1892.] the Old Testament. 611 
 
 house to the end of my life." No more natural or charac- 
 teristic thoughts can be imagined for David, and no more 
 apjjropriate historical setting could be desired for the 
 psalm. 
 
 This is a consideration of the question of the data and 
 authorship of the psalm "solely upon the basis of the in- 
 ternal evidence supplied by the book itself, by methods 
 such as are followed in the present volume;" and nothing 
 mere clearly in harmony with its Davidic authorship could 
 be expected or even desired. Nor is there anything in the 
 psalm or out of it to set aside these considerations. Is it 
 not violent to take this psalm from such a setting and such 
 an author on the basis of mere conjecture, and without even 
 the meager compensation of finding for it elsewhere a local 
 habitation and name ^ If one-fourth as much of its lan- 
 guage and spirit as, fairly interpreted, seem characteristic of 
 David and in harmony with his experience, fitted the life 
 and time of Jeremiah, or Simon Maccaba?us, would not the 
 critics assign it without hesitation to the time of the Exile 
 or the Maccabees and to the appropriate author .? 
 
 Upon grounds equally slight other psalms are wrested 
 from their time-honored associations. "Psalm 90 in dignity 
 and deep religious feeling is second to none in the Psalter : 
 but it may be questioned whether it does not presuppose 
 conditions diflcrent from those of Moses' age ; and had 
 Moses been the author, it is natural to suppose that it would 
 have been more archaic in style than it actually is." (P. 358.) 
 As throughout the book, the fact that "it may be ques- 
 tioned" settles the case with the author at once and forever. 
 Is the fact that a thing may be cjuestioned, enough to set at 
 rest all opposing considerations.? Does the fact that a doc- 
 ument does not display characteristics \\hich a critic who 
 lives thousands of years afterward finds it "natural to sup- 
 pose" might have been those of its alleged age, together 
 with the fact that the critic has previousl}', and on equally 
 
6i2 Driver on the LitcraUire of [Oct. 
 
 satisfactory grounds, relieved himself of all assistance which 
 might have come to him by a comparison of the style of 
 the document in question with that of other documents 
 alleged to have been by the same author, justify the une- 
 quivocal decision that the alleged author was not the real 
 author, and that the work is to be attributed to no one and 
 to no time in particular? There is in such reasoning much 
 that reminds one of the only fact which the detectives in 
 search of Mark Twain's lost white elephant could at first 
 determine with certainty, — namely, that the great hole in 
 the side of the building was not the aperature through which 
 the animal had effected an egress. 
 
 The testimony of Peter in Acts ii to Psalm xvi is not 
 regarded by Dr. Driver as establishing its Davidic author- 
 ship, nor does Peter's opinion seem to weigh greatly against 
 the critical conclusions which would assign it to a later time. 
 The New Testament use of Psalm ex is harder to account 
 for, since the testimony is not only definite and necessary to 
 the argument, as is true also in its use of Psalm xvi, but the 
 words are those of our Lord himself. Driver asserts, how- 
 ever, that " In the question addressed by our Lord to the 
 Jews (Mt. xxii. 41-46; Mk. xii. 35-37; Luke xx. 41-44) 
 his object, it is evident, is not to instruct them as to its au- 
 thorship of the psalm, but to argue from its contents; and 
 though he assumes the Davidic authorship, accepted gener- 
 ally at the time, yet the cogency of his argument is unim- 
 paired so long as it is recognized that the psalm is a Messi- 
 anic one and that the august language used in it of the 
 Messiah is not compatible with the position of one who was 
 a mere human son of David." (p. 363.) The psalm may be 
 ancient. Driver thinks, and apparently does belong to the 
 period of the monarchy, but can hardly be Davidic. But 
 we do not yet see that the Davidic authorship of this psalm 
 is not involved of necessity in our Lord's argument; and it 
 still appears to us that the Jews might easily have worsted 
 
1892.] tJic Old Testament. 613 
 
 Jesus in the controversy, had they possessed the wisdom of 
 Dr. Driver's book. If it is really true that David did not 
 write this psalm, it is well for us to know it; but it is not 
 well for us to accept the theory with the quiet assurance 
 that it will make no difference with our belief Such con- 
 clusions will necessitate a very considerable readjustment of 
 faith: — a readjustment which must be made if truth com- 
 pels it, but not needlessly nor hastily nor yet without 
 thought of the consequences. 
 
