Author: Heinrich von Ewald

Publisher: General Books

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781235614484

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867. Excerpt: ... (Gen. xii.), as if he hastened past this dark picture to give greater prominence to that noble introduction which had been already delineated by the Fourth (Gen. xii. 1-3); but the remembrance of it has been elsewhere preserved.1 The strife was assuredly long and hard. But the highest and most peculiar element in his historr, and that which has become most fruitful for all future time, is, that he clung so firmly to his assurance of the one true God, and recognised so clearly that true salvation can come from him alone, that he chose rather to abandon fatherland and relations than faith in the sole omnipotence and helpfulness of this supersensuous, heavenly and only true God, and resolved to make this confidence the root of his life and influence. "With-this feeling he must first have acted as a powerful prince towards his own extensive household, and afterwards have persevered in the same course in Canaan and in Egypt, among nations where he encountered a much higher wisdom and more enlarged experience, but at the same time much over-refinement and moral corruption. 3) Abraham as exhibited by the existing narratives. Although we may convince ourselves satisfactorily of the truth of all that has hitherto been explained of the actual history of Abraham, it is not to be denied that in the Old Testament but few and scattered passages concerning him from the oldest writings have been preserved. What we now know of him with any considerable coherence is due to no earlier source than the Book of Origins; but, unhappily, a large portion of that which this book had originally told of this greatest of the Patriarchs has been lost. As it, however (see p. 82 sqq.), brings forward with the greatest interest all that relates to law and rule, Abraham appears in it chie...