1. The first five books, called the books of Moses, seem always to have existed in one roll, and these constituted “The Law,” and were the only Scriptures read in the synagogues until the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, B. C. 168,129 who bitterly persecuted the Jews and forbade the use of the Law in the synagogues. During the time of this prohibition, only the Prophets were read, in the place of the Law, but when the persecution ceased the Jews began the reading of the Law again, but continued the reading of the prophets.130
2. In order that the Pentateuch should be read through in one year, the entire work was divided into fifty-four sections,131 so as to supply a portion for each Sabbath.132 These divisions were made long before the time of the persecution just referred to; indeed the earliest Hebrew writers think they existed almost so far back as the time of Moses.133
3. In the time of Ezra the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, Esther, Malachi, and possibly Daniel, were not included in the Canonical books of that time, simply because they were either not completed or too recently completed. Scripture, or the Bible as we would call it, consisted only of the five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, in one roll. The Psalms of David were sung in the Temple worship, but no other books appear to have been used in public worship until the time we have already stated, B. C. 168. But the Jewish writers included in the word “prophets” some of the historical books.134
Ezra is considered by both ancient Jews and by modern scholars to be the author both of the Chronicles and of Ezra.135 Nehemiah was the author of the book bearing his name, and this is the last historical book of Scripture, as Malachi is the last prophetic book. The book of Nehemiah contains the history of the Jews from a period beginning 12 years after the close of the book of Ezra, B. C. 456, to about 110 years after the Captivity, or B. C. 426, with the exception we shall hereafter state, p. 219. Esther became queen of Xerxes B. C. 478.136 The inscription on the rocks at Behustan, 215 miles northeast of Babylon, has shown that this king was the Ahasuerus of the book of Esther, which was written some years after she became queen.
4. In regard to the size of those ancient books, it should be remembered that it was not always convenient to bind together in any way more than a very few of them in one volume. They were in rolls, as the word “volume” means, and when we know that one ancient roll of only the Law of Moses, of average size, in manuscript, which is preserved in the Collegiate Library, Manchester, England, is 160 feet long and 20 inches wide, we may readily see that very few could be handled at a time.
5. The books of the Old Testament were named in the order of their importance in Jewish estimation, and not as we would name them to-day in the order of their position in the single volume of our Bibles. The books of the Law always took precedence in the order, then the Prophets, and after them the Psalms, as three general divisions, and this statement included all, Luke 24:44. That some of the books were kept in separate rolls to a very late period is evident even in the time of Christ, for when he appeared in the synagogue at Nazareth only the roll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and from this he read, Luke 4:17.
6. But in the enumeration of the books individually, except in the case of the five “books of the Law,” which, as we have said, have never been known otherwise than in one volume, it is evident that some variations of the exact order have occurred. These variations had their origin in the Septuagint137 translation, wherein the translators not only changed the Hebrew order, but the Hebrew names of some, and even divided some of the books, making two or more out of one.
7. As an illustration of the changes in names of the books, the translators gave the Greek names: Genesis, “the beginning;” Exodus, “the going out;” Leviticus, “concerning Levitical law;” Numbers (of Latin derivation), because the book contains the census of the tribes or numbers;138 Deuteronomy, the Greek for “the repeated law,” because of the repetition of the law.
8. The Jews used the initial Hebrew words of each book in the Pentateuch for its name; but this does not occur afterwards. The books of Samuel were one with the older Jews, and so were the books of Kings; but the Greek translators made them the first and second books of the “kingdoms,” and the books of Kings came in course as the third and fourth books, and this is the reason for the additions to the titles in our English Bibles, “otherwise called the first book, the second book, etc., of Kings.”
9. By this term is meant the end of that time whose history is included in the latest of the Old Testament books. Some of these books contain histories which extend to a period nearer the Christian era than do the histories of others, as in the case of the books of the Chronicles, of Esther, of Ezra, and Nehemiah.
10. The books of the Old Testament, which are thirty-nine in number, present the records of events which transpired during the course of more than 3,500 years, or from the creation of Adam to the third century before the Christian era. But we must keep in mind the distinction between the time when events occurred and the time when such events were first recorded. There yet remains another date, namely that of the period when the collator or collators of all these manuscripts produced his or their own work of collecting and arranging them into one history or one volume. Let us suppose a case.
