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Abbott: Life and Literature of Ancient Hcbreivs 773 all efforts are directed to the Old Testament. It is with this latter that Dr. Abbott deals, and deals, we need hardly say, in a very interesting way. He is known as an eloquent expositor, and as one who accepts in general the results of the modern criticism of the Old Testament, and he has succeeded in bringing out its human side, and its permanent signifi- cance. He points out the vague and inexact character of the old He- brew historical writing, the gradual development of the legal codes, the origin of the Biblical " fiction " (in such legends as that of Samson), the literary excellence of the imaginative stories of Ruth, Jonah and Esther, the idyllic charm of the Song of Songs, the profound philosophy of life contained in Job, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the spiritual beauty of the Psalter, and the ethical strenuousness and unquenchable hope of the prophets. The message of Israel to the world he conceives to be this : that God demands of man only righteousness, and that on this condition man may enter into a relation of comradeship with God. Jesus of Naza- reth he regards as the fulfillment of Israel's aspirations. It does not enter into Dr. Abbott's plan to consider the parallelisms between the Hebrew and other ancient literatures ; such a comparison would be helpful, but would require considerable space. His description of Hebrew thought as a natural product of the Hebrew national life is in the main just, and he knows how to distinguish between the essential and the accidental ; his point of view is indicated in the following sentence : "Whether Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem or in Nazareth is not a question which materially affects the moral character of mankind" (p. 42 j. In a few cases the present reviewer would prefer statements differ- ent from those made by Dr. Abbott : the scene of the book of Job lies not in a remote age, prior to 1250 B. C, but in the fifth or fourth cen- tury B. C. (p. 234); Josephus is not an authority for the life of Moses (p. 92 n.) — he knew nothing more than what he got from the Biblical text ; there is no reason to suppose that Moses got religious ideas from the Egyptians (p. 96), or indeed that he was a monotheist ; it is ex- tremely improbable, if not quite impossible, that any of the Biblical psalms should have been composed as early as the time of David (p. xi); it is not likely that Solomon had any definite religious training (p. 289 ff), or that his character was highly complex; the opinion is now gaining ground that the Song of Songs (which is a product of the Greek period) is based on a rustic wedding-festival, and that Solomon is not a personage of the poem (Ch. ix); Hebrew offerings were not all voluntary (p. 154) — on the contrary, time and character were generally fixed by law (see Lev. and Numb, passim). These points do not affect the gen- eral validity of Dr. Abbott's argument. C. H. Toy.