Another important suggestion as to the history of Israel after the Exile comes from Prof. Cheyne, following to some extent in the footsteps of Robertson Smith and earlier scholars. It is that the Jews took part in the great rebellion against Artaxerxes III, Ochus circa B. C. 350; that their rising was caused by religious enthusiasm, and led to the desecration of the Temple. This calamity is supposed to have been the occasion of the composition of certain Psalms and other passages,31 which most scholars either connect with the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar or refer to the Maccabean period.
The progress of the historical study of Old Testament Theology is hindered by the lack of agreement, even amongst scholars of the modern school, as to the date of many important passages. It is impossible to write certainly as to the teaching, for instance, of Isaiah and Amos, or as to the stages of development of the Religion of Israel while authorities of the first rank are divided as to whether the Messianic sections in Isaiah and the monotheistic verses in Amos were composed by those prophets, or are post-exilic additions. Moreover there is no immediate prospect of a settlement of these questions, for the data are meagre and ambiguous, and the grounds on which individual writers arrive at decisions are largely subjective.
Nevertheless a great deal is clear and certain; and even where dates are doubtful, much of the teaching is independent of chronology. Within these limits the Expositor's Bible and other works have done much to bring popular theology into line with the results of larger knowledge and fresh research and discussion. This process has now reached a point which may enable us to say with the Bishop of Winchester,32 "The period of transition, the period of anxious suspense of judgment, is drawing to a close. It is seen and felt that the interpretation of Holy Scripture is not less literal, not less spiritual, not less in conformity with the pattern which the Divine Teacher gave, when it is rendered more true to history by the fiery tests of criticism and literary analysis."
This brief survey has necessarily been occupied for the most part with the developments of recent research. But in these years as in previous periods the Old Testament has been the subject of much searching, preaching and writing which has taken little or no account of changes in criticism, or, indeed, of any criticism at all; but have taken the narratives as they found them, and, as far as authorship has been concerned, have made the assumptions which seemed easiest and most edifying. Such work, too, is most valuable. The spiritual life which speaks to us through the Hebrew Scriptures is so full of energy, variety, and truth that even the simplest methods of treatment yield great results. These results, moreover, have sometimes a special quality which is absent from more studious exposition. Even after many centuries the inspired books are like rich virgin soil which yield a harvest even to the crudest methods of cultivation. Thus the scribes of our day, instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven, are still bringing out of their treasures things new and old; and both alike minister to the coming of the Kingdom, both the new and the old, both the influence of ancient association and venerable tradition, and the new life and power and hope that spring to birth in dawning light of a new day of the Lord.
"At last, but yet the night had memories
Sad in their sweetness, noble in their pain,
Which, looking backward half regretfully
In longing day-dreams oft we live again.
At last, but this new day, that slowly dawns,
Shall satisfy with its meridian fires
Alike the longing born of fond regret
And deeper yearnings that our hope inspires."
That the Old Testament will still hold its place of power in any new dispensation is guaranteed by its significance for Christ and His Gospel. As Prof. G. A. Smith has said in a work which states the religious position in the light of recent Biblical study,33 Christ accepted the history recorded in the Old Testament "as the preparation for Himself, and taught His disciples to find Him in it. He used it to justify His mission and to illuminate the mystery of His Cross… Above all, He fed His own soul with its contents, and in the great crises of His life sustained Himself upon it as upon the living and sovereign Word of God. These are the highest external proofs – if indeed we can call them external – for the abiding validity of the Old Testament in the life and doctrine of Christ's Church. What was indispensable to the Redeemer must always be indispensable to the redeemed."
GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE EXPOSITOR'S BIBLE
NEW TESTAMENT
When we pass from the volumes of the Expositor's Bible that deal with the Old Testament to those which expound the books of the New Testament we discover less departure from the traditional attitude. And yet a very little knowledge of the enormous amount of research which has been prosecuted during recent years in the fruitful field of primitive Christian literature and its surrounding scenes must convince us that here also was a clamorous call for a fresh treatment of the whole subject. It is much to have the books taken one by one and treated each as a distinct entity; in this way we are led on to perceive that richer harmony of the various apostolic notes which means so much more than the unison of the older methods: First, instead of the familiar treatment of minute phrases commonly known as "text," we have the wider survey and broader handling of the arguments of the books, which to those who have not been accustomed to it appears as a revelation, so that these books become new things to them. Then we have that individual treatment, that temporary isolation of the books, which enables us to understand their limitations as well as the amplitude of their contents. Lastly, we come to see the specific teaching of the several New Testament writers, so that we can no longer confuse the distinctive message of the author of Hebrews with that of St. Paul, or confound the ideas of St. Peter with those of St. James.
The Expositor's Bible is based upon a more accurate text and more exact renderings of the New Testament than were available for previous works of exposition. The discovery of one of the two oldest known manuscripts at the Monastery of St. Catharine on Mount Sinai, in the middle of the nineteenth century, is only one, though perhaps the greatest, of the steps in advance towards obtaining a correct Greek Testament which have been taken during the last hundred years. The immense labors of Tischendorf in the collation of manuscripts and readings from the Fathers, following the earlier work of Mill, Griesbach and others, but with a much richer mine of materials to draw upon, laid a foundation on which later experts have been laboring with the