THE EVOLUTION OF OLD
TESTAMENT RELIGION

THE EVOLUTION OF OLD
TESTAMENT RELIGION

BY
W. E. ORCHARD, B.D.

LONDON
JAMES CLARKE & CO., 13 & 14, FLEET STREET
1908

TO
My Wife

PREFACE

The substance of this book was originally delivered asa Course of Lectures to a week-night congregation. TheLecture form has been retained, and this accounts forthe repetition of the leading ideas, while the practicalinterests of Church life account for the insistence on thereligious value and lesson. It is hoped that this, whichmight be irritating to the professional student, may behelpful to the ordinary reader who is repelled by thetechnicality of critical works, and often fails to discernthe devout spirit by which such works are inspired, or todiscover what religious interest is served by them.

Where everything is borrowed from other writers, andno claim to originality is made, detailed acknowledgmentwould be impossible, but the resolve to attempt somesuch course in place of the usual form of a week-nightservice was formed in the Hebrew class-room of WestminsterCollege, Cambridge, while listening to theLectures on Old Testament Theology and MessianicProphecy, delivered by the Rev. Professor Dr. Skinner(now Principal), in which accurate scholarship was combinedwith a deep insight into the present religiousimportance of these subjects. Grateful acknowledgmentis also due to the Rev. J.R. Coates, B.A., who kindly readthrough the proofs and made many valuable suggestions.

W. E. ORCHARD.

Enfield, August, 1908.

CONTENTS