The following volumes of kindred interest have already been published in the Home University Library:—

Vol. 56.—THE MAKING OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By Prof. B. W. Bacon, LL.D., D.D.Vol.

Vol. 68.—COMPARATIVE RELIGION. By Principal J. Estlin Carpenter, D.Litt.

Vol. 15.—MOHAMMEDANISM. By Prof. D. S. Margoliouth, M.A., D.Litt.

Vol. 47.—BUDDHISM. By Mrs. Rhys Davids, M.A.

Vol. 54.—ETHICS. By G. E. Moore, M.A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTERPAGE
IThe Canon of the Old Testament[7]
IIThe Old Testament as a National Literature[25]
IIIThe Pentateuch[29]
IVCharacter of the Sources. Genesis[33]
VExodus, Leviticus, Numbers[47]
VIDeuteronomy[58]
VIIAge of the Sources. Composition of the Pentateuch[65]
VIIIJoshua[73]
IXJudges[81]
XSamuel[91]
XIKings[100]
XIIChronicles[118]
XIIIEzra and Nehemiah[128]
XIVStory Books: Esther, Ruth, Jonah[134]
XVThe Prophets[144]
XVIIsaiah[147]
XVIIJeremiah[164]
XVIIIEzekiel[174]
XIXDaniel[180]
XXMinor Prophets[190]
XXIPsalms. Lamentations[218]
XXIIProverbs[231]
XXIIIJob[235]
XXIVEcclesiastes. Song of Songs[243]
Bibliography[251]
Index[253]

THE LITERATURE
OF
OLD TESTAMENT

CHAPTER I

THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

The early Christians received the Sacred Books of the Jews as inspired Scripture containing a divine revelation and clothed with divine authority, and till well on in the first century of the Christian era the name Scriptures was applied exclusively to these books. In time, as they came to attach the same authority to the Epistles and Gospels, and to call them, too, Scriptures (2 Pet. iii. 16), they distinguished the Christian writings as the Scriptures of the new dispensation, or, as they called it, the "new covenant," from the Scriptures of the "old covenant" (2 Cor. iii. 6, 14), the Bible of the Jews. The Greek word for covenant (diathéké) was rendered in the early Latin translation by testamentum, and the two bodies of Scripture themselves were called the Old Testament and the New Testament respectively.