Two decades ago Maurice Vernes published a series of Old Testament studies, in which he advocated the postexilic origin of substantially all the Biblical literature, including the prophets. There are others who since that time have ranged themselves-at least with respect to this or that prophetical book-on the side of Vernes. Now M. Dujardin comes forward with the claim that, apart from "legends and customs belonging to earlier times", of which "the compilers of the Mosaic writings made use", the entire Old Testament dates from after the exile, according to the following scheme: Pentateuch- Kings, during the 4th and at beginning of the 3d century, Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah still later; the prophets, latter part of the 4th and in the course of the 3d century; Psalms, Daniel and "other works", during the 2nd and 1st centuries.It is evident that such a scheme upsets the prevalent criticism of to-day, which builds on an 8th century Amos and Hosea, by removing its very foundations. Thus "extremes meet", here as so often elsewhere. The conservative critic and this ultra-radical are at one in opposing the order: first prophets, second law. So this Dujardin, after appealing to Vernes' writings, seeks comfort and support next in the conservative Halevy, because forsooth Halévy's Recherches bibliques may be cited as demonstrating "that the prophetical books are later than the Mosaic writings." The author expressly adds, "With the new theory of dates we return to the traditional formula: the Prophets after the Law."This fact and this alone constitutes the significance of a book that is a wild orgy of skepticism. To its author history is imagination, prophecy is forgery, law is a pious fraud. "Pseudonymity is the invariable condition of Hebrew literature" (p. 186). Nothing is true, nothing sacred. Yet on every page there are familiar tones. The difference, one feels, between the methods of this writer and those of Professor Moore, Smith or Kent is but a difference of degree. And it seems to us that critics of that type should read a book like this with a certain uneasy feeling that its author differs from them mainly in his greater consistency. For it is a fact too patent to need proof, that for them the criteria for determining whether a writing belongs before or after the exile lie within the scheme of religious evolution first elaborated by Graf. Many lines of argument are often adduced to support the conclusion reached, but the discerning reader marks that this conclusion was already a foregone conclusion. Yet the application of the same lines of argument, minus such a foregone conclusion, will often lead to just such results as Dujardin here reaches. Exempli gratia, Chapin and Day on Amos and Hosea....-"The Princeton Theological Review," Volume 12