Introduction to the Old Testament

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JOHN EDGAR McFADYEN, M.A. (Glas.) B.A. (Oxon.)
Professor of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis, Knox College, Toronto
To My Pupils Past and Present
It is obvious, therefore, that the discussions can in no case be exhaustive; such treatment can only be expected in commentaries to the individual books. While carefully considering all the more important alternatives, I have usually contented myself with presenting the conclusion which seemed to me most probable; and I have thought it better to discuss each case on its merits, without referring expressly and continually to the opinions of English and foreign scholars.
In order to bring the discussion within the range of those who have no special linguistic equipment, I have hardly ever cited Greek or Hebrew words, and never in the original alphabets. For a similar reason, the verses are numbered, not as in the Hebrew, but as in the English Bible. I have sought to make the discussion read continuously, without distracting the attention—excepting very occasionally-by foot-notes or other devices.
Above all things, I have tried to be interesting. Critical discussions are too apt to divert those who pursue them from the absorbing human interest of the Old Testament. Its writers were men of like hopes and fears and passions with ourselves, and not the least important task of a sympathetic scholarship is to recover that humanity which speaks to us in so many portions and so many ways from the pages of the Old Testament. While we must never allow ourselves to forget that the Old Testament is a voice from the ancient and the Semitic world, not a few parts of it—books, for example, like Job and Ecclesiastes—are as modern as the book that was written yesterday.
But, first and last, the Old Testament is a religious book; and an Introduction to it should, in my opinion, introduce us not only to its literary problems, but to its religious content. I have therefore usually attempted—briefly, and not in any homiletic spirit—to indicate the religious value and significance of its several books.