savage can understand this very well, since he knows that in sleep his own soul has taken many a distant journey, and his friend's soul has this time been prevented from returning. Or, if the sick man writhes in convulsions, or shrieks in pain, this, too, is explained by the presence within him of an evil spirit. The savage cannot understand death as the natural termination of life. From this Mr. Spencer, as is well known, deduces his theory of the origin of religion. "It becomes manifest," he writes, "that, setting out with the wandering double which the dream suggests; passing to the double that goes away at death; advancing from this ghost, at first supposed to have but a transitory second life, to ghosts which exist permanently and therefore accumulate, the primitive man is led gradually to people surrounding space with supernatural beings, which inevitably become in his mind causal agents for everything unfamiliar." Now although primitive religion may be fairly enough represented by those who hold Mr. Spencer and Mr. Clodd's views as one of "funk" as distinguished from the "fog" of primitive philosophy (the terms are Mr. Clodd's), yet no one who is at all acquainted with the study of this intricate and difficult matter can admit that either the one or the other has solved the problem of the origin of religion. It is much too dark a subject to grapple with here, but this much is to be said that Mr. Spencer's theory as to the origin of religion involves the nonexercise of man's reasoning powers until he one lucky day either ate too much or too little! On that eventful meal, or want of a meal, depended our religion! And all this time man ignored the powers and mysteries of that Nature which sent the sun across the blue sky, and caused grateful darkness to bring coolness and rest. There is no impossibility in man's evolving new gods and new religions from his dreams, and following a spiritual or ghostly, rather than a natural or Nature worship-has Mr. Spencer not himself admitted that man retrogrades as well as advances-but that even savage man should have failed to worship, fear, or "funk" until his dreams frightened him, is to me unsupported by sufficient evidence, and strange and incomprehensible. Is not Mr. Clodd's own definition of myth as man's answer to his own wonder, more directly attachable to wonder at nature than wonder at dreams? WILLIAM GEORGE BLACK. THE MERITS AND DEMERITS OF THE RETTSED OLD TESTAMENT. B 5 my po tlen to the pages of the as vil be seen by a reference to the Una ir Nemember 75% and more recently that V. discussed the mens and demerits of the The may of competent authorities tore long at feared themselves from of a revised version of estment on the dear ground of us manifold inaccuracies, us vil us from a crence to that we have at present within our reach the amples mitents as well as the very ablest agencies, for the adequate exertio of such a work When the first edition of the Autoonsed Testo mered in 1911, Hebrew studies were in their infancy, Wrife's translation, the evilent basis of all subsequent versions, was made almos exclusively from the text of the old Latin Vulgate, and not from Hebrew. Since King James's time not only has our knowledge of Hebrew been increased in a marvellous digree, but the meanings of its pictorial words, and the force of its consecrated idioms, have been elucidated by the comparative study of the kindred dialects of Syrian, Arabic, and Ethiopic. Commentators whose number is legion, have approached the Old Testament text from every conceivable point of view, and have minutely discussed every word and every sentence of the text, for the single purpose of bringing out the fall meaning of the original. Again, there has come to hand a vast accumulation of other collateral materials requisite to a more perfect understanding of the text. We have gained an increased and more accurate knowledge of ancient geography, natural history, and the archeology of Biblical peoples and places. It is to the combination of all these advantages, carefully utilised by the revisers, that we must attribute the manifold and important improvements to be found in the Revised Old Testament, recently issued. The most obvious merit of this new version is in the presentation of its form. For the first time in our Bibles the poetry of the Hebrew original appears to the English eye as poetry, and the prose as prose. Thus Gen. iv. 23, where we find the first poetical passage in the Hebrew, is thus poetically rendered by the revisers : Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech; If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold Truly Lamech seventy-and-sevenfold. This is clearly a vast improvement in sense as well as in form on the Authorised Version, which says, "Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech; for I have slain a man to my wounding and a young man to my hurt." Such a version, we venture to say, with all reverence, closely borders on nonsense. As the second merit of the Revised Version, we acknowledge the ample justice done, with very few exceptions, by the revisers to the majestic style and musical rhythm of the Authorised Version, which is for the most part carefully preserved and closely imitated, where corrections of errors have been necessary, with singular felicity. The Authorised Version stands alone in our literature and language for the unapproachable excellence of its style; and the Old Testament revisers have done well in not degrading its dignity and in not marring its majesty after the reckless and revolutionary manner of the New Testament revisers. "The consecrated diction," as it has been well termed, of the Authorised Version avoids equally the pedantry of the schools and the vulgarisms of the market-place. It never crawls on the ground, it never loses itself in the clouds. It is intelligible to all classes, offensive to none, always dignified, never commonplace. Happily, it is made to speak still in the Revised Version of the Old Testament to a hundred millions of the