Page images
PDF
EPUB

A HANDBOOK

OF

SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY

BIBLE DIFFICULTIES:

OR,

FACTS AND SUGGESTIONS HELPFUL TOWARD
THE SOLUTION OF PERPLEXING THINGS
IN SACRED SCRIPTURE, BEING A

SECOND SERIES

Of the Handbook of Biblical Difficulties.'

EDITED BY

ROBERT TUCK, B.A. (LOND.),

AUTHOR OF

'FIRST THREE KINGS OF ISRAEL,' 'AGE OF THE GREAT PATRIARCHS;'
EDITOR OF HANDBOOK OF BIBLICAL DIFFICULTIES.'

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

GENERAL PREFACE.

THIS book is not presented to the reader as containing final judg ments on any of the topics introduced in it. It contains only the material, more or less complete, for forming good judgments. A dogmatic tone is carefully avoided, and a suggestive tone is anxiously and constantly sought. The Editor's opinions are but contributions towards the consideration of a subject. It is not a controversial work, and it has no precisely-defined theories to uphold. Fairly, and without prejudice, the views of writers of very different schools are represented; and even the effort to guide the reader to a final judg ment is kept within careful restraint.

The aim set before the Editor is a very simple one, but a practically useful one. Fresh information relating to Bible subjects has largely accumulated during recent years, and new additions are being made every month. But this information comes to us in a variety of ways. It is often locked up in books that are only accessible to the learned and the thousands of Bible readers, Bible students, and Bible teachers, have neither the time for research, nor the ability to select, from the mass of material at command, what may be of real value in the elucidation of Bible problems. The Editor has endeavoured first to select special topics of interest to thoughtful Bible readers; keeping in mind that a subject may interest one student, and altogether fail to interest another. Then he has endeavoured to quicken inquiry, and impel to research, by suggesting questions. And, finally, he has sought to provide, and set forth as succinctly as possible, what is known, and what is thought, in relation to the matter treated.

This volume is the continuation and completion of a scheme, of which the first portion has been published under the title, 'A Handbook of Biblical Difficulties.' The scheme proposed to deal, in a representative way, with all the classes of difficulties which an intelli

« PreviousContinue »