11. A historian undertakes to write a true history of the times of the Norman conquest. In gathering the materials for this history he visits the libraries and collections and finds an old manuscript-history of events written by some one who was on the field at the battle of Hastings, and another written by one who lived in the times soon after and had heard from living witnesses of the exploits of the warrior Hereward in his contests with the Normans. In another manuscript he finds a collection of the ballads of those times commemorating the acts of some brave knight and some reminiscences of that age as communicated by tradition to immediate descendants. With these and other materials he compiles the history desired.
12. Such a history of the Norman conquest of England would be credible, first, if the editor or compiler in his researches truthfully found and wisely used such manuscripts as we have described; and second, if the manuscripts and his other authorities were in themselves trustworthy. But how is this to be tested? We read the new book when finished, and in order to learn something satisfactory upon these two points we now start out upon our examinations. Our question is, Was there ever such an event as the battle of Hastings? How shall we get testimony?
13. The geography of the country, local remains, and other facts may furnish us with evidence for or against. In one chapter of the book it is stated that there was an old castle in which William lodged the night before the battle, and that there is from it no view north, but a fair view towards the south.
We visit Hastings and find the remains of an old castle, and we see high hills on the north and none on the south. Herein we see some corroboration of the history. But now some one shows that there is no evidence that any battle ever was fought at Hastings, and the oldest manuscripts sustain the objection, and show that the battle of the conquest was fought at a place called Senlac.
This now throws a doubt upon the whole history. There is contradiction, perhaps error. We go back to the study of the manuscripts and we find that a more recent collator of the history of the conquest, writing with a view to readers of his own times, introduced the new name, “Hastings,” as better understood than another name, Senlac, and all subsequent copyists followed his manuscript.
But the early name, “Senlac,” is found nowhere, while it still remains true that no battle was fought at Hastings. Additional doubt shadows the whole history. But now in a monastery an old manuscript is found, written centuries ago, describing some of the old abbeys, among which one is mentioned named “Battle Abbey,” followed by a short explanation, stating that it is located at the village called “Battle,” quite near Hastings. The last part is an interpolation in the manuscript, and evidently written many years after the writing of the original manuscript, and both authors are unknown.
We now visit the village of Battle, near Hastings, and find local traditions handed down in connection with an old abbey still remaining and built upon the spot where Harold fell. Arrow-heads and fragments of battle-axes are found and are shown to us; the former are found scattered over the hills only on one side. This corroborates another statement, that the Normans used bows and arrows, while the Anglo-Saxons used only battle-axes.
All these discoveries strengthen the links in the chain of evidences between facts and their history, until all doubts are cleared away and even the “validity of doubt itself is doubtful.”
14. Just such a course of research, of discovery, and of success in final vindication has attended almost every historical announcement in Scripture.
15. At the close of the Canonical period, whatever books made up the Canon were so rigidly guarded ever afterwards in every way, by memorizing, by commentary and paraphrase, by increasing the copies in manuscripts, and by numbering letters and words, that it is impossible that any material difference exists between them and the books which make up the Old Testament of the present day. These books have not been changed in any important respect during the 2,200 years which have transpired since the close of the Canon.
16. But now the chief discussion is upon the question, Did the books, at the close of the Canonical period, fairly represent those books which the original authors wrote before the Canon was closed? In other words, have we a true copy of the books of Moses and true copies of those who wrote after him? The second question is, Were those ancient books trustworthy—were they truly historical? Did Ezra and the others wisely and truly use the old manuscripts, and were those manuscripts trustworthy?
17. Now it will be perceived that we occupy the position of those who undertook to corroborate the history of the battle of Hastings. We shall proceed somewhat as we did then.
From the repeated and varied discoveries in Egypt, Assyria, and Palestine we have a repetition of the names of kings and of cities never known before the present century except as they were mentioned in Scripture. They have been recently found recorded upon the monuments which had been buried centuries before the captivity, and brought to light only in the present century. Inscriptions have been discovered which repeated historical statements of early Scripture books, some of which statements had either been omitted entirely by every Greek historian or had been contradicted by them, but which, when the hieroglyphic and cuneiform languages could be read, were proved to be accurate statements—thus giving testimony to the fact that the Scripture accounts were more ancient and more accurate than any of the Greek or other histories.
