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  HOME UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
  OF MODERN KNOWLEDGE
  THE LITERATURE OF THE
  OLD TESTAMENT

  BY
  GEORGE FOOT MOORE, M.A., D.D., LL.D.

  LONDON
  WILLIAMS & NORGATE

  HENRY HOLT & Co., NEW YORK
  CANADA: WM. BRIGGS, TORONTO
  INDIA: R. & T. WASHBOURNE, LTD.




[Illustration:

HOME
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
OF
MODERN KNOWLEDGE

_Editors_:

HERBERT FISHER, M.A., F.B.A., LL.D.
PROF. GILBERT MURRAY, D.LITT., LL.D., F.B.A.
PROF. J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A., LL.D.
PROF. WILLIAM T. BREWSTER, M.A.
(COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, U.S.A.)

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY]




[Illustration:

THE
LITERATURE
OF THE
OLD TESTAMENT

BY
GEORGE FOOT MOORE
M.A., D.D., LL.D.

Professor in Harvard University; Editor of the
Harvard Theological Review; Author
of "Commentary on Judges," etc.

LONDON
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE]




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


  CHAPTER                                                  PAGE

  I THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT                            7

  II THE OLD TESTAMENT AS A NATIONAL
  LITERATURE                                                 25

  III THE PENTATEUCH                                         29

  IV CHARACTER OF THE SOURCES. GENESIS                       33

  V EXODUS, LEVITICUS, NUMBERS                               47

  VI DEUTERONOMY                                             58

  VII AGE OF THE SOURCES. COMPOSITION OF THE
  PENTATEUCH                                                 65

  VIII JOSHUA                                                73

  IX JUDGES                                                  81

  X SAMUEL                                                   91

  XI KINGS                                                  100

  XII CHRONICLES                                            118

  XIII EZRA AND NEHEMIAH                                    128

  XIV STORY BOOKS: ESTHER, RUTH, JONAH                      134

  XV THE PROPHETS                                           144

  XVI ISAIAH                                                147

  XVII JEREMIAH                                             164

  XVIII EZEKIEL                                             174

  XIX DANIEL                                                180

  XX MINOR PROPHETS                                         190

  XXI PSALMS. LAMENTATIONS                                  218

  XXII PROVERBS                                             231

  XXIII JOB                                                 235

  XXIV ECCLESIASTES. SONG OF SONGS                          243

  BIBLIOGRAPHY                                              251

  INDEX                                                     253




THE LITERATURE

OF

THE 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