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INTRODUCTION

I. The Hebrews in Palestine

The

THE narrow strip of land lying between the Arabian Desert and the Mediterranean Sea, naturally accessible to the ancient kingdoms of Babylonia, Assyria, and Egypt, has played a most important part in the history of the world. Through the Phoenicians and other Semitic peoples living there, came the arts, learning and literature of those three great ancient civilizations to the Greeks and thence to Europe. From the Hebrews at a later period came to Western peoples the Bible and the idea of one God, the Creator and Ruler of the Universe. According to the Bible, Abraham, the forefather of the Hebrews, migrated out of Babylonia (B. C. 2350) into the land of Canaan in Syria. Many years later his grandson, Jacob, went into Egypt to avoid the stringency Migrations of the Jews of a famine, and here his descendants remained for several centuries. These people were characterized by their belief in one God, who was personally directing their fortunes and through whom they believed that they would eventually possess the land in which they had sojourned. Still they remained in Egypt as long as they were allowed to control their own affairs. But when their prodigious growth aroused the fear of Pharaoh so that he took away their independence and forced them into bondage, they remembered "the promised land." Then, under the leadership of Moses, they fled from Egypt across the Red Sea (B. C. 1200), organized themselves into a nation, and, after years of wandering and fighting, made their way back into Canaan.

The Jews in Canaan

History of Judah

and Israel

After the death of Joshua, who was the chief leader in the invasion and subjugation of Canaan, the nation of twelve tribes was broken up into petty states, only occasionally to be reunited against some powerful common enemy under the leadership of the Judges, until Saul was made king (B. C. 1020). David, Saul's successor and the greatest warrior his race has produced, slowly but surely rid the land of all its enemies, and left to his son, Solomon, peace and a well-ordered kingdom. The wealth and the glory of his reign were a marvel to nations round about him, but from his time on, the prestige of his people declined, and three years after his death the realm was divided into the two kingdoms of Judah and Israel. Near the end of the eighth century (B. C. 722), Sargon, king of Assyria, invaded the kingdom of Israel and carried the ten tribes away to the mountains of Media, where they disappeared from history; and brought colonists from Persia, Babylonia, and neighboring lands to take their places. A little over a century after this (B. C. 586) Nebuchadnezzar swooped down upon Judah, burned Jerusalem, and carried many of its inhabitants to Babylon, where they flourished in "the second land of Canaan" nearly sixteen hundred years. About fifty years later (B. C. 538), however, when Cyrus, king of Persia, took possession of Babylon, forty thousand of these Jews under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah were allowed to return to Palestine and rebuild Jerusalem. Although after this they were a more or less independent people till the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans (A. D. 70), they acknowledged in the third century the lordship of Alexander the Great; a little later that of Soter, one of Alexander's generals and ruler of Egypt, who carried one hundred thousand Jews off to Alexandria; and, after him, that of the Syrians till B. C. 165. Under the

leadership of the Maccabees they won their independence from the Syrians and held it for over one hundred years. Jerusalem fell into the hands of Pompey B. c. 63. From then till 1516, when Palestine became a part of Turkey, the land of the Jews shared the fate of the Roman and Byzantine Empires.

To these people, who lived in the midst of nations sodden in nature worship, whose devotion was sorely tested and whose wisdom was purified by a career almost unparalleled in adversity, the world owes the purest religion and the best of books. Whether considered as a guide in moral and spiritual life or merely as literature, the Bible is the greatest book in existence.

Α

of Books

II. The Hebrew Bible and Two Early Translations The Bible, as the derivation of the word implies, is really a collection of books. It is the literature of the ancient Jews that has come down to us. We recognize its composite character in giving it two distinct parts, Collection the Old and the New Testaments. Each of its books is as distinctly an independent production as Milton's "Paradise Lost" or Tennyson's "In Memoriam." If "Beowulf," the poems of Spenser, the plays of Shakespeare, and Wesley's hymns were bound in one volume, the miscellaneousness of the collection would be not unlike that of the Bible. Lyman Abbott says that when we examine the Bible as a literary production, "we discover at once that it is not a book but a library; that it is composed of sixty-six different books bound up together; that they were apparently written by forty or more different authors; that they were written at different epochs, for different readers, under widely different circumstances; and that more than twice as many years elapsed between the first and last writing as elapsed between Chaucer's poems and the writing of Tennyson's."

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"We further discover," he continues, "that it contains many different types of literature. Genesis is a collection of prehistoric narratives; Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, a collection of ancient laws, civil and ecclesiastical, embedded in history; Kings and Chronicles, a series of historical records; Ruth, an idyl of the common people; Esther, an historical romance of court life; Job, an 'epic of the inner life'; the Psalms, a Hebrew hymnal for church and home worship; Proverbs, a collection of wise sayings of many authors; the Song of Songs, a drama of love strong under temptation; Ecclesiastes, a poem, illustrating the 'two voices' which are ever appearing in conflicting interpretations of human life, the interpretation of cynicism, and that of faith and hope; and finally the books of the prophets, volumes of sermons, chiefly on national affairs, by the great preachers of this peculiar people." Like the literature of any other great people, it has legend, law, history, poetry, fiction, drama, oration, philosophy. Unlike other literatures, one main purpose and spirit runs through all its forms in all ages, a profound interest in moral and religious life; a consciousness of God's guiding influence in all life of the nation and the individual. This is one reason why the Bible has for us sufficient unity to be considered one book. The Bible, then, is a record of the doings of the Jewish people, their outlook upon life, their way of living and thinking, their sentiments, aspirations and wisdom.

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The ten words of Moses, afterwards expanded into the Ten Commandments, are supposed by some to be the oldest Hebrew scripture contained in the Bible. But Changing before the death of Moses much of what is now contained in the Pentateuch had been written. So, gradually, as time went on, other scriptures were added to these. Traditions like those of the creation and of Eden were

Form

put in written form; songs like those of Hannah, Samuel's mother, and of Deborah and Barak; fables like that of the trees choosing a king; legends, stories of heroes and kings, laws, sermons, poems, proverbs, — all were written down for the instruction of this peculiarly devout people. Very few, if any, of all these books have come down to us as they were first written. The law in the books of Moses consists of layer upon layer of revisions at so many different times that it is impossible to disentangle them. In Genesis scholars see the handiwork of at least four writers or revisers. It seems that each succeeding scribe added to, excerpted, or paraphrased at will, his sources. Sometimes he would use two different accounts of the same event, as in the story of the Creation, not without some confusion. Thus the written form, like oral tradition, was constantly changing.

That the books in our Bible were not all the books produced by the ancient Jews, it is natural to suppose. In fact, fifteen other books are referred to in the Old Testament and others are mentioned in the Apocrypha. Jude quotes from the book of Enoch; Jesus and James quote from books unknown to us to-day. The reason for this is somewhat evident in the fact that the books of the Apocrypha, which are included in the Septuagint, are left out of our Bible because they were considered of uncertain authority and inspiration. From the very first the Hebrews regarded certain books as more sacred than others. These constituted the Canon, the authoritative standard of religion and morals. Moses, just before leaving the children of Israel for the last time, commanded the Levites to put the "book of the law" in the side of the ark. To this were added, if we are to believe the references in a later part of the Old Testament, at various times, Joshua, historical sketches, proverbs, and some prophecies. It will be remembered that Deuteronomy

The

Canon

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