18. Again: peculiar terms of art occur in the Scriptures, with official titles, trade names, allusions to customs, and forms of expression, the origins of which have been found only among the nations where, or about which, these particular books of Scripture purport to have been written; and they could be recognized only after the hieroglyphic histories of these ancient nations could be read.
The inferences from all these parallelisms are apparent: these Scripture books are truly historical, they contain the records of facts and are trustworthy.
At what time all these histories were committed to writing, or who were the writers, we are not in all cases able to show; but inability in this respect does not disprove the fact of authenticity.
19. When we consider the ages through which many of the books of the Bible have passed, and the singular conditions upon which they have thus passed through those ages, we may readily appreciate the claim of a supernatural preservation.
There are writings, more ancient than those of the Mosaic manuscripts, which have come down to us from long before the time of Moses; such are the so-called “Books of the Dead,” found in the tombs of Egypt;139 but these writings, as soon as they were finished, were immediately locked up amid the spices, the darkness and protection of the tomb, till recently brought out, while the contents of the books of the Mosaic Law, and other manuscripts of Scripture, have come percolating down through the ages, doing battle all that time with thousands of scribes, and indeed with any transcriber who felt inclined to copy a book; and that work of transcribing has continued from the period when the Mosaic manuscripts were completed down to the period of the return from the captivity, or of the close of the Canon—that is over a thousand years—and from that period to the present.
Excepting variations in some numerical figures and in a few names, which may be accounted for, and in some cases corrected, all the rest of the variations are of so small importance that the Bible, as we possess it, may well be considered a literary monument, standing alone and unexampled amid the literature of all time. And this not only for its singular preservation, but for that evident unity of purpose, persistent through all its variety of subjects and authors, until the time when the last prophetic utterance closed the Canon.
Then there stood out in luminous form a finished work, whose pages exhibit the proof of a systematic plan, designed from the very beginning to fill out progressively its mysterious pages, until the last letter was complete, in order that a world might see, in one volume, the object of creation, the necessity of law, the illustrations of judgment and of providence, and the redemption and coming salvation of the race.
20. The conquest of the Persians under Alexander introduced the Greek language into Western Asia and other lands. This introduction prepared the way for a very extensive circulation of the entire Old Testament writings throughout the surrounding nations and even the world. For up to this time all the Old Testament was in the Hebrew language; but as soon as the translation into the Greek was made, of which we shall now speak, even those who could not speak Greek could easily find those who could, because among the learned and unlearned there were many who knew Greek who did not understand the Hebrew.
When, therefore, the death of Alexander was followed by the partition of his conquests among his generals, Egypt became, in B. C. 322, governed by the Ptolemies, the second of whom, Ptolemy Philadelphus, B. C. 286–247, had the Law of Moses, that is the first five books, translated from the Hebrew into the Greek.
21. Under the first of the Ptolemies (Soter) the Alexandrian Museum was founded for the reception of learned men, as well as of literary treasures, and Alexandria soon superseded Athens as the chief nursery of Greek literature. Under his successor and son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, the library of the Museum contained 90,000 volumes of distinct works, but 400,000 with the duplicates.
Beginning with some period in the reign of the first Ptolemy (Soter), the Jews were attracted to Alexandria in large numbers as settlers, to whom this Ptolemy assigned a suburb on the coast towards the east. The city became the resort of some of the wisest and ablest men of the age, including such men as Apelles the painter, Euclid the mathematician, and many others, artists and scholars.
22. But under Ptolemy II., Philadelphus, B. C. 283, the Museum became most prosperous, and among its members were numbered grammarians, natural philosophers, astronomers, physicians, poets, and Greek philosophers of the schools.140 It was under this state of things that the translation above referred to was asked by the king and was undertaken, according to tradition, by seventy of the most learned Jews of that date, and hence called “The translation of the seventy,” or the Septuagint.
