Section VII.—The Old Testament.
Before entering upon the comparative examination of the Hebrew Canon, it is necessary to say a few words of the extraordinary race who were its authors. There is probably no other book of which it may be said, with the same depth and fulness of meaning, that it is the work of a nation and the reflection of a nation's life. The history of the Bible and the history of the Jews are more intimately bound up together than is that of any other nation with that of any other book. During the period of their political existence as a separate people they wrote the Canon. During the long period of political annihilation which has succeeded, they have not ceased to write commentaries on the Canon. This one great production has filled the imaginations, has influenced the intellect, has fed the religious ardor of each succeeding generation of Jews. To name the canonical Scriptures, and the endless series of writings suggested by them or based upon them, would be almost to sum up the results of the literary activity of the Hebrew race.
Our first historical acquaintance with the Hebrews brings them before us as obtaining by conquest, and then inhabiting, that narrow strip of territory bordering the Mediterranean Sea which is known as Palestine. Their own legends, indeed, carry us back to a still earlier period, when they lived as slaves in Egypt; but on these, from the character of the narrative, very little reliance can be placed. The story, gradually becoming less and less mythical, tells us, what is probably true, that they overcame the native inhabitants of Palestine in war, and seized upon their land; that they then passed through an anarchial period, during which the centre of authority seems to have been lost, and the national unity was in no small danger of being destroyed, had not vigorous and able leaders interposed to save it; that, under the pressure of these circumstances, they adopted a monarchial constitution, by which the dangers of this time of anarchy were at least to a large extent averted, and the discordant elements brought into subjection to a common centre. Thus united, the Jewish monarchy rapidly attained a considerable height of splendor and of power. Surrounding nations fell
