Nineteenth-Century Religion, Literature and Society

Disbelief and New Beliefs

Naomi Hetherington, Clare Stainthorp, Naomi Hetherington, Clare Stainthorp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781138572850
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351272100
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

This four-volume historical resource provides new opportunities for investigating the relationship between religion, literature and society in Britain and its imperial territories by making accessible a diverse selection of harder-to-find primary sources. These include religious fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs, sermons, travel writing, religious ephemera, unpublished notebooks and pamphlet literature. Spanning the long nineteenth century (c.1789–1914), the resource departs from older models of 'the Victorian crisis of faith' in order to open up new ways of conceptualising religion. Volume four on 'Disbelief and New Beliefs' explores the transformation of the religious landscape of Britain and its imperial territories during the nineteenth century as a result of key cultural and intellectual forces.

Part 1

BIBLICAL Criticism

1.1

Hebrew Bible Criticism

 

Historical-critical approaches to the Hebrew Bible originated in Protestant Germany in the late eighteenth century. Extracts and reviews of German works began to appear in progressive Anglican periodicals from the 1790s and were discussed in Unitarian circles (see vol. I, 5.3 ‘Unitarianism’).¹ The translation of Peter von Bohlen’s Introduction to the Book of Genesis by the Unitarian scholar James Heywood (1810–1897) in 1855 provided English readers with an opportunity to see what a work of German criticism looked like.

Published in German in 1835, von Bohlen’s Genesis consisted of two volumes. The first volume outlined his arguments in favour of the mythical nature of the Pentateuch and against its Mosaic authorship. The second volume contains a translation of and commentary on Genesis – the most significant book for von Bohlen’s argument because it narrated the ‘infancy’ of Israel which he regarded as ‘the most important period in any mythic history’. In the English edition, however, the translation and commentary are limited to the first eleven chapters containing the prehistory of Israel from the creation of the world to the building of the Tower of the Babel.

Von Bohlen (1796–1849) dedicated his work to the German biblical scholars Wilhelm Gersenius and Wilhelm de Wette whose critical method he emulated. De Wette was an important figure in the application of myth to Hebrew Bible scholarship. As Heywood explains in his preface for English readers, de Wette regarded myth as akin to poetry in its ability to express the ideas of a people, conceiving of the Hebrew Bible as a ‘theocratical epic poem’, of value for what it revealed of the religious outlook of ancient Israel under the late monarchy.² Von Bohlen followed in de Wette’s footsteps. An Indologist by training, he compared the mythological character of the Pentateuch to the mythic histories of other ancient cultures. This can be seen in his discussion of the flood (Gen 6:5–9:17) alongside other ancient accounts of a deluge in classical, Chaldean and south American texts and the Hindu Mahâbhârata.

Von Bohlen’s dismantling of the biblical flood narrative anticipates John William Colenso’s rationalist line of attack in The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined (1862–79). Heywood’s editorial notes, inserted in square brackets, include quotations from Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology (1830–33) and Robert Chambers Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) to support von Bohlen’s argument that the biblical account records a local event that has been subsequently generalised and embellished rather than a universal deluge.

Historical-critical approaches to the Hebrew Bible did not gain a popular hold in Britain until the final decade of the century. This shift is perhaps most evident in the growing desire to convey a ‘believing’ critical approach to children.³ A large number of Bibles for children of all ages were published following Forster’s Education Act (1870) and the availability of cheap book production in the second half of the nineteenth century. Claude Montefiore’s Bible for Home Reading (1896) was amongst the most popular.

