What was the effect of the Syr´i-an persecution? Who led the Jews in revolt? What great hero arose at this time? What line of rulers came from his family? What was the growth of the Jew´ish state at that time? What sects of the Jews arose? How did Ju-de´a fall under the Ro´man power? Whom did the Ro´mans establish as king? What were his dominions? What building did he erect? How was his kingdom divided after his death? What finally became of Ju-de´a? Name five ways in which there was a preparation for the gospel during this period. What was the political preparation? How was a language prepared for preaching the gospel to the world? What race was prepared, and how? What part had each of the two divisions of the Jew´ish race in the divine plan? What was the preparation of a religion for the world?
SIXTEENTH STUDY
The Old Testament as Literature[16]
Part One
1. Importance. In order rightly to understand the Bible we must not only study it as a book of history, as a book of morals or ethics, as a book of doctrine, and as a book of devotion; we must also examine it as literature, and ascertain the different types of forms of literature shown in its pages. The literary study of the Bible is often of the highest importance. For example, the incident narrated in Josh. 10. 12-14, printed as prose in most of our Bibles, is shown as poetry in the Revised Version; and we all know that poetry is to be interpreted upon principles different from prose.
II. Difficulties. In the study of the Bible as literature two difficulties arise and must be overcome:
1. The division into chapters and verses, and the printing of the Bible throughout in the form of prose, forms an obstacle to the student of the Bible as literature. Suppose that every history of England, the poetry of Milton, the dramas of Shakespeare, and the romances of Scott were printed in the form of our Bibles—broken up into short paragraphs—what a hindrance that would prove to the understanding and the enjoyment of these works! Except in the Revised Version of England and America, that is the condition in which we read our Bibles. Only in the Revised Version can the Bible be read as literature.
2. Another obstacle is in the fact that in the Bible all the different forms of literature are mingled together. The prose has poetry here and there; history, personal narrative, drama, and lyric are all united in the same writings. We have Scott's prose and his poetry separate, Matthew Arnold's poems and his essays in separate volumes; but in the Old Testament all these forms of literature are found together, and generally more than one form in the same book. There are few books in the Old Testament that are either all prose or all poetry.