A Critical Dictionary of the Literary, Political and Religious History, the Archæology, Geography, and Natural History of the Bible. Edited by the Rev. T. K. Cheyne, M.A., D.D., and J. Sutherland Black, M.A., LL.D. Vol. I: A to D. New York: the Macmillan Company; London: Adam & Charles Black. 1899.1
The scholarly world has for some years been aware that there was in preparation a new Bible dictionary, originally projected by the late W. Robertson Smith, and after his death taken in charge by Prof. T. K. Cheyne and Dr. J. Sutherland Black, destined to be the mouthpiece of the newer criticism in its most radical form. The appearance of the first volume has disappointed none of the expectations which had been formed concerning it. The vigorous scholarship and indefatigable industry of Dr. Cheyne and the skill and experience of Dr. Black as an editor of encyclopædias justly led the public to look for a notable work at their hands. It is a notable work that lies before us. Every page is instinct with living learning, poured out without stint on every subject which naturally comes into view in a dictionary of the Bible. And it is safe to say that on no encyclopædia ever published has there been expended such a wealth of expedients to make it the handy, useful book of reference which it is the very mission of an encyclopædia to be. It is possible even that in both matters the thing is overdone. It requires a number of pages to put the reader in possession of the abbreviations, symbols, typographical devices, systems of cross-reference by the employment of which the book has been reduced in size and increased in handiness; and the average reader may be somewhat appalled as he contemplates the necessity of mastering this new language before he advances to the work itself. And he certainly will not read far into the latter before he will recall the familiar distinction between knowledge and wisdom and will begin to desiderate less of mere learning and more of good judgment in the matter laid before him: after all, he who consults a Bible dictionary is commonly more in search of safe guidance to the knowledge of the truth than desirous of spending his time in learning some new thing. When once he is adjusted, however, to these two conditions, he will no longer be disappointed in the book. He will certainly find the type too small (though it is remarkably clear), and he will often find the articles too compressed: both of these faults he will recognize, however, to be in the right direction. He will assuredly not find the book characterized by sobriety and restraint in criticism or by trustworthiness or reverence in its dealing with the Biblical material: he was not entitled to expect this in a work the very keynote of which has ever been announced as “advanced criticism,” and that as interpreted by Dr. Cheyne. But he will discover himself in possession in this book of a mass of information as to all archæological, geographical, and physical matters connected with the Bible which it would be difficult to surpass elsewhere; and with a complete conspectus of the most recent conjectures as to its literary, political, and religious history, which will interest him extremely, and doubtless prove not less instructive than interesting. He justly expected all this in Dr. Cheyne’s dictionary: he receives it in Dr. Cheyne’s dictionary.
For this is distinctly, and in a sense in which the other large dictionaries of the Bible are not, the dictionary of one man, and that one man Dr. Cheyne. It is somewhat important to note this fact clearly. For in the pious regard which the editors pay to the memory of the late Prof. W. Robertson Smith and the anxiety they exhibit to give due credit to his initiative—to which the “Encyclopædia” owes its origin—the impression is apt to be obtained that it is in some true sense Dr. W. Robertson Smith’s dictionary of the Bible. Except, however, that it is in a fashion the carrying out of a project contemplated by him and by men whom he trusted and to whose hands he committed the task, it is in no sense Dr. W. Robertson Smith’s dictionary. Confessedly the positions taken up in the dictionary are not those which Prof. Smith taught during his lifetime. Dr. Cheyne only contends that they are such as Prof. Smith—who was always in the van of critical opinion—would have taught had his life been prolonged to the close of the century. It is an opinion which Dr. Cheyne is quite entitled to hold. Certainly Prof. Smith occupied a position which in principle leaves nothing to choose between it and Dr. Cheyne’s own: and if with prolonged life he had not “advanced” step by step with Dr. Cheyne in the application of their common principles this would have been due not to less radicalism of fundamental postulates on his part, but only to differences between the two in habits of mind, spirit, and mode of applying common presuppositions. We do not ourselves think that Prof. Smith could have failed to “advance” steadily toward the goal toward which Dr. Cheyne’s own face is turned. Whether he would have embraced the same body of opinions which Dr. Cheyne publishes in this dictionary—which is proclaimed with some flourish to be Prof. Smith’s own—may on the other hand be very seriously doubted. Prof. Smith’s criticism was in principle all that Dr. Cheyne could desire: but he was a very serious-minded man, and liked to have some show of sober reason for his opinions. That these reasons were sound, that the apparently wide inductions on which he established his opinions were trustworthy, we are the last to believe. That Dr. Cheyne’s patronizing air to his “more moderate colleagues,” as only radical critics in the making, has a certain justification we do not question. But meanwhile it is true that Dr. Cheyne’s critical methods have none of the apparent caution which characterized Prof. Smith’s procedure, and that his critical opinions have none of the air of grounded judgments which Prof. Smith knew how to throw around his.