23. Although at first only the Pentateuch was translated, the other books were, in after years, gradually added to this translation. The Septuagint was used among the Jews not only of Alexandria, but of Palestine also, and during the times of our Saviour and the apostles was more frequently quoted than was the original Hebrew.141
1. It will be remembered that although under Cyrus the Jews were permitted full liberty to return to Palestine, not all the Jewish nation accepted the privilege. A very large number of the wealthiest, and indeed of the most learned classes, remained behind. They did much for the support of the Temple and for other objects among those who had returned to Palestine, but they themselves continued the synagogue service in Babylonia and in Persia, as appears from various statements and allusions, not only in Jewish writings, but also in other history.
2. Among those Jews, however, who had returned to Palestine there arose very early a class of devout and earnest students of the Law and of the other books of Scripture. There began also a most diligent collection of the traditions of the Jewish race and the opinions of the learned. Meanwhile a very constant correspondence was cherished between the colonists abroad and those in the Holy Land, and both at home and abroad there were those who were learned in the Law and in the other books.
The whole object of study and correspondence among the learned was to explain and illustrate the sacred literature in all its branches. The information thus gained laid the foundation of that which was soon to be called the Talmud, a name literally meaning Doctrine or Instruction.
3. But before we treat further on this remarkable work it is well to consider certain conditions which added much to the formation of the Talmud.
Although the Jews reformed forever from all tendency to idolatry, they nevertheless differed among themselves on many details of both faith and practice, and hence there grew up an exceedingly critical study of the literature and teachings of the book.
4. Between the close of the Canonical period and the Christian era there arose many intellectual and studious ones, who ranged themselves under three general and widespread schools.
(1) The Traditionalists, called by the Jews the Masoretic School, or Pharisees.
(2) The Philosophic school, of whom were the Sadducees.
(3) The Kabalistic school.
The first of these confined themselves strictly to Scripture and tradition. They derived their name from the Hebrew word masar, to deliver, as from hand to hand.
The second entered the paths of speculation unknown to the fathers. They were pleased with the Greek philosophy, due to their contact with the schools of Alexandria. They strove to harmonize the principles of Judaism with the doctrines of Pythagoras, the philosophy of Plato, and the logic of Aristotle. Thus, as virtue was its own reward, they taught that there can be no future reward, and therefore that there was no future life and no resurrection; and this was the belief of the Sadducees.
The third school, Kabalistic, believed in the mysteries, or secret meaning of the words of the Law. They thought they could detect secret truths in the words, and sometimes the letters of the words, which others could not apprehend. They taught that the truths were to the words of Scripture what the soul is to the body, and that we are mistaken if we see only the letter in the Scripture, and fail to ascend by the help of the letter to the ideas of the Infinite Mind.142
5. From the men of the Masoretic school, who devoted themselves strictly to the Law and Tradition, arose a series of academies, or scholastic institutions. Those were presided over by the most learned members of that body, which, as we have said, followed upon the Great Synagogue after the death of Simon the Just, and which was called the Sanhedrin, or council.143 This council, about this time, became the seat of supreme legislative power among the Jews, in both civil and ecclesiastical matters, but was subsequently divested of some of its powers by Gabinius, the Roman governor of Syria, B. C. 57.144 It is referred to in the New Testament (Matt. 5:22; 26:59; Acts 4:15; 5:27, etc.).
6. But the Sanhedrin, which was presided over by the high-priest, became the centre of learning and authority so far back as B. C. 200 years.
The priesthood was recognized as the legitimate ministers of the altar; but the people, with whom the Mosaic Law was supreme, entering as it did into all the details of their lives, regarded the expositors and interpreters of that Law with the highest honor. With them “the voice of the rabbi” became “the voice of God.”145
7. For many years before the Christian era the Sanhedrin was the highest authority in matters of faith, and its utterances, or more particularly those of the most learned of its members, both in traditions and in opinions, became so numerous that from being only orally delivered, they were committed to writing, and these writings and opinions upon the Law were the foundation of that voluminous work called the Talmud, with its divisions.