 We do not care to quarrel about the question of titles: 
 we are ready to admit that the title of Psalm xxxiv. — "■ A 
 Psalm of David, t^'hoi he ehaiiged l/is beJiavioiii' before 'Abi- 
 melech, zvho drove him azuaj', and he departed"" — fits the 
 contents as ill as any that could easily have been devised. 
 David had not at this particular time been blessing the 
 Lord; deceit, and not praise had been in his mouth. He 
 had not been righteous and had not cried to the Lord and 
 had not been delivered; his tongue had not been kept from 
 evil nor his lips from speaking guile; he had acted the part 
 of a fool, and had been turned away by the king — who was 
 not Abimelech — and had been left by God to suffer the conse- 
 quences of his fully. Ikit do this and a few other, though less 
 evident instances, justify the "question" (which is treated at 
 once as though it were a demonstration) whether the titles 
 "are more trustworthy in the instances that remain".? 
 (P. 356.) If Longfellow did not write the little ditty about 
 the turnip growing behind the barn, does the untrustworthi- 
 ness of the tradition which ascribes it to him, raise (and, for 
 that matter, settle) a question as to his having written any- 
 thing else that has been ascribed to him.'' 
 
 This article has already exceeded its proper bounds. In 
 a closing word it is possible onl}' to express our high appre- 
 ciation of the many excellent qualities of the book, and to 
 wish that its defects were absent. Much of what it brings 
 to us is true and good : while some of its positions seem hardly 
 
6 14 Literature of the Old Testament. [Oct 
 
 ji^ Worth the dignity of the appellation, guess-work. The final 
 
 ^ect of the book will be good. Its theories, true and false 
 
 alike, are those which are "in the air," and the Church may 
 
 ^ far better receive them from reverent Christian scholars than 
 
 from violent infidels. Let the work of investigation go on. 
 
 Let every fact, and every conjecture which can throw light on 
 
 the truth contained in the Bible, and truth concerning the 
 
 Bible, be.given a hospitable reception and a careful analysis. 
 
 ^ But let us not mix the facts and the conjectures; and let us 
 
 not mistake the weather-cock for the compass. Truth is 
 
 better than any theory; however ancient or widely believed, 
 
 f{,.;, 'and the Church can suffer nothing from it. But assumption 
 
 • '■*• is not always truth; and assertion is not demonstration; and 
 
 the new is'not always the true theory. This is not an esoteric 
 
 matter. A due regard must, it is true, be entertained for 
 
 the opinions of scholars; and the theories of experts ought 
 
 to receive^ a,nd rarely fail to receive, that respectful consider- 
 
 aition^ajid high regard deemed appropriate toward their au- 
 
 ■ ^^.j'tb'oi'g, and often somewhat higher than the theories might 
 
 A'?, see'm. to. merit, if unsupported by great names. But these 
 
 \. ': ;^^e noj 'questions of names, but of facts; and these 
 
 ■••v-- •'facts are intelligible to ordinary Bible students. It is 
 
 not courteous for the ignoramus, however reverent and 
 
 honest, to decry as infidels or rationalists all who do 
 
 not agree with him: but it is in order for every man 
 
 F'.- """^who .has a» accurate knowledge of his English Bible to 
 
 ■* search the Scriptures for himself, and see whether these 
 
 things are so.t The final judgment of the church at large 
 
 i^^, will- be ixLore trustworthy than the conjectures of the critics. 
 
 htj'^'.What is needed is a wider study of the questions involved: 
 
 .wthat need will be met in part by this volume and the study 
 
 to- ^vhich it will incite. 
 
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