2. Variety of Literary Form and Contents

As comprising a national literature, therefore, the Old Testament possesses the characteristics and varieties which inhere in the literature a nation. It is in prose and in poetry; it contains myth, legend, history, legislation, oratory, epistolary literature, drama, parable, proverb, fable, idyl, philosophy, praise and prayer, patriotic national pieces, and portions universal in their application. Its writings betray at one time individualistic peculiarities of style and vocabulary and preferences for certain methods of expression; at another, they display the general tendencies of a school existing through generations. It includes the perfervid outpourings of the impassioned worshiper and the deliberate musings of a reflective philosopher. There are utterances hot from the furnace of passion, and polished, even labored and artificial, poems of the study. God, man, and Satan appear as speakers within its pages. Representing the externalization of a nation's history, it contains recollections of the pastoral life, mirrors the fresh, buoyant, and heroic period when a home was in the winning, registers the age of the adoption and formation of institutions, records the pride of achievement of eminence among the peoples, shows the depression of decadence and the rise of religious skepticism, and echoes the groan of extinction of national life. Indeed, this literature runs the entire gamut of national and of individual emotion as well as of literary form. Among the sacred books of the world's faiths none is nearly so rich in its variety & form, content, and expression as the Old Testament of the Christian Bible.

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But while this book is thus the epitome of a whole millennium out of a nation's best inner life and

external history, and therefore a col- a. The lection of writings, it is not a loose Bond of aggregation with no inner bond. The Union. purpose of each part, is one with that

of all the rest, the exaltation of righteousness in man as the necessary complement of the holiness of a righteous God. From the Song of Deborah (Judges v.), believed to be the earliest lengthy single composition in the Old Testament to Daniel (perhaps the latest composition), the religion of Yahweh is the motif inspiring the writers. This involved two complementary conceptions: (1) Yahweh as the national God, whom alone Israel might worship; (2) Israel as Yahweh's chosen people, therefore the most highly favored and sovereign of all peoples, the mediator of Yahweh's blessings upon the nations. This was not indeed always conceived in the same manner-a fact implied in what precedes-but religion, a particular faith, developing in clearness, intensity, comprehensiveness, and sublimity, binds the whole into a unity so close that to eliminate a book or a part of a book is as impossible as undesirable. To excise any part would be to limit the book's variety and mar its perfection as the mirror of a nation's thought add feeling. This, of course, does not preclude the book's being the object of the profoundest study from the textual, linguistic, literary, and historical sides, as well as from a religious standpoint. And it is unfortunate that it is neceegary to say that the results of textual, linguistic, literary, and r:storical investigations are no more destructive of the Bible or its components than are the pronouncements of an architectural expert upon the structure of a cathedral which in different periods has been restored and extended. The archeologist labels the parts Roman, Byzantine, Norman, Gothic, etc., and his statement neither destroys the cathedral, takes away any of its parts, nor affects the sincerity of the worship performed in the edifice. Similarly the Biblical expert names the period or style of a component of Scripture, but his dictum does not (or should not) affect the religious value, still less does it remove anything from the book. (On the religious bond which connects the books of the Old Testament there is no more illuminating volume than Matthew Arnold's Literature aged Dogma, London, 1873, and often.)

From some of the books, notably Proverbs and Psalms, where the works of different persons and

periods are brought together, it is at

4. Methods once clear that certain modes of compiof Com- lation from sources available to the

position. author were in use among the Hebrews.

In other books there is discernible the editing of earlier material. with a view to the emphasis of certain phases of life, as when the Chronicler employs often the exact words found in Kings, though at other times he changes the expression to suit his purpose (cf< II Chron. xxxiv. 8-12 with II Kings xxii. 3-7). A fine example of this process of editing is found in the Book of Judges, where the stories concerning the saviorsbf the people are used to teach a religious truth, vie., the result of defection

