candour which it constantly furnishes, nor without expressing the hope that in subsequent and improved editions it may help to accomplish the author's purpose. We have already met him on other, and as it seems to us higher, ground. We shall hope to meet him again in the thoughts of his maturer years.

The work of Mr. Edgar Innes Fripp, B.A. (Lond.) on The Composition of the Book of Genesis, with English Text and Analysis would perhaps hardly call for our criticism if it had not attracted some attention in quarters where we should hardly expect to find it noticed. It is, like Professor Ryle's work, quite a small treatise dealing with a vast subject, and dealing with it in a less satisfactory method and with less satisfactory results. This also is in part modern magazine work. Part of the original matter in these pages has already appeared in recent articles in Dr. Bernhard Stade's Zeitschrift für Alt-Testamentliche Wissenschaft. The author further tells us that 'it is the result of the scanty leisure of several years of busy ministerial work, and therefore perhaps deserves the mercy of the critics,' and that he has been assisted by the generosity of the Hibbert Trustees and the kind. suggestions of Canon Cheyne.'1 After a few words of preface comes a series of seven maps, of a rude simplicity which suggests the nursery, but, as far as we can judge, of no possible utility.

An Introduction contains a brief but clear statement of the results of some recent critical theories. They are stated in the boldest form, without reservation and without suggestion that any other view has been or can be held. The English and technically uninstructed reader, for whom the book is presumably intended, is informed in the opening words of the Introduction that' to convey a clear idea of the composition of the Book of Genesis . . . it will be desirable to enumerate briefly the different constituent elements of the great historico-legislative work of which it forms the opening,' and in a few brief paragraphs he is told with all the certainty of modern critical dogmatism about

(1) The Iahvistic History Book, or, for short, I (or J)' which is placed as a 'recently compiled history-book' in 'the reign of Jeroboam II. (c. 786-746 B.C.), or probably a little earlier.'

(2) The Elohistic History Book, or, for short, E,' which is said to be about a quarter of a century or more later.'

1 Preface.

(3) The Prophetic History Book, or, for short, I E (or JE),' in which these two parallel histories were amalgamated with many editorial omissions, additions, and modifications,. into one somewhat clumsy narrative by a Judæan of the early Deuteronomic school,' is placed 'rather more than a century later (650-630 B.C.).'

(4) Deuteronomy, or, for short, D,' comes 'shortly afterwards, in the year 621 B.C.'

(5) The Deuteronomic Edition . . . for short, IED (or JED), comes from Babylonia about 550 B.C. It consists of IE, 'modified from the Deuteronomic point of view,' and with D woven into it; nor is this all, for D itself had meanwhile undergone modification and had appeared in enlarged forms (D1 D2).

(6) The Book of Holiness (Lev. xii.-xxvi.) or, for short, P',' which is dated 'toward the end of the exile, 550-536 B.C.,' comes from the school of Ezekiel' and is a 'more ceremonial version than D of the Covenant Book in IE.' It derives its symbol (P1) from the fact that it is 'the beginning of the Priestly as distinguished from the Prophetic and Deuteronomic legislations.'

(7) The Priestly History Book, or, for short, P2,' which is a Babylonian re-writing by a late follower of Ezekiel, about 500-475 B.C.' of IED. It is from a priestly and levitical point of view,' and 'an intensely theological work.'

(8) Then comes an enlargement of this P2, 'not only by many minor additions (P3), but probably also by the amalgamation with it of the Book of Holiness.' This is dated either before Ezra and Nehemiah left Babylonia, 458 B.C., or in the interval between their arrival in Jerusalem and introduction of their new legislation, 444 B.C.'

(9) 'Finally, toward the end of the 5th century B.C.,' this enlargement of it is itself enlarged (P1), and the thus enlarged Priestly History Book is woven into the Deuteronomic Edition of the Prophetic History Book (I E D). This whole would be naturally known by the symbols I E D P, but the final Redactor is supposed to have added ‘a number of independent stories, possibly from his own, probably from some other and recent pen,' and the whole is therefore termed I E D P R, which is, 'except for some smaller and mostly textual changes, our present Hexateuch with its continuation in Judges,

Samuel, and Kings.'

After this general assertion about the contents and composition of the Hexateuch, Mr. Fripp proceeds to deal with his more immediate subject-the Book of Genesis-and the reader

will probably be not sorry to find that he need not burden his mind with all the above details. He has to do with the beginnings of the Priestly History and the Prophetic History, i.e. of P2 and I E, for D does not yet appear; but to these must be added some editorial and independent matter by the Redactor. He is accordingly furnished with the result of a minute analysis into the constituent elements, P2 and I E (in this order, but why he is not told-it is not the order of the assumed dates, or of importance of material, or that observed in the body of this work), and is told also what sections are the work of the compiler of I E, or of an editor of I before amalgamation with E, and what portions are to be assigned to the Redactor who wove P2 (P3 P4) into IE (D), with the reserve that there are still 'unattached stories,' and that ' numerous glosses' remain to be noticed later on.

The author then examines the relation of P2 and IE to each other, and gives reasons for believing that there is a literary dependence, and that it is of the P2 upon I E, and not vice versa. P2 is 'a product of the Exile.' It is otherwise with I E. 'The reverence for favourite shrines at Shechem, Bethel, and Beersheba, precludes a later date than the denunciation of these sanctuaries by Amos, Hosea, and Micah.'