Englishspeaking race in phrases clear as the sunlight, and in tones of melodious rhythm that linger on the ear, and live in the heart, like music that can never be forgotten. Happily, in the Revised Old Testament we have simply a revised version, unhappily we have in the Revised New Testament nothing short of a new translation. The cause of this fundamental difference is not far to seek. The Old Testament revisers, true to their mission as revisers of the Old Testament, kept exclusively to the work of revising the errors of the Authorised Version, while the New Testament revisers, taking upon. themselves the self-imposed task of reconstructing a text, and forgetful of the single duty delegated to them as simple revisers of the Authorised Version, have virtually retranslated the whole of the New Testament, to the disgust and disappointment of all except a majority of their own body. It is to the credit of the revisers that they have dealt more fully with that dangerous class of archaic words which mislead from their altered meaning, and less fully with those archaic words that have scarcely any meaning at all to the modern ear. Words of the former class are the more dangerous, because they give a false light, while those of the latter class are less dangerous so far as they simply leave the reader comparatively in the dark; while their elimination from the Bible, where almost alone we find them, would be so much a loss to our language, and no precisely modern equivalents could be found for them. For example, the revisers have rightly changed the misleading archaism artillery (as 1 Samuel xx. 40, "and Jonathan gave his artillery unto his lad") into weapons, while they have wisely retained the archaism "bolled" (i.e. was in bloom, as explained in the margin). This term has no precise equivalent, and the exclusion of it would have been a permanent loss to our language. Again, the revisers have not contented themselves with retaining the choicest treasures of our language which have come down to us from the remote past in its archaisms, but they have somewhat added to the dignity and rank of comparatively new words, as well as to the clearness and fidelity of the version, by the introduction of such modern terms as startle, memorable, peoples, its, consternation, reversion, rabble, indictment, rival, assailant. Such terms were either altogether unknown or but little known in King James's time; for the greater number of these accepted and expressive terms are not found in such authorities as Dr. Skinner's "Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ," published 1671, and Francis Junius's "Etymologicum Anglicanum," published 1743. In the third place the revisers have earned the gratitude of all who take an interest in the "good old Book," in which millions believe as the oracle of God, by their careful correction of the obvious and admitted errors of the Authorised Version. Here two examples of an interesting character may be noted. 1. In Habakkuk, chapter iii. verse 4, A.V., we read, "and his brightness was as the light; he had horns coming out of his hand." The Hebrew here gives us a far more ennobling description of the manifestation of the Deity-" and his brightness was as the light of the sun, and he hath rays (coming) from his side." Here the marginal reading and the Hebrew original are identical in sense. The error arose from the twofold meaning of the Hebrew word kernaim (compare Latin cornu, a horn, and Greek keras), which means a horn and ray of light. In Exodus xxxiv. 29 it is said of Moses, "he wist not that the skin of his face shone." Here the Latin Vulgate renders, "et ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies" (he knew not his face was horned). The revisers have well rendered this passage in poetical form: He had rays coming forth from his hand. In the margin the revisers, for "his hand," give as a variant "at his side," which really ought to have found a place in the text. This old misinterpretation had a singular influence on the artists of the Middle Ages, who often represented Moses with a horn growing out of each temple, as in the celebrated statue of the prophet by Michael Angelo, which is of colossal size and placed in the Church of S. Pietro in Vincula at Rome. According to Champollion the horn was the hieroglyphical symbol for the rays of the sun. Dr. Pusey thinks that in this passage rays are likened to horns, as the face of Moses is said to have sent forth rays (Exodus xxxiv. 29). 2. In the Song of Songs, chapter vi. verse 13, the A. V. gives us, "Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies." Here the Revised Version better renders it: Return, return, O Shulammite; Return, return, that we may look upon thee. Why will ye look upon the Shulammite As upon the dance of Mahanaim? For Mahanaim the revisers give in the margin "two companies" as a variant. It is an open secret that the Puritans would have banished every trace of dancing from the Old Testament history, from their deepgrained and bigoted hatred of what has been beautifully described as "the poetry of motion." In such passages in the Psalms as "let them praise his name in the dance," "praise him with the timbrel and dance," where the revisers have rightly retained "dance," they would have substituted "pipe" or some other musical instrument. It is certainly remarkable that in Psalm lxxxvii., where the Authorised Version gives us "As well the singers as the players on instruments shall be there," the revisers, more true to the Hebrew text and context, render by "They that sing as well as they that dance shall say"; and it is still more remarkable that even the Puritan Milton, in his poetical paraphrase of this psalm, renders : Both they who sing and they who dance To sacred songs are there, In Thee fresh brooks and soft streams glance And all Thy fountains clear. The truth is, the Jews regarded dancing as the worship of the body, and in this sense Jewish commentators have explained the expression in the Psalms, "All my bones shall say, Lord, who is like F |