from fidelity to Yahweh. The utilization of mate- rial already existing begins in Genesis, which takes in the primitive sword song of Lamech (Gen. iv. 23-24), the myth concerning the origin of giants (vi. 1-4), and much other matter derived from various sources, and continues through Ezra-Nehemiah, which quotes the decrees of the Persian monarchs. This process is evident even in the prophetical books (cf. Isa. ii. 2 sqq. with Mic. iv. 1 sqq.). The mate rial thus employed may be that afforded by oral tradition, as in the ease of the rude fqlk-songs taken up into the Hesateuch (cf. the song of the well, Num. xxi. 17-18); or a cycle of stories nucleated about some noted personages, such as the prophetic cycle of Elijah and Elisha (I Kings svii.-II Kings ii.). Duplicate narratives were sometimes woven to gether, as in the case of the early life of David (see Samuel). Even more numerous sources were sometimes intertwined, producing an account more complete and variegated than any one alone pro vided. If critical conclusions are to be trusted, even material derived from non-Hebraic sources was employed, though in the using it was passed through the alembic of the national conscience and purified from its polytheistic taint (e.g., Gen. i.-iii.). The tracing of these sources is claimed as one of the achievements of modern Biblical Criticism (q.v.), especially as applied to the g. Use of Hexateuch (q.v.). Here it is believed that "Strands" four main strands have been detected, of and some of them traced into the later Narrative. historical books of Judges, Samuel, and Kings (qq.v.), the strands being com bined byan editor (or editors) or "redactor." These constituents are known by the symbols J, E, D, P, R, and it is now considered that such symbols repre sent not so much single authors as the completed produot of a series or school of writers. Thus the J (Jehovistic, Yahwistic, or Judean) narrative is be lieved to have been completed in the ninth century B.C. in the southern kingdom, and it is prophetic in genius, anthropomorphic (or primitive) in theol ogy, concrete in ethics, picturesque and vivid in style, flowing in rhetoric, historic in aim, fond of introducing folk-songs into the history, and delight ing in plays on words. The E (Elohistic, Ephraim itic) narrative, assigned to the eighth century B.C., and composed in the northern kingdom, is advanced in theology, avoiding anthropomorphism (the deity appears in dreams, not _n person), didactic in genius, theocratic rather than historical in aim, concise in rhetoric, in ethics relying upon explicit commands of the deity rather than upon custom. Some time in the seventh century B.C. these two narratives were fused in the JE narrative, since in the combined representations the historical basis of the nar rative text in chronological order is found. This is D (Deuteronomist), a writer or (better) school whose labors extend far beyond the work from which the name is taken, the present form of the books Judges-Kings being a result of this activity. This school Heed the early narratives available as a medium by which to convey the pragmatic teach ings concerning the theocracy which distinguished the school. Thus the framework into which are set in the Book of Judges the lives and exploits of

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the heroes of the story is the work of D. The latest of the four narratives is that of P (Priestly writer), believed to be of the fifth to the fourth century, and composed in Babylonia. The principal interests of this school are ritual, genealogy, chronology, the sacerdotal office, and origins of institutions and laws. The portions contributed by P partake therefore of the tabular or "schedule" style, being "formal, exact, repetitious" (C. F. Kent, ut sup., i. 45). The vocabulary is limited, statistics are frequently furnished, numbers are multiplied, dates and genealogies are given. In theology the transcendence of deity is emphasized; in ethics, the patriarchs and early leaders are so idealized that their transgressions are passed with the minimum of notice. To this school is assigned the union of all the sources of the Hexateuch, leaving it nearly in its present form, some time in the fifth (or early in the fourth) century B.C. While the separate narratives have the more salient characteristics thus outlined, marking off each from the other, no less noticeable are the linguistic peculiarities, each narrative having its own vocabulary, its own idiosyncrasies of construction, and its choice of phrases not duplicated by the others (cf. C. F. Kent, ut sup., i. 357 sqq.; Driver, lictrodudion, chap. i., 17). The structure of the first part of the Old Testament, then, presents as a whole the appearance of formation by a rope-like intertwining of strands of different periods, possessing variant characteristics and coloring.

