A New Bible Commentary

Extract

Our age may have many defects but it also has its virtues. One of them is a resolute search for authenticity, for the real and the genuine. This has shown itself in various ways, among which we can number the ‘return to original sources’, urged so long ago by Leo XIII. The revival of biblical scholarship in the last sixty years and the increasing and widespread practice among the laity of reading the Bible are among the most reassuring signs of the Church’s vitality at the present day. But a growing familiarity with the word of God is accompanied by a realisation of the difficulties that lie in wait for the ordinary reader. Higher Criticism is no longer the menace it was, but most of us carry about, as the familiar furniture of our minds, vague reminiscences of what the critics have said, so that when we read the Pentateuch we are aware that it has been carved up into four, if not more, sources and that R (or even R 1, 2, 3), is said to be the author rather than Moses. When we read the lovely oracles of the second part of Isaiah we remember that obscure Germans have taught that they were written by a committee and that they are prophecies post eventum. Compared with these matters, the standing still of the sun for Joshua, or whether Jonah was or was not eaten by a whale or by another as yet zoologically unverified sea-monster, are comparatively easy questions.