8. The Talmud therefore in the main was the growth of centuries, beginning from about B. C. 220 to several centuries after Christ. It was composed of the text of the Law, both the written law and that which was believed to be additional law, although only handed down from age to age, but never written. This was called the oral law. All this comprised that part of the Talmud called “the repetition,” or in the Hebrew the Mishna. Then came the “Commentary” upon every part, and this was called the Gamara.
9. As there had been a very large and learned class of Jews in Babylon from the Captivity to the time of Christ, there was also a corresponding number of very important schools in several cities on the Euphrates and east of it. These also gathered a Talmud, with its Mishna and Gamara; but this—called the Babylonian Talmud—was of later origin than the Jerusalem Talmud.
10. The various traditions which in all variety of expression, as unwritten laws, as commentaries and opinions, went to make up the Talmud, with its Mishna and Gamara, had remained unwritten for generations because there was a rule given out by some of their learned men and teachers that “things delivered by word of mouth must not be recorded.” But about A. D. 180 one of the most influential and wisest of their number, Rabbi Jehudah, decided that the time had come when the Mishna must be committed to writing. Rabbi Jehudah, for whom the greatest veneration existed, began with his fellow-laborers the heavy task of reducing all these traditions and decisions of many generations to a written form, and this work was performed at Tiberias (on the lake of the same name, 70 miles north of Jerusalem), where a celebrated school existed after Titus had destroyed Jerusalem.146 It is a memorable fact that for nearly four centuries the vast amount of literature which composed the Talmud had been stored only in the memory of the learned members of the Jewish nation.
11. The vastness of this labor of memorial possession may be comprehended in some degree when we learn that of only one rabbi147 300 magisterial sentences are recorded in the Talmud, and years before his time Rabbi Hillel148 reduced 600 or 700 sections, which had been known before only in a complicated mass, into orders, divisions, chapters, and verses, whereby they could be better memorized.
12. Although this cultivation of the memory was carried on to a very great extent among the Jews during one or two centuries before the Christian era, and to a degree unexcelled by any other nation, there are evidences that long before the Captivity the cultivation of the memory was largely encouraged.
13. Manuscripts were rare and costly, and therefore methods were adopted, as in the composition of several of the Psalms, of Proverbs, and Lamentations, which were aids to memorizing. One method was by beginning consecutive verses or sections with consecutive letters of the alphabet. Psalm 119 is composed of 176 verses, divided into a number of sections, the whole number of sections equal to the letters in the Hebrew alphabet (22), and all the eight verses of each section begin with the same letter. In Proverbs 31:10–31, the initial letters of all the verses follow the order of the Hebrew alphabet. The Lamentations of Jeremiah are composed in five poems, each, excepting the third, consisting of 22 sections or verses, a verse for each letter in the alphabet. The first four poems begin with the first letter of the alphabet, and in each poem, which makes one chapter, the after sections continue in their initial letters to follow the order of the alphabet. In the third chapter however the stanzas are in sets of three of the Bible verses, and each verse in the set begins with the same letter of the alphabet, but all the sets are in the alphabetical order. Such methods suggest the work of memorizing.
14. Again, we may say that, in view of all these facts, it does not seem possible that “the Law” could have been forgotten in the Captivity among all the learned and devout men, some of whom were prophets. It would seem that even without the written copies of the Law, Ezra, if he had so desired, could not have, as some suppose, introduced into the Law an entirely new book of Leviticus or Deuteronomy, and yet no one amid all the Jews have discovered the forgery.
We add the following remarks in the nature of a general review and inference, which are more appropriate to this era of the Jewish history than to any other.
1. There never was a time when the Jewish people exhibited such a humble and yet determined spirit of obedience to the Mosaic Law as when they returned from the Captivity. All the history of those times as derived from the Jewish writings, both sacred and secular, fully attests this spirit. All their hopes for the future, both political and religious, were conditioned upon outward obedience to the requirements of the Law as explained by the teachings of their ancient prophets or illustrated and made more impressive in the Psalms or songs of Israel and pictured to them in the happier days of the Temple service. All that appertained to the history of the past was precious. This fact, as we have shown, was illustrated in many ways.
