ood for them all, for the
beasts and birds of prey as well as the rest?" The Bishop then proceeded
to test the accuracy of the inspired books by examining

[194] the numerical statements which they contain. The results were
fatal to them as historical records. Quite apart from miracles (the
possibility of which he did not question), he showed that the whole
story of the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt and the wilderness was
full of absurdities and impossibilities. Colenso's book raised a storm
of indignation in England--he was known as "the wicked bishop"; but on
the Continent its reception was very different. The portions of the
Pentateuch and Joshua, which he proved to be unhistorical, belonged
precisely to the narrative which had caused perplexity; and critics were
led by his results to conclude that, like the Levitical laws with which
it was connected, it was as late as the fifth century.

One of the most striking results of the researches on the Old Testament
has been that the Jews themselves handled their traditions freely. Each
of the successive documents, which were afterwards woven together, was
written by men who adopted a perfectly free attitude towards the older
traditions, and having no suspicion that they were of divine origin did
not bow down before their authority. It was reserved for the Christians
to invest with infallible authority the whole indiscriminate lump of
these Jewish documents, inconsistent not

[195] only in their tendencies (since they reflect the spirit of
different ages), but also in some respects in substance. The examination
of most of the other Old Testament books has led to conclusions likewise
adverse to the orthodox view of their origin and character. New
knowledge on many points has been derived from the Babylonian literature
which has been recovered during the last half century. One of the
earliest (1872) and most sensational discoveries was that the Jews got
their story of the Flood from Babylonian mythology.

Modern criticism of the New Testament began with the stimulating works
of Baur and of Strauss, whose Life of Jesus (1835), in which the
supernatural was entirely rejected, had an immense success and caused
furious controversy. Both these rationalists were influenced by Hegel.
At the same time a classical scholar, Lachmann, laid the foundations of
the criticism of the Greek text of the New Testament, by issuing the
first scientific edition. Since then seventy years of