Viii THE EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 289 



theological history of the Israelites than with 

 that of any other nation. We may therefore 

 fitly make it the first object of our studies ; and 

 it will be convenient to commence with that 

 period which lies between the invasion of Canaan 

 and the early days of the monarchy, and answers 

 to the eleventh and twelfth centuries B.C. or 

 thereabouts. The evidence on which any con- 

 clusion as to the nature of Israelitic theology in 

 those days must be based is wholly contained 

 in the Hebrew Scriptures an agglomeration of 

 documents which certainly belong to very different 

 ages, but of the exact dates and authorship of 

 any one of which (except perhaps a few of 

 the prophetical writings) there is no evidence, 

 either internal or external, so far as I can 

 discover, of such a nature as to justify more than 

 a confession of ignorance, or, at most, an approxi- 

 mate conclusion. In this venerable record of 

 ancient life, miscalled a book, when it is really 

 a library comparable to a selection of works 

 from English literature between the times of 

 Beda and those of Milton, we have the stratified 

 deposits (often confused and even with their 

 natural order inverted) left by the stream of the 

 intellectual and moral life of Israel during many 

 centuries. And, embedded in these strata, there 

 are numerous remains of forms of thought which 

 once lived, and which, though often unfortunately 

 mere fragments, are of priceless value to the 



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