Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, Second and Third Series [by William Robertson Smith].

• Author: Levine, Baruch

In 1991, John Day, himself a biblical scholar of note, discovered in the Cambridge University Library the manuscripts of six lectures that had been delivered more than a century ago by William Robertson Smith, and written in his own hand. The lectures had been reported in the press at the time, and several scholars subsequently referred to them, but they were never published and had remained unknown to us. The first three, here designated "Second Series," were delivered at Aberdeen University in early March, 1890, and the last three, designated "Third Series," in December, 1891. Since William Robertson Smith's classic work, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, appeared only a short time earlier, in 1889, the additional lectures included in the present volume may be viewed as direct sequels to the major work. The three lectures included in the Second Series are entitled, respectively, "Feasts," "Priests and the Priestly Oracle," and "Priests (continued), Diviners, Prophets." The three included in the Third Series are entitled "Semitic Polytheism (1) and (2)," and "The Gods and the World: Cosmogony."

John Day deserves our gratitude for his effort in editing the text and reworking the extensive notation, and for collecting contemporary press reports on the lectures, which are presented in an appendix. It is exciting to learn how much interest there was in things biblical in Great Britain of the late nineteenth century. A useful bibliography, including many articles by Smith himself, completes the volume. Less gratifying is Day's thumbnail assessment of the master's views on major issues, offered in hindsight. His brevity in this respect borders on superficiality, and it would have been better had he decided either to do justice to the subject matter of the lectures through a more serious evaluation, or to allow them to speak for themselves.

As a whole, these lectures appear sketchy in their preserved form, and if Smith had gotten around to publishing them, he would have undoubtedly enhanced his manuscripts, pursuing certain lines of thought and evidence more thoroughly. As it was, he died in 1894 after suffering from ill health.

And yet, there are gems in the pages...