HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. 



encouragement drawn from the certain fulfil- 

 ment of God's gracious promises. This view 

 permits those who hold it to look with greater 

 equanimity on presumed errors in the propheti- 

 cal authors, or in the traditional interpretations 

 of their idealistic imagery ; as also on the still 

 more significant discovery, that the alleged 

 authorship is sometimes doubtful. Thus, while 

 the first thirty-nine chapters of the book of Isaiah 



*are generally supposed to be the work of the con- 

 temporary of Hezekiah, the remaining chapters 

 (xl.-lxvi.) are regarded as the composition of one 

 who had seen the miseries of the Exile, and who 

 knew the desolations of Judah. Cyrus is men- 

 tioned by name (xlv. i), and an intimate know- 

 ledge is exhibited of his career. The style, both 

 in thought and language, of the 'younger' Isaiah 

 is entirely unlike that of the older ; even in the 

 English version this is apparent. The text of 

 Jeremiah is in a state of great disorder. The 

 last chapter is a later appendix, and the final 

 editor of the whole work is unknown. The 

 Lamentations of Jeremiah display the same liter- 

 ary characteristics as the larger work, and are 

 the production of the same mind. Ezekiel was 

 not, even among the Jews, universally supposed 

 to be the work of the writer whose name it bears. 

 The Talmud says it was the composition of the 

 Great Synagogue ; while the internal differences 

 are so marked, that modern criticism would bring 

 down parts of the prophetic vision to the Persian 

 period, and even later. The last nine chapters, 

 describing with great minuteness everything con- 

 cerning the temple to be, and the priesthood, the 

 division of the Holy Land, the dimensions of the 

 Holy City, and the like, are not prophetic in 

 tone, but priestly ; they are the details thought 

 out by an organising caste who are shaping anew 

 the conditions of national life. The book of 

 Daniel, not admitted by the Jews into the pro- 

 phetical series proper, is radically unlike the 

 other prophecies. The precise details regarding 

 events long after Daniel's time, are singularly 

 in contrast with the 'prophetic perspective' of 

 earlier prophets. Both the Hebrew and the 

 Chaldee are very corrupt ; Greek words occur 

 e.g. symphonia (Hi. 5), translated ' dulcimer' in the 

 authorised version ; there are not a few historical 

 difficulties in connection with the statements 

 made about Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius 

 the Mede ; its angelology is post-exilian. The 

 work in its present form is perhaps not earlier 

 than times of foreign oppression by Antiochus 

 Epiphanes, and the Maccabee wars. It is un- 

 necessary to touch upon all the minor prophets 

 separately. But Zechariah is now very commonly 

 assumed to consist of two main parts (i. to viii. 

 and ix. to xiv.) of which the latter is by an author 

 or authors living at a much later time than the 

 earlier prophet, to whose work, in spite of charac- 

 teristic differences, these oracles have been 

 appended. The book of Jonah is often taken to 

 resemble Job in containing a poetical invention of 

 incidents for didactic purposes, but grouped 

 around a venerable historical name. 



It is sufficiently manifest that very many of the 

 conclusions above recorded cannot be supported 

 by demonstrative evidence. Like all arguments 

 of the kind, they rest on probability alone. To 

 complete the sketch, it may be well to give a 

 summary view of the newer conceptions as to 



the development of the Hebrew canonical litera- 

 ture. 



The first beginnings of the existing collection of 

 Old Testament Scriptures are to be sought for in 

 the time of Moses and the age immediately after 

 him. In Solomon's time (the loth century B.C.), 

 the first four books of Moses and the connected 

 book of Joshua were compiled from three or more 

 sources : to the time of the later kings are to be 

 traced the books of Judges and Samuel. In the 

 8th century B.C., the earlier oracles of the prophets 

 were written down ; in Josiah's time the Pen- 

 tateuch was completed ; and the books of Kings, 

 compiled from more ancient materials, date from 

 the Babylonian exile. So that by this time the 

 first canon of the Jews, the Torah, was complete ; 

 together with the first part of the second canon, 

 the ' prior prophets.' The second part, compris- 

 ing the ' posterior prophets ' or prophets proper, 

 was begun after the Exile, and finished probably 

 before 200 B.C. Last of all comes the third 

 canon, or Hagiographa. It includes Chronicles, 

 dating from about 200 B.C. ; Daniel, from near 

 the middle of the 2d century; Psalms, ancient 

 and modern; and the Proverbs and Job, both 

 probably of the 8th century B.C. All the three 

 divisions of the Old Testament are spoken of in 

 the book of Sirach (130 B.C.) ; and though doubts 

 as to the standing of Ecclesiastes and Esther 

 continued to crop up, the Old Testament canon, 

 as we have it, seems to have been completely 

 established in the time of Josephus. 



VERSIONS. 



We now proceed to notice those versions of 

 the Old Testament in whole or part that are still 

 extant First comes the Samaritan Pentateuch. 



The Samaritan Pentateuch. 



We are told (2 Kings xvii. 2, 24) that after 

 the king of Assyria had carried away the ten 

 tribes of Israel into captivity (737 B.C.), he sent 

 some of his own subjects as colonists into the 

 desolate country, where none but the aged and 

 poor of the Israelites had been left. The Assyrians 

 and the Israelites, it is usually said, soon became 

 a mixed people, henceforth known as Samaritans. 

 There is no actual evidence of this coalescence, 

 and it is not asserted in Scripture, but it is 

 intrinsically probable, and is therefore generally 

 assumed by all shades of Biblical critics. The 

 origin and age of the Pentateuch possessed by 

 this mixed race is still matter of dispute. Some 

 are of opinion that it came into their hands as a 

 natural inheritance from the Jewish people, whom 

 they succeeded at the time of the Babylonish 

 exile. Josephus (Ant. xi. 8, ss. 2, 4) states that it 

 was brought to them by Manasse, when the 

 Samaritan sanctuary on Mount Gerizim was 

 founded ; others suppose that the Israelitish 

 priest sent by the king of Assyria (2 Kings, xvii. 

 27, 28) to instruct the new settlers in the reli- 

 gion of the country, brought it with him. It has 

 even been conjectured that it is a late and faulty 

 recension of the Hebrew text, into which glosses 

 from the Septuagint have been introduced ; and 

 in confirmation of this view, it is pointed out that 

 the anthropomorphisms and anthropopathisms of 

 the original have been carefully expunged. 



There are very few references to the work in 

 early times. If we except some vague allusions 



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