Abstract
TO the question, What is the real Bible?, the answer is that it resembles an ancient city site where many cultural strata exist one below the other. If the archaeologist digs deeply, he will discover some very primitive remains, while nearer the surface lies more recent, and perhaps more advanced, material. Thus Mr. Howell Smith has no difficulty in unearthing some primitive and, to us, unpleasing elements in the Bible—deceptions, obscenities, and barbarities of various kinds. This should shock none but the Fundamentalist, who cherishes a preconceived and untenable idea about the Bible ; the well-informed man knows that all primitive literatures display parallel traits. It is equally easy to show that the biblical cosmology and science are no longer tenable ; though it would be an error to imagine that only one cosmology exists in the Bible. Of the Deity, varying conceptions are present in the Bible, as Mr. Howell Smith shows, and as one would expect from this fairly complete record of a development of religious ideas, which is what the Bible is.
In Search of the Real Bible
By A. D. Howell Smith. (Thinker's Library, No. 98.) Pp. v + 120. (London: Watts and Co., Ltd., 1943.) 2s. net.
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HARDWICK, J. In Search of the Real Bible. Nature 152, 522 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/152522a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/152522a0