A Jewish communal leader, philanthropist and biblical scholar, Claude Montefiore (1858–1938) helped to found the Jewish Religious Union in 1902 which went on to become the basis of Liberal Judaism (see vol. I, 7.3 ‘Liberal Judaism’). He had studied at Balliol College, Oxford, under Benjamin Jowett, one of the contributors to Essays and Reviews (1860), and subsequently at the Liberal College for Jewish Studies in Berlin under the rabbinic scholar Solomon Schechter. His scholarship on the Bible was shaped by his exposure to liberal Anglican thought and to Higher Criticism during his time in Germany. He attracted the attention of Christian readers for his scholarship on the New Testament on account of his non-partisan approach and familiarity with both rabbinic literature and New Testament criticism. Containing the books of the Hebrew Bible, The Bible for Home Reading was primarily intended for Jewish parents, but it was adopted in many Christian households.

Montefiore outlined his editorial principles in a preface to the first volume, which parents could detach from the body of the book by cutting a string if they wanted to present the Bible to an older child for independent study. The preface expresses Montefiore’s concern to separate the historical veracity of scripture from its spiritual and moral truth and to confront the difficulty of teaching children ethically troubling stories. These were either expunged from his Bible, as in the case of Elisha and the two bears (2 Kings 2:23–25), or declaimed as ‘false’ because they contradict contemporary understandings of the divine nature, as in the biblical historian’s praise of King Jehu (2 Kings 9:1–31). Most striking, though, was Montefiore’s decision to change the order of the biblical narrative. He chose to begin with the story of Abram in Genesis 12, keeping Genesis 1–11 back until the end of the first volume when the reader was better equipped to tackle the challenges posed by the prehistorical material in these chapters.

A comparison of Montefiore’s and von Bohlen’s commentaries on the flood illustrates the growing acceptance of the Documentary Hypothesis for the composition of the Pentateuch popularised by Julius Wellhausen in his Prolegomena to the History of Israel (1878 revd. 1883 trans. 1885). In his division of the biblical flood narrative into two separate accounts, Montefiore broadly followed Wellhausen in his explanation of a later priestly law-book and an earlier chronicler. In order to present readers with both accounts, he interpolated sections of the earlier story redacted out of the biblical narrative. Like von Bohlen, Montefiore took a comparative approach, not only between the two biblical accounts, but comparing them to the Babylon epic of Gilgamesh from which he believed the Hebrew accounts to originate. However, whilst von Bohlen was intent on establishing the mythic status of the biblical flood narrative, Montefiore was interested in tracing the ethical problems it poses back to a pre-existing tradition in order to deduce that the Hebrews were morally and spiritually more developed than other ancient nations.

Notes

1John Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century: England and Germany (London: SPCK, 1984), pp. 158–161.

2Wilhelm de Wette, Critical and Historical Introduction to the Old Testament, ed. Theodore Parker (Boston, 1843), vol. 2, pp. 42–47.

3Barbara J. MacHaffie, ‘Old Testament Criticism and the Education of Victorian Children’, in Stewart J. Brown and George Newland (eds), Scottish Christianity in the Modern World: Essays in Honour of AC Cheyne (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), pp. 91–118 (p. 92).

1
JAMES HEYWOOD (ED.), INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF GENESIS WITH A COMMENTARY ON THE OPENING PORTION, FROM THE GERMAN OF DR PETER VON BOHLEN

(London: John Chapman, 1855), vol. 1, pp. 1–8; vol. 2, pp. 107–121

Extract from the Introduction: General Remarks on Mythology and Legendary History

Among all the civilized nations of antiquity, the dawn of genuine history (whether more or less authentic) is preceded by a series of myths and legends¹, whose patriotic object it uniformly is, to trace the origin and to exalt the early glories of the people.

A narrative may be recognised as mythic, when it refers to a period in which no written records could have existed, when things not cognizable by the senses or beyond the reach of human experience are related in it as historical facts, and when these statements of supposed facts are interwoven with rude conceptions of nature and of the Deity, or when they betray throughout a tincture of the marvellous.