How far back the material may reach is to be determined by individual passages. The Creation and Flood stories point to early contact with Chaldæa,' but their present form can hardly be earlier than the extension of the Israelite boundary through the victories of David and the commerce of Solomon.' Lamech's song and Noah's curse are 'primitive Hebrew poems'; but only the latter gives any indications of date, which suggest a period before the Philistine wars of Saul.' We are further told that 'similar indications of date are furnished by the patriarchal legends of (1) Abram and Lot, (2) Sarai and Hagar, (3) Jacob and Esau, (4) Jacob and Laban, and (5) Joseph and his brethren '; and these supposed indications are given; as are also reasons for thinking it clear that the compiler of I E was a Judæan, and that the redactor of I E D P was akin to the school of Ezra and Nehemiah. The Introduction is brought to a conclusion by a plea for the forms Chavvah,' 'Kain,' 'Hebel,' 'Chanok,' 'Noach,' 'Cham,'' Kenaan,' 'Iishmael,' 'Iizchak,' 'Iisrael,' &c., which 'may strike an ordinary reader'-and they certainly strike us -'as somewhat pedantic,' on the ground that to preserve the ordinary forms would 'not only be incorrect, but show a lack of historical sympathy'; and by an expression of the writer's indebtedness to Welhausen, Bleek, Kuenen, and Dillmann. It is.

doubtless an unintentional omission, but one that is nevertheless to be regretted, that the reader is not informed that Bleek differs widely from his editor Wellhausen, and that Dillmann, the acknowledged prince of commentators on the Pentateuch, is wholly opposed upon essential points to Mr. Fripp. In what the indebtedness to Bleek and Dillmann consists it would perhaps be difficult to say. The work seems to us to be little more than a condensed reproduction for the ordinary reader of the conclusions of Kuenen and Wellhausen, without the safeguards which these authors provided; and we therefore think that for the ordinary reader it will prove a misleading and often unintelligible guide. The translation, which is based upon the Authorised, but owes much also to the Revised Version, will scarcely be thought an improvement upon either Version. The materials of the supposed sources are printed separately in a convenient form for the critical student; and the example set by Kautzsch and Socin1 of printing these in different types is followed. The size of the book makes it necessary, however, that the types chosen should be small, and the distinction is not always so clear as it is intended to be; but many students will be glad to have these documents in a form suitable for the handbag or the pocket, and will thank Mr. Fripp for the service which he has conferred upon them. Many of the notes also show acuteness, and study of the original; but the whole is in our eyes marred by a critical rashness and a want of reverence which in these days too often characterize the 'new-comer on the field of criticism.' The man who follows Kuenen so blindly as to tell us, even after the recently ascertained evidence of the Tel-el-Amarna Tablets,2 that Genesis xiv. is a 'Priestly Story,' that it is obviously intended to glorify Jerusalem,' that 'the archaic style is artificial and overdone,' that it must be pronounced a Midrash,' will scarcely commend his judgment to sober-minded people; and the man who can speak of the two accounts of creation in the following terms—

Instead of the calm and calculating Elohim of i.-ii. 4 a, able to realize his thought in a word-"Let there be light! and there was light," in ii. 4 b-iv.-we have a very limited Jahveh, hard at work with the clay, and blowing into the nostrils of his creature, ii. 6 f. ;

1 Boehmer had already used different founts of type for the Hebrew text, 1860, which was followed by a translation in 1862.-Cf. Lenormant, La Genèse, 1883.

2 Cf. the interesting volume by Mr. Basil T. A. Evetts, late of the Assyrian Department in the British Museum, New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land, 1892, pp. 163-228. He speaks of these Tablets as 'the most remarkable archæological discovery of the last few years.'

planting a garden, 8; testing the animals one after another to find a suitable companion for the man, 19 f.; and hitting at last on the idea of a woman made of the man's rib, 21 f.; walking in the garden himself to enjoy the evening cool, iii. 8; talking face to face with his creatures, and inflicting the crawling posture on the snake, travail on the woman, and toil on the man, 14-19; making the man and his wife clothes of skins, 21; jealous, 22; wrathful, 14, 24; and capricious, iv. 4 f.'

shows himself to be so entirely out of sympathy with the religious feeling alike of the Hebrew Scriptures and of the English people as to be incompetent to interpret the one to the other.

The contribution of Mr. W. E. Addis, who now writes from Melbourne, Australia, but is not unknown to English readers in other fields of literature, is of greater importance, and is intended to embrace the whole of the documents of the Hexateuch. At present only the First Part is before us, and this is designated 'The Oldest Book of Hebrew History.' The writer is of opinion that

'a wide gulf of time, and the changes time brings, separates the Jahvist from the Deuteronomist, the Deuteronomist from the "Priestly Writer," but that there is no such clear line between the Jahvist and the Elohist. These two considered as a Unity [i.e. J E], are closely allied, and there is no difficulty in distinguishing them from other documents.'

The writer thinks it can be shown also that they were combined in one book before they were united with other books of the Hexateuch, and it is this book which he endeavours to reproduce as 'The Oldest (ie. relatively to the rest of the Hexateuch) Book of Hebrew History.' He makes no attempt, except in special cases where the evidence seems clear, to distinguish J from E, and as the other documents are reserved for a separate volume, his pages are free from confusion of type, the ordinary type representing, as far as Genesis is concerned, the Jahvist, italics representing when necessary the Elohist, and the additions of the compiler appearing in brackets. The translation was made by the editor, and then adapted to the Revised Version. It is accompanied by somewhat meagre notes; but these show, what we find indeed throughout the work, that the writer has a firm grasp of his subject, and that he has based his convictions upon a full investigation of the chief authorities on either side. If we do not think that the documentary hypothesis is fully established, we think that its probability is placed higher by this simple