In the prophetical books a different method of composition was the order. Not until Ezekiel was it usual to communicate the prophetic

6. Methods teaching to its recipients by writing. in Pro- Jeremiah indeed dictated to Baruch

phetical "all the words" which up to that time and Yahweh had spoken to him (which, it

Wisdom is clearly implied, he had spoken as

Literature. they came to him) " against Israel and against Judah " from Josiah's time onward. This doubtless represents the custom of the writing prophets until Ezekiel-delivery by the living voice, record in writing comes afterwards. This is confirmed by the unmistakable sense of an audience which appears in most of the prophetic deliverances, by the disconnection which is so often evident between the components of a prophetical book, and by the fragmentary nature of much of the material. The last feature is explained further by the fact that some oracles in the form in which they have been transmitted are evidently the mere outlines of fuller discourses. On the other hand, not seldom there are present a polish and literary finish which involve painstaking elaboration. These phenomena, with others, such as difference in viewpoint, variation in vocabulary and in literary style, have evoked much study on the part of exegetes and students; and the very perplexity thus evinced is in itself a justification of the critical conclusions involving variety of authorship in several of the prophetic books, notably those of Isaiah and Zechariah, which have so lightened the burden of the problems of Old Testament study. If it be true that prophetic deliveranaes were primarily oral, that later the prophet committed them to writing, that these records were kept sometimes on fugitive

rolls or leaves, then it is not remarkable that, in the general process of editing, deliverances by an unknown prophet came to be attached to those of one who was known. In this the purpose was not to deceive; the object was doubtless a laudable desire to save fugitive pieces which were in danger of being lost. By this process of editing are explained such phenomena as the attachment of chaps. xl: hzvi., relating to the exile, to chaps. .i.-xxxix. of Isaiah (mainly preexilic), and the union of separate prophecies under the name of Zechariah. In the "wisdom literature" (so-called from the Hebr. hokhmah, " wisdom "), consisting of Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, perhaps Canticles, and certainly some of the Psalms, all didactic in aim, both the methods of compilation and that of straightforward composition are employed. Thus Proverbs (q.v.) is a colleotion of collections, including a treatise as introduction (cf. i. 1, x. 1, xxv. 1, xxxi. 1), and bearing the marks of successive editings. The dialogue of Job (q.v.) is a single composition, unless the speeches of Elihu are an insert subsequently included. Ecclesiastes (q.v.) is a unit, except for the additions in xii. 9 sqq.

In Jer. xviii. 18 is read: "For the law shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise,

nor the word from the prophet."

q. Author- Jeremiah here brings together the three ship. classes from whom practically all of

Hebrew literature was derived. From "the prophet" (or the prophetical school), as has been indicated, proceeded not only what appears in the English Bible as the prophetical books (IsaiahMalachi), but also three of the four strands of the Pentateuch (J, E, D) and the historical books from Joshua to Kings (which last, be it remembered, were known to rabbinic Judaism as "the former prophets," with the exception of Ruth; see Canon of Scripture, I., 4, § 2). From "the priest" (or those whose interests were priestly) proceeded the fourth strand of the Pentateuch (P), Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, and most of the Psalms. The contribution of "the wise" was, of course, the wisdom literature. Some students would add to these a fourth class, the writers of apocalyptic literature, such as Daniel and a part of Zechariah; but this is a species of writing which is better classed as a late phase of prophecy. On this ground the inclusion by the versions of Daniel among the prophetical books has its justification, though the arrangement contravenes that of the Hebrew Bible (see Canon of Scripture, I., 4, § 2). According to the modern critical school, closer definition of authorship for most of the Old Testament books is impossible. Thus the foregoing statement of the composition of the Pentateuch (see § 4 above) precludes authorship by Moses. The books Joshua-Chronicles inclusive are named from their contents, not from the author. Neither Ezra nor Nehemiah purports to be written by the worthy whose name it bears, and the same is true of Esther and Job. Psalms is a collection from various sources, some of which are named. Most modern scholars affirm that neither Ecclesiastes nor Canticles can be Solomonic, and therefore the title in each (if indeed Ecclesiastes claims

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to be by that king; cf. i. 1, where "son of David, king in Jerusalem" does not necessarily mean Solomon) is pseudonymous. Only the prophetical books remain to which definite authorship can be assigned, and even here only- in part. In other words, the most of Old Testament literature is anonymous.