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Rh modern exponent of the anthropological interpretation of Folk-lore is Sir James Frazer. To him all these legends, customs, practices are survivals from a state of savagery through which every civilisation has of necessity passed, but which it has been unable to discard altogether. Thus according to his theory can the identity of such legends and practices among so many races and nations be satisfactorily explained. Such rude and undigested relics of the past Sir James is trying to find embedded in the stately fabric of the Bible. He has prepared himself for this task by his great work The Golden Bough and other studies which have won for him the great reputation of mastership in his subject. Each of these works is a recognised storehouse of learning. Thus equipped Sir James approached his task of selecting a large number of incidents from the Biblical narrative and subjecting them to a close investigation and to a minute comparison with similar narratives among the nations of the earth. As was to be expected, he paid special attention to the parallels among the backward races. In order to obtain a true insight into the Hebrew text Sir James learned Hebrew and went through the pages of the Bible from beginning to end, studying it side by side with the English translation. One can fully agree with him in the high praise which he bestows upon that translation which approximates as closely as possible to the stateliness of language and the depth of meaning of the Hebrew original.

Without at the same time ignoring the fact that even this translation is open to many objections as far as the accuracy of the rendering is concerned. Sir James approaches his subject moreover in a spirit of touching modesty and freedom from dogmatism which adds still greater value to the results at which he arrives. He does not confuse for one moment the few fossils carried along by the stream of tradition with the majestic flow of law and ethics which have made the Bible The Book.