OLD TESTAMENT SCIENCE 541 



the Semites, of the clans and tribes of Israel, whereby without resort- 

 ing to kingly headship they became a confederation with a national 

 outlook and spirit. Another is the brotherliness of the two kingdoms 

 after the schism that followed the death of Solomon, by virtue of 

 which their reestablished friendship was scarcely broken for a century 

 and a half. These things suggest that the history of Israel best repays 

 study from a point of view different from that of the historian of 

 spectacular or epoch-making external events. 



Old Testament science, then, serves political history mainly as it 

 contributes to an accurate estimate of the place and function of a small 

 portion of the Semitic family, and thereby throwing a little light upon 

 the struggle for existence of the peoples of Western Asia. From this 

 point of view the history of Israel has received more illustration from 

 the history of kindred peoples than it has itself contributed, and 

 must be reckoned a beneficiary rather than a benefactor. To have 

 established here the true relation of things is, however, no mean 

 achievement of our science, w T hich has sifted the chaff from the 

 wheat in the traditions of the national heroes, and has reduced to 

 its correct proportions the age-long estimate of the prowess and dig- 

 nity of the kings of Israel. We may now see how insignificant was 

 the place occupied by the Hebrew people in the wars and politics of 

 the ancient world. The most significant thing in its career was its 

 inextinguishable vitality, and that was due not to the performances 

 of its rulers and warriors, but to the thoughts and aspirations of 

 its prophets and poets, who breathed into the soul of the true Israel 

 the breath of their own inspiration. Thus the saying of "one of 

 them" was fulfilled, "Not by might nor by power, but by my 

 Spirit, saith Yah we." 



The institutional history of ancient Israel has also been set in a new 

 light by modern research. This has been done in two principal 

 ways : 



(1) The legal and prescriptive writings are now seen not to have 

 preceded and inspired the prophetic and reflective literature, which is 

 in the main independent of them. It had formerly been thought that 

 the germs of the sentiments of Prophecy and the Psalms were con- 

 tained in the Law. Hence its importance in the traditional theory of 

 the composition and growth of the Old Testament. Now it is seen to 

 have been largely theoretical, and some of the most imposing pre- 

 scriptions were never brought into practical effect. Moreover, men 

 now feel that what is essentially formal or preceptive cannot be the 

 antecedent condition of growth and evolution in the world of the 

 spirit. But the Law, as far as it is either ceremonial or regulative, has 

 a value to the student of institutional history as having been the 

 great conservative force in the late pre-Christian centuries, and as 

 furnishing one of the keys to the external history of modern Judaism. 