Legends may be defined to be those traditions of early times which were transmitted by oral communication, without being fixed in writing, and which gradually assumed an altered form in the language of the people, and were constantly transformed by new ideas, increasing knowledge, and events of a later date (all of which were insensibly incorporated with the older elements, and at times threw them completely into the shade); until at length these traditions were seized upon and appropriated by the poet and the historian, so that they were never committed to writing until long after the nation, among whom they arose, had arrived at maturity and independence, and had begun to pay attention to its history.

According to ordinary usage, the myth, strictly speaking, is rather philosophical in its character, inasmuch as it is principally concerned with objects beyond the reach of experience; and the legend is so far historical, that an actual fact may lie at the foundation of it, yet each may occasionally happen to assume the appearance of the other. Thus while the myth is sometimes founded on actual observation, and real facts are blended in it with original speculations, the legend is also at times little more than a fiction, purposely contrived to adapt the existing state of things, or some particular occurrence, to certain patriotic purposes; as, for instance, when all connexion with a kindred race is indignantly disowned, when, to gratify a popular prejudice, a slight is thrown on some neighbouring nation, or when observances of recent date are referred to a remote antiquity: in such cases, the legend sinks to the level of a popular tale or fable, and can only in the loosest sense be entitled to retain the name.

Genealogy is the favourite source from which popular legends are mostly derived, and particularly in the East. Even at the present day, the Arab Bedoween transmits the long register of his heroic forefathers as a sacred heirloom to his children, composes romances to embellish and immortalize their deeds, summons his eastern fancy to fill up any breaks that may occur; and, as his favourite heroes become more mythic and more sacred as they are further removed from the reality of the present, he adorns them with a kind of historical setting like a glory; in default of facts and characters, he readily supplies a thread from popular fiction or his own conjecture, to connect the separate fragments, and easily invents new names to prolong this poetical string of pearls to the highest possible antiquity. While thus, among the more enlightened Greeks, history depended on observation, examination, and research, it rested in the East...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Editors’ acknowledgements
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction to Volume IV: Disbelief and New Beliefs
• Part 1 Biblical Criticism
• 1.1 Hebrew Bible Criticism
• 1 Extracts from James Heywood (ed.), Introduction to the Book of Genesis with a Commentary on the Opening Portion, from the German by Dr Peter von Bohlen (1855)
• 2 Extracts from Claude Goldsmid Montefiore, The Bible for Home Reading with Comments and Reflections for The Use of Jewish Parents and Children (1896)
• 3 Extract from Thomas Scott, The English Life of Jesus (1872)
• 4 Extracts from [Edwin A. Abbott], Philochristus: Memoirs of a Disciple of the Lord (1878)
• 5 Extracts from Samuel Sharpe, Egyptian Mythology and Egyptian Christianity with their Influence on the Opinions of Modern Christendom (1863)
• 6 Extracts from Harriet Martineau, Eastern Life Past and Present (1848)
• Part 2 Scientific Approaches
• 2.1 The Secularisation of Wonder
• 7 Extracts from Robert Lewins, Humanism versus Theism; or Solipsism (Egoism) = Atheism. In a Series of Letters by Robert Lewins M.D. (1887)
• 8 Extracts from Constance C. W. Naden, Untitled Notebook (1878–1879)
• 9 Constance C. W. Naden, ‘Starlight. I’ and ‘Starlight. II’ (1881)
