Since the last biographies of Luther in English appeared, nearly ten years ago, a vast amount of light has been shed on the subject by the discovery of new documents and by the intensive research of a great army of the learned. A special stimulus was supplied to their zeal by the celebration of the Reformation quadricentenary in 1917; and the fact that America was cut off from Germany for four years out of the last ten, and that the books of her production have only begun to reach us in large numbers, may add another reason, were it necessary, for offering an extensive review of the outstanding work in this field since the end of the year 1910. For the sake of convenience the more detailed studies will be taken up first, in the chronological order of events in Luther's life; the more general collections of works, bibliographies, biographies, and estimates, will follow after.

The article ‘Chronology of the New Testament’ by C. H. Turner in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible marks an epoch in this important subject. Its astronomical and calendar data are indeed not unimpeachable, for the more recent studies of Fotheringham make it highly probable that A.D. 30 should be taken as the year of the crucifixion, rather than Turner's date of A.D. 29. But Turner's careful survey of ancient sources proves that from a very early time “the year of the two Gemini” (A.D. 29) was fixed upon by tradition, and became the accepted starting-point for primitive reckonings in both directions. Convenience of adjustment to the paschal cycle had probably much to do with the adoption of this particular year, which facilitated harmonization; but at the very early period to which it can be carried back tradition is not likely to have varied more than a year or two from the correct date for so all-important an event. While, then, a slightly earlier or later absolute dating, such as A.D. 30, may obtain the preference of modern chronographers it seems not impossible that the traditional date of 29 A.D. for the crucifixion may go back to the period of Luke himself.

In reading various American periodicals I have noted the interest with which French affairs are followed on the other side of the ocean, but American observers seem to be somewhat uncertain in their opinions about contemporary France and particularly to be baffled by the internal policy of France. For this policy differs profoundly from that which was pursued before the war. The attitude of the French government in religious affairs has been considerably modified. It may therefore interest American readers to learn something about the great currents by which the religious and moral spirit of France are today borne along, and to try to divine their probable outcome.

Among the parchment and papyrus manuscripts and fragments brought to this country by the University of Michigan Expedition under Professor Francis W. Kelsey, only one is of paramount interest to the Biblical scholar. There are indeed lectionaries and parts of lectionaries dating from the eleventh century and later, and even a single papyrus fragment of a Psalm, but the former are uninteresting textually, and the latter is too small to give much evidence.

In his note ‘Simon, Cephas, Peter’ in this Review (January, 1921, pp. 95–97), Professor Kirsopp Lake, calling attention to the existence of early evidence that in some quarters Cephas was thought to be a different person from Peter, wonders why “Christian tradition has so completely lost sight of these doubts, which were clearly present in various forms to Clement of Alexandria and to the still earlier writer of the Epistola Apostolorum.”

Numerous parallels to the Golden Rule of Matt. 7, 12 and Luke 6, 31 have been found in various writers. Most of these are Jewish or Christian, but some of them are far remote in time and place from Judaism and Christianity. Sometimes the precept is put in the positive form and sometimes in the negative, more frequently in the latter. A Syriac parallel, particularly interesting because it combines the two forms, seems to have been hitherto overlooked. It occurs in the philosophical dialogue entitled The Book of the Laws of the Countries, and is as follows: “For there are two commandments set before us, which are meet and right for free-will: one, that we should depart from everything that is evil and we hate to have done to ourselves; and the other, that we should do whatever is good and we love, and are pleased to have it done so also to ourselves.”

In the late Professor Camden Cobern's useful book entitled The New Archaeological Discoveries and their Bearing upon the New Testament a section is devoted to Tatian's Harmony of the Gospels, and on pages 205–207 a list of its remarkable readings is given, according to the Arabic text published by Ciasca. The list is misleading, for many of the supposed examples of variation from, the standard text are not such in reality. Hamlyn Hill's English translation, on which Cobern relied, is not always correct, and the Arabic translator himself was sometimes unfortunate in his rendering of an ambiguous Syriac word or phrase.

In a note on Matt. 1, 17 in the January number of this Review, I remarked that to squeeze the fourteen generations from Abraham to David into a period of four hundred and ninety years it was necessary to ignore the biblical chronology, which demands nearly twice as long. Professor Louis Ginzberg has suggested another possible explanation. In Yebamot 64b, Rabbah (b. Abuha), a Babylonian teacher of the third century, observes that it was in the days of David that the years of a man's life were first reduced to seventy (Psalm 90, 10). This inference from the Psalm might have been drawn at any time; and if it was current in the circle from which the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew comes, the author may not have applied his thirty-five year scheme to the generations before David.