2. Moreover, from the Scripture history of Ezra and Nehemiah, it is plain that a large body of skilled men, ably instructed in the Law and acquainted with the sacred writings of the Jewish people, were among the captives before the close of the Captivity. The Levites and priests were in existence, and the prophets were among them, and they met in various places for worship and for the songs of Zion. The condition of the Jews in Babylonia and elsewhere was favorable to the cultivation of their literature, and they were allowed many privileges.
It is plain from the letter of Artaxerxes, Ezra 7:11, and from other testimonies, that not only Ezra but many others studied the Jewish writings long before the close of the Captivity. The Samaritan Pentateuch in its letters may offer evidence on this point, for the new letters in which the Law and the canonized books were written very probably found their origin in the reverence in which the Jews held the sacred writings during the Captivity.
These new letters, as we have said, are called the “square form,” but they were called by the early Jews149 “the Ashuri” character, Ashuri meaning, according to Maimonides, the sacred character, and they were probably invented specially for sacred writings.
The old Samaritan letters were not sacred. They were used in various modifications by the Canaanites; they were used by the Moabites, as we see on the Moabite stone, discovered in 1868 at Dibon, east of the Dead Sea; they were also used by the Phœnicians,150 and have been found upon Assyrian weights associated with the cuneiform, probably for the convenience of the merchants and tradesmen,151 upon the coins of Judæa, and upon one coin of Jehu, king of Israel.152 It was therefore a common character, and it was strictly in keeping with the Jewish sentiment of exclusiveness and separation of themselves from all the nations around that they should clothe their sacred writings in a letter peculiarly sacred. At any rate we have no other origin for this new form of lettering, which was never known before the Captivity, and which was used after the Captivity exclusively for the sacred writings, as we learn from the Talmuds of both Jerusalem and Babylonia.153
3. The various sects of Pharisees, with their oral tradition and “unwritten law,” and the Kabalists, with their fanciful and secret interpretations, had not arisen at the time of Ezra. The Scriptures were gathered and copied mainly for instruction; and, as we learn from Ezra and Nehemiah, the people were as earnest as the teachers in their desire that the Scriptures should be known and distinctly understood, and this object appears to have been sincerely pursued in the work prosecuted at that time. At this period the exclusive demand was for those writings which should enlighten the people as to duty, both in regard to the divine law and providence, and for such writings as should illustrate their history as under the Law and as seen in God’s dealings with their fathers. That the influence of the Law and of the teachings of their prophets powerfully controlled their actions and lives is evident from the fact that they never again fell into idolatry. Their truthfulness to their promises and their good faith as a people were so apparent that these traits frequently led to their appointment to positions of trust and privilege among several of the surrounding nations.
4. It was under these conditions of character and motive that the learned scribes of these times made the first general collection of Hebrew literature then existing. The names of several books154 which were extant either at the time of this gathering of the Canonical Books or before, are mentioned in the Scriptures; but if they had been considered worthy of the Canon they would probably have been preserved by copy or repetition. All that was valuable or important to the histories which were preserved in the Scriptures was extracted from them and contained in the Canonical Books as we have them at present.
Judging from certain statements in the genealogies and in the concluding history, the book of Chronicles was the last that was written. The book of Nehemiah however has some additions, Neh. 12:10, 11, 22, of genealogies which bring the high-priests down to the time of Alexander the Great, as Josephus (Vol. V., Book II., ch. 8) shows, who states that Jaddua, whose name occurs in the book of Nehemiah, was high-priest and the last under the Persian rule, and must therefore have lived in the time when Alexander the Great, after the battle of Issus, B. C. 334, visited Jerusalem, B. C. 332, during the high-priesthood of Jaddua.
It is narrated that this high-priest was succeeded by Onias, his son, and he by “Simon the Just,” who was called by the Jews the last of the men of the Great Synagogue. It was during the priesthood of this Simon that, according to the general opinion of both Jewish and Christian writers, the final addition was made to the Canon of the Old Testament. Simon, who was not only high-priest, but a man of great learning and of most fervent piety and devotion to the Law, is said to have added the books of Chronicles, of Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and the prophecy of Malachi; after which, as Josephus writes, there was no further change, omission, or addition. The Old Testament Canon was closed then for ever.