FOREWORD TO PART II

This division of our study is intended chiefly for the layman. The treatment here is not entirely, but mainly, sociological. The following chapter, for instance, on the "Making of the Old Testament," relates to a theme which would appear to fall entirely within the scope of literary introduction. But, by emphasizing that the Old Testament puts forward a series of moral verdicts on a social process already lying in the past, we adjust the literary problem within the sociological perspective. More obviously sociological are the chapters on "The Kinship Institutions," and "The Industrial Institutions"; while the chapter on "The Early Religious Institutions" will be found to be of substantially the same character. After we have canvassed the elements of the situation, we shall be ready to consider the development of Bible religion.

CHAPTER IV

THE MAKING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

The Hebrew Bible was compiled from documents much older than the Scriptures.-The ruin of ancient Israel was necessary to the birth of the Old Testament. The Hebrew Bible was compiled and published in view of the national downfall. Its writings were collected by editors and commentators who lived long after the events described. The Old Testament, as a whole, has come to us through the hands of writers who look back on Hebrew history from a long distance in time. The method of these authors, as they themselves indicate, was first of all to extract material from ancient books, word for word. Several of these ancient sources, far older than the Bible itself, are given by name. Thus, we find The Book of the Wars of Yahweh quoted in Num. 21:14, 15. This work was regarded as an authoritative "source" by the writers of the Bible. Of similar nature was The Book of Yashar. This is quoted in II Sam. 1:18-27, and in Josh. 10:12,13. More frequently referred to are certain writings called respectively The Book of the Matters Pertaining to the Kings of Israel, and The Book of the Matters Pertaining to the Kings of Judah. These authorities are often mentioned (see I Kings 14:19, 29, etc.).

Then there are other facts, of a different nature, pointing to the same conclusion, that the Old Testament was put into its present form by writers who were not contemporary with the events described. For instance: The Book of II Kings

They have these titles in the Hebrew; but they are cited in English Bibles as the books of the "chronicles" of the kings of Israel and Judah. They are not the books of I and II Chronicles, however; for they are said by the writers of Kings to contain material which we cannot find in I and II Chronicles.

takes us up to the Babylonian captivity; whence we get the suggestion that this book was produced after that event. In the same way, the Book of Judges, which deals with a very early period of Israelite history, speaks of the "captivity" (18:30). Whether this refers to the captivity of Israel in the eighth century, or that of Judah in the sixth-in either case, the writer occupies a standpoint many hundreds of years removed from the events described in Judges. This is a the simplest reasoning. The process by which this 's reached is not in any way mysterious. Suppose

matte conclus

we pick Massachuse

of Lincoln

history of the settlement of the Pilgrims in in which there occurs a reference to the election the presidency of the United States. From this, we at once know that the author of the book must have written at least as late as 1860, or two hundred and forty years after the arrival of the Pilgrims in America.

Again, take the following passage in Genesis: "And when Abraham heard that his brother was taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, and pursued as far as Dan" (Gen. 14:14). If we now turn to the Book of Judges, we read that the city of Dan did not receive this name until a period long after the Israelite invasion of Canaan, when Abraham had been dead many years. It was given this name by the clan of the Danites; and we are explicitly told that the name of the city "at the first" was Laish (Judg. 18:2729). Why, then, does not the narrative in Genesis tell us that Abraham pursued as far as Laish, the earlier name which the city had in the patriarchs' day, instead of saying that he pursued as far as Dan? The obvious answer to this is, that the writer of Genesis was familiar with the later name of the city; and that the Book of Genesis was composed long after the Israelite settlement in Canaan. Here again, therefore, we find ourselves facing the conclusion that a given book in the Bible was written, or edited, by a person or persons not

living at the time of the events described. Another equally strong piece of evidence regarding the date of Genesis is found in the following statements: "And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Shechem, unto the oak of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land" (Gen. 12:6). The writer of Genesis thus occupies the standpoint of that late period when the Canaanites, or Amorites, were fused with Israel, and lost within the mass of the Hebrew nation. In order to give local color to the history of the patriarchs, the writer of Genesis thinks it well to say incidentally that the Canaanites were then in the land. These interesting items are samples chosen from a large mass of evidence accumulated by modern scientific study of the Bible.

In the age when the Bible was produced, there was no idea of literary property. Books were chiefly written on rolls of heavy paper; and the owner of a manuscript felt free to do as he pleased with it. Writers would copy a manuscript upon a new sheet, and intersperse their own comments. They would copy out a number of old writings on a new roll, and add their own remarks without giving notice to that effect. There were no footnotes, or other devices now employed in books. All these considerations have to be held constantly in mind when we are studying ancient works like the Bible. 'It is now definitely established that the first six books of the Bible (the Hexateuch) were produced after the Babylonian exile by copying passages out of a number of earlier documents, and putting these passages together so as to make the books in their present form. This method of production, instead of being unusual, was very common. We have already observed a parallel case in the composition of the Books of Kings. Another instance is found in the old Arab historians, who constructed their books by wholesale borrowing from earlier sources. The writings entering into the Hexateuch (Genesis through Joshua) are identified as follows: The