in Jobeidos locos vexatos Specimen. Von D.
Hermannus Hupfeld. Halis Saxonum. 1853.
____

We shall assent, doubtless, eagerly, perhaps noisily
and indignantly, to so obvious a truism; but our own
efforts in the same direction will not bear us out. The
able men in England employ themselves in matters of a
more practical character; and while we refuse to avail
ourselves of what has been done elsewhere, no book,
or books, which we produce on the interpretation of
Scripture acquire more than a partial or an ephemeral
reputation. The most important contribution to our
knowledge on this subject which has been made in
these recent years, is the translation of the "Library
of the Fathers," by which it is about as rational to
suppose that the analytical criticism of modern times
can be superseded, as that the place of Herman and
Dindoff could be supplied by an edition of the old
scholiasts.

It is, indeed, reasonable that, as long as we are
persuaded that our English theory of the Bible, as a whole,
is the right one, we should shrink from contact with
investigations, which, however ingenious in themselves,
are based on what we know to be a false foundation.
But there are some learned Germans whose orthodoxy
would pass examination at Exeter Hail; and there are
many subjects, such, for instance, as the present, on
which all their able men are agreed in conclusions that
cannot rationally give offence to any one. For the
Book of Job, analytical criticism has only served to clear
up the uncertainties which have hitherto always hung
about it. It is now considered to be, beyond all doubt,
a genuine Hebrew-original, completed by its writer
almost in the form in which it now remains to us. The
questions on the authenticity of the Prologue and
Epilogue, which once were thought important, have given
way before a more sound conception of the dramatic
unity of the entire poem; and the volumes before us
contain merely an inquiry into its meaning, bringing, at
the same time, all the resources of modern scholarship
and historical and mythological research to bear upon
the obscurity of separate passages. It is the most difficult
of all the Hebrew compositions--many words occurring
in it, and many thoughts, not to be found elsewhere in
the Bible. How difficult our translators found it may be
seen by the number of words which they were obliged
to insert in italics, and the doubtful renderings which
they have suggested in the margin. On