RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Horsley Hosea
ner of men, friends and strangers at home and abroad and of a constant care for and support of the work of younger men, which prevented his publishing his own work; among the volumes which have appeared since his death are: The Way, the Truth the Life (London, 1893) ; Judaistic Christianity (1894); Lectures on the Ante-Nicene Fathers (1895); Prolegomena to Romans and Ephesians (1895); The Christian Ecclesia (1897); Village Sermons (1897);
Second Series (1905); Cambridge and Other Sermons (1898); / Peter i. 1-ii. 17 (1898); Village Sermons in Outline (1900); and Notes Introductory to the Study of the Clementine Recognitions (1901).
Caspar Rene Gregory. Bibliography: A. F. Hort, Life and Letters of F. J. A. Hort, by his son, 2 vols., London, 1896; DNB, Supplement, ii. 443-447.
HOSANNA. See Liturgics, III.
I. Conservative View.
The Book of Hosea. Its Genuineness (§ 1).
Date of Hosea's Activity (§ 2).
Contents of the Book (§ 3).
The Complete Law Implied (§4).
1. Conservative View : Hosea, son of Beeri, was all his life a subject of the northern kingdom, as is indicated in i. 2 and vii. 5 where
he speaks of the northern king as i. The " our king " and of the land as be-
Book of longing to that realm. His book, Hosea. Its moreover, shows a minute knowledge
Genuine- of that land, while the references to ness. Judah are cursory and due to the fact that he regards salvation as possible only from it, where still exist the service of Yahweh and the Davidic line. The objection of Wellhausen to passages referring to David and Judah as interpolations because contrary to Hosea's view of the kingdom; of Stade to i. 7 and ii. 1-3 as breaking the connection, and to iv. 15, viii. 4 as not in accord with Hosea's representation;' and of Cornill, who sees in ii. 20 and xiv. proof of the spuriousness of the verses which look for a union of the two kingdoms, are all answerable. The reference to Gibeah in ix. 9 and x. 10 can, according to viii. 4, x. 10, refer only to the separation of the kingdoms; i. 7 can not be ascribed to an interpolator because of its Hoseanic character; the repetition of Yahweh in iii. 5b speaks for the genuineness of the whole verse; the exhortation in ii. 1-3 corresponds to the threat in i. 2-9; while the references to a Davidic king are motived by the Messianic outlook of the prophet.
The note of time in i. 1 bespeaks an activity
covering sixty years, in itself not incredible, since
at the beginning of his ministry Hosea
2. Date of appears as a young, unmarried man. Hosea's But it is hard to explain omission to Activity, mention the Syrian-Ephraimitic war.
It is better to place the book before 734 b.c. and to ascribe the mention of the kings of Judah who appear in Isa. i. 1 and Micah i. 1 to the desire to make Hosea appear throughout a contemporary of those whose early contemporary he was. The period of his activity was coincident with the most glorious period of the northern kingdom, when Jeroboam II. had reestablished the old boundaries of his realm, but when at the same time religiously and morally the conditions were low. Syncretism of worship with the cults of surrounding states was progressing rapidly. Under these conditions it was Hosea's task to bear witness against the ruling sins V—24
HOSEA.
Literary Features (§ 5). II. Critical View.
Questions of Text and Authorship
(I 1). Problem of Chaps, i.-iii. (§2). Chap. iii. a Continuation of Chap, i. (§ 3).
Interpretations of Chap. i.
Literal View (§4). A Possible Alternative (§ 5). Date of Chaps, i.-iii. (§ 6). Features of Chaps, iv.-xiv.
(§7).
The
of the northern kingdom and to summon it to judgment, yet without forgetting the grace God had promised to his people.
The book falls into two parts: i.-iii., where prophecy is united with the relation of personal
experiences of the prophet; iv.-xiv.,
3. Contents where the personal element does not
of the appear. Internal evidence indicates