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BOOK REVIEWS 97
discolored by a failure to appreciate sufficiently certain values which,
after every fair critical test, still seem to be genuine and real ?
Douglas C. Macintosh
Yale Divinity School
A NEW EXPOSITION OF JOB 1
The original plan for the Book of Job in the "International Critical
Commentary" contemplated its being prepared by the late Professor
Driver. But death took him from the task February 26, 1914. In accord-
ance with his wishes, the completion was intrusted to Professor Gray, of
Mansfield College, Oxford. Professor Gray's fitness had already been
attested by his excellent commentaries on Numbers and on Isaiah,
chapters 1-27, in the same series. In this commentary on Job, the
work of each contributor is clearly indicated; the bulk of the gram-
matical, linguistic, and textual notes is the work of Driver, as is
also a large part of the new translation. The main commentary,
the translation of sixteen chapters, and the introduction are from
Gray. Gray's hand is seen also throughout the commentary and particu-
larly in the philological notes in the addition of bracketed material of great
value. It may safely be said that the unity of the work thus coming
from two authors is remarkable. Its value lies chiefly in its sound
scholarship and its splendidly balanced judgment. No strikingly new
points of view are revealed in either the textual criticism, the metrical
form, or the literary analysis. But we are given the reaction of two
level-headed scholars to most of the propositions regarding the interpre-
tation of Job that time has produced. This reaction is, on the whole,
conservative, as is fitting in a standard work like this. Whatsoever of
the newer and more radical views has found recognition by acceptance
here, may be regarded as having fairly earned its place. This commen-
tary is a record of the ground thus far possessed.
The origin of the Book of Job is placed in the fifth century B.C., with
allowance for the margin of a century either way. The main additions to
the original book are: (1) the Elihu speeches (chaps. 32-37); (2) the poem
on Wisdom (chap. 28), and a section of Yahweh's speech (chaps. 40:6 —
41:34), not to speak of glosses and minor additions scattered all along.
The unity of the Elihu speeches is unchallenged; and Dr. Gray declares
1 A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Job, Together with a New
Translation [International Critical Commentary]. S. R. Driver and G. Buchanan
Gray.. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1921. 2 vols, xxviii+376 and 360
pages. $7.50.
98 THE JOURNAL OF RELIGION
himself more firmly convinced of the originality of the Yahweh speech
than when he wrote his Critical Introduction in which he was very
hesitating in his acceptance of this portion of the book. The function
of the Yahweh speech is more clearly understood and stated than in any
other commentary that has yet appeared. In brief, it may be stated as
(i) justifying Job in his contention that his sufferings are no measure of
his guilt, for it nowhere declares Job to have been a great sinner as his
friends had insisted; (2) condemning Job for his charges against God,
on the ground that no mortal man is in a position to pass judgment upon
the ways of God, since they transcend the limits of his intelligence; and
(3) condemning the friends of Job because on the one hand, they have
been blinded by their theological theories to the recognition of plain
facts; and on the other, like Job, they have assumed to know fully the
mind of God. The author of the book thus is thoroughly convinced
of the failure of the orthodox theory of suffering to explain the facts,
but he has no other theory to put in its place. He can only consider
suffering an insoluble mystery and leave it in the care of the divine
wisdom and justice.
In a new commentary on Job we always turn to the treatment of
19:25 ff. to learn the latest word. Both translation and general com-
ments here are the work of Dr. Gray.
What is perfectly clear from the passage itself and its context is that
Job passionately desires vindication at the hands of God and that in 25 ff.
he arrives at the conviction that he will receive it and will himself see it.
The uncertainty that remains is as to the time of this event. Is it to be
ante mortem or post mortem ? The history of interpretation shows the
great leaders of the scholarship of the church almost equally divided
upon this question both as to numbers and as to learning. The same
situation prevails today. Dr. Gray aligns himself with those who
postpone the day of vindication to the period after Job's death. But
at this point Gray modifies the commonly accepted form of this view in
the following manner: " there is still no belief here in a continued fife of
blessedness after death in which compensation in kind will be made for
the inequalities of this life; the movement in the direction of a belief
in a future which is here found is rather in response to the conviction
that communion with God is real; in a moment after death it will be given
to Job to know that he was not deluded in maintaining his integrity,
and that he had not really forfeited the confidence of God" (p. 172).
It must be said, however, that this element of transitoriness is nowhere
suggested by the passage, but is purely imaginary. One other fact is
rarely reckoned with, viz., the difficulty of accounting for this episode
BOOK REVIEWS 99
in the experience of Job. The passage indisputably represents Job as
arriving at a conviction of vindication either here or hereafter. Yet
his thought and feeling suffer no appreciable change from that point on.
The problem of suffering is just as difficult and just as personal as before
and his reaction to it is just as violent. Such an experience ought to
have brought an attitude of patient and confident waiting for the
assured outcome. The inevitable conclusion seems to be that this pas-
sage as it now stands is from some orthodox believer in a blessed future
life who either modified the original text to make it express his own view
or furnished a substitute for it. Though every scholar will find points
like this to challenge, as is unavoidable in so difficult a book as Job, all
will unite in the judgment that this commentary will remain the standard
work of this generation on Job.
J. M. Powis Smith
University of Chicago
THE INFLUENCE OF THE APOSTLE PAUL ON EARLY
CHRISTIANITY 1
This book, despite its modest size and appearance, is of quite unusual
importance. Professor Bacon is admittedly one of the most original
and penetrating of living New Testament scholars, and for many years
past has written books and innumerable articles, in every one of which
he has made some distinct contribution. In the present work, based on
a series of lectures delivered at Oxford in 1920, he has sought to bring to
a focus his many-sided studies of the New Testament literature. The
title Jesus and Paul — appropriated as it has been to the discussion of
one definite question — is somewhat misleading. Dr. Bacon's aim is
rather to offer a connected account of the whole development of Christian
thought in the New Testament period, in such a way as to bring out
the inner relation of the Pauline gospel to that of Jesus himself.
The book is clearly and admirably written, free from technicalities,
and rising not infrequently into fine imaginative passages. At the same
time — and this is the chief general criticism we would make — its argu-
ment is often difficult and elusive. In his previous writings Dr. Bacon
has worked his way to positions which sometimes differ widely from
those generally held, and he is too apt to start from them without
adequate explanation. Again and again he lays on his readers the double
task of following an intricate argument and seizing a point of view. We
1 Jesus and Paid. Benjamin W. Bacon, D.D. New York: Macmillan, 1921.
251 pages. $2.50.
