The Critical Review of Theological Philosophical Literature, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint)

The arguments by which the author (pp. 194, 213, foll.) seeks to establish the position, that the musical art of the prae exilian days was of the very crudest, and temple-psalmody practi cally unknown, appear to me extremely one-sided. Doubtless the songs of prae-exilian Israel would seem to our modern taste very crude. But would not the Greek melodies Of even the third century appear much the same? Professor Mahafl'y does not speak very favourably Of them (antiqq. P. But admitting that the music of Hellas was a great advance on all that went before, surely we may claim for Semitic religious songs, canaanite-hebrew as well as Babylonian, a higher relative artistic merit than the Bampton Lec turer is disposed to admit. The passages cited from the prae-exilian prophets do not by any means exclude the possibility that a trained class Of priestly functionaries carried on the service of song in the Jerusalem sanctuary. As for the Arabic tahlil, it is hardly con clusive as to the meaning Of its Hebrew cognate in the late regal period and in the temple sanctuary. The oracles Of the eighth cen tury are crowded with references to the advanced civilisation and increasing wealth of the Palestinian towns. Surely the growth in luxury and refinement must have been accompanied by growing culture in religious art, especially with a race so receptive to sensuous impressions as the canaanite-hebrew. The local worships may have remained primitive, but this can hardly be true of Samaria and Jerusalem.

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