The Westminster Review (Volume 83) (Paperback)

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1865. Excerpt: ... 77ie Foreign Books noticed in the following sections are chiefly supplied by Messrs. Williams & Norgate, Henrietta-street, Covent-aarden, and Mr. Nun, 270, strand. ------ THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY. NO words could well be more stimulating to the curiosity of the reader than those in which Mr. Ernest de Bunsen states the questions which he attempts to solve in the present work1: -- "The doctrine of Jesus cannot be known as it ought to be until two problems shall have been solved. In the first place, some additional light must be thrown on the last pre-Christian development of Judaism, and on its connexion with Christianity. In the second place, a satisfactory reason must be assigned for the mysterious fact, that the first three Evangelists have evidently agreed not to refer to any of those important sayings of Christ which have been recorded only by the beloved Apostle, whose Gospel was not published before an advanced period of the second century." The answers here given to these inquiries wo must consider to be eminently unsatisfactor}', and must express our regret that so much learning, research, and ingenuity have been expended on the really ilimsy and speculative solutions in which the whole work issues. Most competent critics are disposed to recognise the presence of a Persian or Zoroastrian element in the description of Paradise and the expulsion, as related in the beginning of Genesis; but very few, we apprehend, will be found to identify Adam, personally, with the great Aryan reformer (p. 118), or to suppose that an esoteric tradition originated with Adam, whilst Abraham and Moses were its first great prophets. The principles of this esoteric tradition, from the time of the Babylonian captivity, no longer confined to the few, became, according to our author, incorporated into t...