• 10 Extract from Constance C. W. Naden, ‘The Brain Theory of Mind and Matter’ (1883)
• 11 Extract from Edward Clodd, The Story of Creation: A Plain Account of Evolution (1891)
• 12 Extract from Francis Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Developments (1883)
• 13 James Sully, ‘A Girl’s Religion’ (1890)
• 14 Extracts from Richard Carlile, An Address to Men of Science (1821)
• 15 Extracts from William Winwood Reade, The Outcast (1875)
• 16 Extract from John W. Overton, Saul of Mitre Court; being extracts from the papers of Mr Gadshill (1879)
• Part 3 Esotericism
• 3.1 Spiritualism
• 17 Extracts from H. [Anna Mary Howitt], Glimpses of a Brighter Land (1871)
• 18 W. T. Stead, ‘Borderlanders of the Bible: The Prophet Elijah’ (1893)
• 19 Alfred Russel Wallace, ‘The “Journal of Science” on Spiritualism’ (1885)
• 20 Frederick F. Cook, ‘The Harmony of Spiritualism and Science: A Rejoinder to Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace, LL.D.’ (1885)
• 21 Extract from H. P. Blavatsky, The Key To Theosophy: Being a Clear Exposition, in the Form of Question and Answer, of the Ethics, Science, and Philosophy For The Study of Which The Theosophical Society Has Been Founded (1889)
• 22 Libra [Susan E. Gay], ‘Womanhood from the Theosophical Point of View’ (1891–1892)
• 23 Mohini M. Chatterji, ‘On the Higher Aspect of Theosophic Studies’ (1885)
• 24 Extract from Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, The Perfect Way; or, The Finding of Christ (1882)
• 25 Extracts from Alice Oliphant and Laurence Oliphant, Sympneumata, or Evolutionary Forces Now Active in Man (1885)
• 26 Extract from Marie Corelli [Mary Mackay], The Romance of Two Worlds (1886)
• 27 Extract from Frances Lord, Science Healing: Its Principles and Practice (1888)
• 28 Extract from Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Dawn of a To-morrow (1907)
• Part 4 Comparative and Universal Religion
• 4.1 Anagārika Dharmapāla and Modern Buddhism
• 29 T.W. Rhys Davids, ‘What Has Buddhism Derived from Christianity?’ (1877)
• 30 Anagārika Dharmapāla, ‘Points of Resemblance and Difference Between Christianity and Buddhism’ (1893)
• 31 Sophia Dobson Collet, Indian Theism and its Relation to Christianity (1870)
• 32 Keshub Chunder Sen, We the Apostles of the New Dispensation (1881)
• 33 Oswald John Simon, ‘The Mission of Judaism’ (1896)
• 34 H. Adler, Sylvie d’Avigdor, C[laude] G[oldsmid] Montefiore, James Martineau, Anna Swanick and Charles Voysey, responses to ‘The Mission of Judaism’ (1897)
• Part 5 Freethought
• 5.1 New Theistic Directions
• 35 Anon., Deism and Christianity Contrasted (c. 1820)
• 36 Extracts from Sara S. Hennell, Present Religion: As a Faith Owning Fellowship with Thought (1865)
• 37 Extracts from F. H. J., Spiritual Pantheism (1872)
• 38 Anon., ‘The Religion of the Millennium’ (1835)
• 39 Extracts from Emma Martin, Religion Superseded, or the Moral Code of Nature Sufficient for the Guidance of Man (c. 1844)
• 40 Extracts from Thomas Frost, Forty Years’ Recollections: Literary and Political (1880)
• 41 T. H. Huxley, G. M. McC[Rie], Saladin [William Stewart Ross], P. A. Taylor, Charles Watts, F. W. Newman, Ignotus [Albert Simmons], W. B. McTaggart, Ernst Haeckel, W. Sadler (Baldr) and J. Beal, ‘Agnosticism: A Symposium’ (1884)
• 42 Harriet Law, ‘A Few Words to Freethinkers’ (1876)
• 43 Extract from Saladin [W. Stewart Ross], God and His Book (1887)
• 44 Daniel Chatterton, ‘Where are you going to when you die?’ (1892)
• 45 Extracts from Alexander J. Ellis, Speculation: A Discourse, preceded by Absolute Relativity: A Meditation, delivered at South Place Chapel, Sunday, 16th January, 1876. With the Readings and the Author’s Hymn used on that Occasion
• 46 Extract from Edward Beesly, ‘The Worship of the Dead. Address Delivered at Newton Hall on the Day of all the Dead, 31 December, 1890’
• 47 Phi Delta, ‘Secular Organisation’ (1882)
• Bibliography