But over this work, as well as over the whole body of profane writers, was impending a singular fate, which, in the lapse of time, was not to be averted.  Hitherto it had been received as a matter of implicit faith, that this book of books was composed in one spirit; that it was even inspired, and, as it were, dictated by the Divine Spirit.  Yet for a long time already the discrepancies of the different parts of it had been now cavilled at, now apologized for, by believers and unbelievers.  English, French, and Germans had attacked the Bible with more or less violence, acuteness, audacity, and wantonness; and just as often had it been taken under the protection of earnest, sound-thinking men of each nation.  As for myself, I loved and valued it; for almost to it alone did I owe my moral culture:  and the events, the doctrines, the symbols, the similes, had all impressed themselves deeply upon me, and had influenced me in one way or another.  These unjust, scoffing, and perverting attacks, therefore, disgusted me; but people had already gone so far as very willingly to admit, partly as a main ground for the defense of many passages, that God had accommodated himself to the modes of thought and power of comprehension in men; that even those moved by the Spirit had not on that account been able to renounce their character, their individuality, and that Amos, a cow-herd, did not use the language of Isaiah, who is said to have been a prince.

Out of such views and convictions, especially with a constantly increasing knowledge of languages, was very naturally developed that kind of study by which it was attempted to examine more accurately the Oriental localities, nationalities, natural products, and phenomena, and in this manner to make present to one’s self that ancient time.  Michaelis employed the whole strength of his talents and his knowledge on this side.  Descriptions of travels became a powerful help in explaining the Holy Scriptures; and later travellers, furnished with numerous questions, were made, by the answers to them, to bear witness for the prophets and apostles.

But whilst they were on all sides busied to bring the Holy Scriptures to a natural intuition, and to render peculiar modes of thought and representation in them more universally comprehensible, that by this historico-critical aspect many an objection might be removed, many offensive things effaced, and many a shallow scoffing be made ineffective, there appeared in some men just the opposite disposition, since these chose the darkest, most mysterious, writings as the subject of their meditations, and wished, if not to elucidate them, yet to confirm them through internal evidence, by means of conjectures, calculations, and other ingenious and strange combinations, and, so far as they contained prophecies, to prove them by the results, and thus to justify a faith in what was next to be expected.