Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/235

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opportunity of discussing the new and startling theory that the Exodus took place, not from Misr or Egypt, but from the Arabian Musri, a fact which, if established, will have momentous influence on the criticism of the Pentateuch.

Among other noticeable questions considered are the explana- tion of the use of unleavened bread in worship : " In the view of all antiquity, Semitic and non-Semitic, panary fermentation repre- sented a process of corruption and putrefaction in the mass of the dough ; "' the view of " hair-growing " and " hair-cutting " in connection with the '' Nazarites ; " serpent-worship and " Nehushtan ; " the liver " contesting with the heart the honour of being the central organ of life : " the oath on the thigh, in which the view of Professor Robertson Smith is followed ; and " Nativity," in which Mr. Hartland's exposition in The Legend of Perseus (vol. i.) is accepted. " Ophir " is placed on the east coast of Arabia, with a necessary reservation as to the derivation of the Hebrew term for " peacock,"' as advocated by Professor Max Miiller, from a Tamil root. And here I may incidentally call attention to Professor Keane's excellent book noted above, which deals with the gold supply from the Rhodesian mines, and contains much interesting information on early trade between the East and West.

I close with one word of reservation. Professor Cheyne seems so engrossed with the new theory that fixes the beginnings of Hebrew national life among the Jerahmeelites of Arabia that he is tempted to undertake an almost wholly new recension of the Hebrew text, and particularly in the case of the most familiar proper names. These identifications are sufficiently startling in themselves, and suggest the impression that views so largely based on conjectural emendations must be accepted with caution. But these are questions with which we, as students of anthropology and folklore, are not immediately concerned, and exclusive of matters of this kind, readers of Folk-Lore may be safely recom- mended to study this great work, in which practically for the first time the principles of their science have been invoked in the attempt to solve the many weighty problems which the " new criticism " has brought to light in connection with the study of the Bible.

W. Crooke.