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264 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH

7rpo&lt;f)r)Tov, \eyovTos (Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying). Now supposing a transcriber to have had in his copy either Sia rov Trpo^rov (through the prophet) only, or Sia Za%apiov TOV Trpofarov (through Zechariah the prophet), yet carrying in his mind what he had written a little before, he might inadvertently and without intention have written the same over again, as will easily be granted by those who are at all used to tran scribe."

The Rationalistic Criticism which reduces Prophecy to Human Divination

The other stream of criticism directed against the date and authorship of these chapters rises from a different source, and is impelled by the same motive which, alas, underlies the whole of the so-called " modern criticism." There are, no doubt, exceptions ; but reading the many, and for the most part conflicting opinions of modern writers on this question, one is struck with the truth of Keil s remarks, that the objections which modern critics offer to the unity of the book (and the same may be said also of much of their criticism of other books of the Bible) do not arise from the nature of these scriptures, but " partly from the dogmatic assumption of the rationalistic and naturalistic critics that the Biblical prophecies are nothing more than the productions of natural divination ; and partly from the inability of critics, in consequence of this assumption, to penetrate into the depths of the divine revelation, and to grasp either the substance or form of their historical development so as to appreciate it fully." l

In illustration of these remarks of Keil, it may not be out of place to quote a striking instance of the elimination of any reference to a distant future, and, indeed, of any supernatural element from the prophetic scriptures on the part of modern critics. Before me lies the last edition of what is regarded by many as a. standard work on the

1 Keil, in the Introduction to his Commentary on Zechariah.