CHAPTER V.
WHAT WAS SCRIPTURE? THE SEPTUAGINT.
1. The first five books, called the books of Moses, seem always to have existed in one roll, and these constituted “The Law,”and were the only Scriptures read in the synagogues until the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, B. C. 168,[129] who bitterly persecuted the Jews and forbade the use of the Law in the synagogues. During the time of this prohibition, only the Prophets were read, in the place of the Law, but when the persecution ceased the Jews began the reading of the Law again,but continued the reading of the prophets.[130]
2. In order that the Pentateuch should be read through in one year, the entire work was divided into fifty-four sections,[131] so as to supply a portion for each Sabbath.[132] These divisions were made long before the time of the persecution just referredto;indeed the earliest Hebrew writers think they existed almost so far back as the time of Moses.[133]
3. In the time of Ezra the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, Esther, Malachi, and possibly Daniel, were not included in the Canonical books of that time, simply because they were either not completed or too recently completed. Scripture, or the Bible as we would call it, consisted only of the five books, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, in one roll. The Psalms of David were sung in the Temple worship, but no other books appear to have been used in public worship until the time we have already stated, B. C. 168.But the Jewish writers included in the word “prophets” some of the historical books.[134]
Ezra is considered by both ancient Jews and by modern scholars to be the author both of the Chronicles and of Ezra.[135] Nehemiah was the author of the book bearing his name, and this is the last historical book of Scripture, as Malachi is the last prophetic book. The book of Nehemiah contains the history of the Jews from a period beginning 12 years after the close of the book of Ezra, B. C. 456, to about 110 years after the Captivity, or B. C. 426, with the exception we shall hereafter state, p. 219.Esther became queen of Xerxes B. C. 478.[136] The inscription on therocks at Behustan, 215 miles northeast of Babylon, has shown that this king was the Ahasuerus of the book of Esther, which was written some years after she became queen.
4. In regard to the size of those ancient books, it should be remembered that it was not always convenient to bind together in any way more than a very few of them in one volume. They were in rolls, as the word “volume” means, and when we know that one ancient roll of only the Law of Moses, of average size, in manuscript, which is preserved in the Collegiate Library, Manchester, England, is 160 feet long and 20 inches wide, we may readily see that very few could be handled at a time.
THE ORDER OF THE BOOKS.
5. The books of the Old Testament were named in the order of their importance in Jewish estimation, and not as we would name them to-day in the order of their position in the single volume of our Bibles. The books of the Law always took precedence in the order, then the Prophets, and after them the Psalms, as three general divisions, and this statement included all, Luke 24:44. That some of the books were kept in separate rolls to a very late period is evident even in the time of Christ, for when he appeared in the synagogue at Nazareth only the roll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and from this he read, Luke 4:17.
6. But in the enumeration of the books individually,except in the case of the five “books of the Law,” which, as we have said, have never been known otherwise than in one volume, it is evident that some variations of the exact order have occurred.These variations had their origin in the Septuagint[137] translation, wherein the translators not only changed the Hebrew order, but the Hebrew names of some, and even divided some of the books, making two or more out of one.
7. As an illustration of the changes in names of the books, the translators gave the Greek names: Genesis, “the beginning;” Exodus, “the going out;” Leviticus, “concerning Levitical law;” Numbers (of Latin derivation),because the book contains the census of the tribes or numbers;[138] Deuteronomy, the Greek for “the repeated law,” because of the repetition of the law.