nce to Mr. Oxford whether
Jehovah was a god of Moses's family or tribe or a Kenite god. The former
(with the alternative of _Joseph's_ family or tribal god) is Wellhausen's
theory. The latter is Stade's.[27] Each is inconsistent with the other;
Wellhausen's fancy is inconsistent with all that we know of religious
development: Stade's is hopelessly inconsistent with Exodus iv. 24-26,
where Moses's Kenite wife reproaches him for a ceremony of his, not of
her, religion. Therefore the Kenite differed from the Hebrew _sacra_.

The passage is very extraordinary, and is said by critics to be very
archaic. After the revelation of the Burning Bush, Jehovah met Moses and
his Kenite wife, Zipporah, and their child, at a khan. Jehovah was
anxious to slay Moses, nobody ever knew why, so Zipporah appeased
Jehovah's wrath by circumcising her boy _with a flint_. 'A bloody husband
art thou to me,' she said, 'because of the circumcision'--an Egyptian,
but clearly not a Kenite practice. Whatever all this may mean, it does not
look as if Zipporah expected such rites as circumcision in the faith of a
Kenite husband, nor does it favour the idea that the _sacra_ of Moses were
of Kenite origin.

Without being a scholar, or an expert in Biblical criticism, one may
protest against the presentation to the manual-reading intellectual middle
classes of a theory so vague, contradictory, and (by all analogy) so
impossible as Mr. Oxford collects from German writers. Of course, the
whole subject, so dogmatically handled, is mere matter of dissentient
opinion among scholars. Thus M. Renan derives the name of Jehovah from
Assyria, from 'Aramaised Chaldaeanism.'[28] In that case the name was long
anterior to the residence in Egypt. But again, perhaps Jehovah was a local
god of Sinai, or a provincial deity in Palestine.[29] He was known to very
ancient sages, who preferred such names as El Shaddai and Elohim. In
short, we have no certainty on the subject.[30]

I need hardly say, perhaps, that I have no antiquated prejudice against
Biblical criticism. Assuredly the Bible must be studied like any other
collection of documents, linguistically, historically, and in the light of
the comparative method. The leading ideas of Wellhausen, for example, are
conspicuous for acumen: the humblest layman can see that. But one may
protest against criticising the Bible, or Homer, by methods like those
which prove Shakspeare to have been Bacon. One must protest, too, again