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[ for Oie fm'tilttg of^ii. Gtl^giijij^ihisi. CoigfLJl'

'Y^LH-WMWIlI^SIIirY"

1919

The University of Chicago Publications
in Religious Education
EDITED BY
ERNEST D. BURTON SHAILER MATHEWS
THEODORE G. SCARES

HANDBOOKS OF ETHICS AND RELIGION

HOW THE BIBLE GREW

THE UMVBHSIXY OP OHIOAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

THE BASER & TATMR COMPANY
BMW TOBE
THE CAMBRIDGE UNITERSITT PKESS
LONDON AND EDnTBDRSH
THE UARUZEN-EABUSHIEI-EAtSHA
TOKTO, OHASA, ETOIO, rCEDOEA, SKHSAI
THE MISSION BOOK COMPANY
SRANOEAI

HOW THE BIBLE
GREW
THE STORY AS TOLD BY THE BOOK
AND ITS KEEPERS

By
FRANK GRANT LEWIS, PH.D.
Librarian of the Crozer Theological Seminary

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Copyright igrg By
The Unxveesiiy op Chicaoo

All Rights Reserved

Published April igig
Second Impression October igig

Composed and Printed By
The University of Chica^ Press
Chicaio, Illinois, U,S,A,

PREFACE
We have inherited the Bible from a distant past, and
many of us have had little opportunity to learn how the
inheritance came. We grew up with the Bible frequently
in hand and felt its benefit before we knew it to be an
inheritance. Because it has helped us we have come to
love it.
As the Bible has been an aid, and frequently a com
fort, we have learned to revere it. The larger the
amount of aid received, the larger has become the
reverence. This reverence has often been increased,
unconsciously perhaps, by the fact that we knew so
Httle concerning the history of the book. One of the
natural elements of reverence is mystery, and we have
foimd, from our very first questions about the Bible,
that it is a book of great mystery, mysterious in its
contents, mysterious as to the way in which it came to
our parents and to us.
Along with our use of the Bible we have received the
training of the schools, and some of us have been to
college, or to a university. As a part of this training
there has come a study of astronomy, geology, and other
sciences. Somewhere in these scientific studies it has
dawned upon us, perhaps even startled us, that our
science and our Bible seem not to agree. We recaUed
that the Bible tells of a day when the sun stood still;
the astronomy we were studying had no place for such
an event. The Bible appears to make our world only
some 6,000 years old; geology indicates that the real

viii PREFACE
age of the earth is hundreds of thousands, or even
millions, of years. Other similar questions have some
times given trouble.
Thus a time has come when one does not know how
to do without the Bible, for it is the foundation of
religious life, the guidebook for Christian living; and he
does not know what to do with the Bible, for it appears
to be in conflict with things which are taken for granted
in the ordinary affairs of hfe today.
As we have gone farther in thought on the questions
which arise, we have become aware that in the Old
Testament especially there are customs, such as ven
geance for wrongdoing, war, polygamy, which are
approved, but we shrink from accepting the approval.
We have preserved a reverence for the Bible, and at the
same time there is the beginning of distrust concerning it.
The difficulty lies in the fact that the history of the
Bible is not known, and especially that the Bible itseh
has not been given a proper opportimity to teU its own
story of how it came into existence, of how it came to be
the Bible. There has been too much effort on the part
of teachers to talk about the Bible rather than to let
the Bible talk for itself; there has been far too much
enterprise in preparing theories into which to fit the
Bible, and far too httle endeavor to gather the facts in
the Bible which show its growth, and then let the
explanation of the Bible come out of the facts.
There is ample room then, even at this late day, for
a history of the Bible which permits the book itself and
its keepers through the ages to tell the story of its origin.
Such is the aim of this volume. For the writer the kind
of study here pursued has been invaluable, and he has

PREFACE ix
found it so for others. While it has taken away a certain
kind of reverence, which, after all, was merely a sort of
superstition, it has given the Bible a worth and power
which it could not possess before. In exchange for
superficial sacredness there has been given knowledge,
hght, and strength.
The reader will observe that I do not deal with the
question of inspiration, nor with that of Bible authority.
This leaves the way free to cherish any theory of in^ira-
tion which appeals, and to accept any kind and degree
of authority that seem good, after the data of Bible
growth have been duly considered. It will be natural, I
think, to find that the facts of the scripture message and
their personal worth in experience are more valuable
than any theory of inspiration. Each person may have
his own theory, or no theory, and freely allow the same
privilege to others. The question of authority also may
become an inquiry into the lessons to be leamed from
the Bible material and their apphcabihty to experience,
and, the outcome may be nobihty of Hfe rather than
divisive arguments, with a higher type of authority for
the Bible than it has yet known.
I wish to record my obligation to Professor J. M.
Powis Smith, of the University of Chicago, who read the
manuscript and gave me kind and valuable suggestions
concerning my discussion of the Pentateuch in the days
of Ezra, the Book of Jashar, the name Jehovah, the Book
of Daniel, and the Book of Jeremiah. But he must not
be held responsible of course for the language of even the
eight or ten paragraphs affected.
Frank Grant Lewis
Chester, Pa.
March 12, 1919

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Old Testament in the New Testament . , i
II, The Old Testament in the Time of Jesus, Son of
Sirach   II
III, The Old Testament in the Time of Ezra and
Nehemiah  17
IV. Sources of the Prophets  23
V. The Old Testament in the Time of Jeremiah and
JOSIAH  37
VI. Sources of the Law  46
VII. The Growth of the Law and the Prophets , , 66
VIII. The Books of the Writings  77
IX. The Hebrew Bible Translated into Greek , , 103
X, The Books of the New Testament .... 118
XI. The Bible Translated into Latin  138
XII, Other Early Versions  169
XIII, Modern Versions  181
XIV. Chronology of the Bible Writings and Versions 206
XV. What to Read Further  213
Index  219

CHAPTER I
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
I wish to learn about the growth of a flower. In the
springtime, when the new rays of the sun have warmed
the soil and the fresh showers have brought new vitaUty,
I plant the seed, watch for it to germinate, and observe
how the blade of green increases to the stalk, the branches
in due time appear, the buds foUow, the full flower
opens, and the mature seed completes the cycle of life.
If I am a scientist, this study of the flower development
has furnished opportunity to discover the scientific
meaning of all that the growth of the flower reveals.
If I am a naturaHst, and especiaUy a lover of flowers,
day by day the beauty and glory of the unfolding Hfe
have been a source of charm and deep satisfaction.
My home is near a great river, where its gathered
waters spread out into the vast ocean. In childhood I
simply see the water, or am impressed with its expanse
and shrink from its mysteries. When youth arrives,
I begin to wonder what the river means, whence its
waters come, and what there is in the stream beyond the
part I have seen. As I become more thoughtful and ask
from my parents and older friends about the upper
waters of the great stream, there arises a curiosity to
visit the sources of the river and see how, from the
smaller streams of which I have heard, there grows the
mighty current which day after day I have seen move
by my home and out into the boundless sea beyond. If

2 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
this wish should be gratified, and I should travel toward
the upper waters, I should notice each branch as it enters
the main stream, should perhaps foUow some of these
branches to their beginnings and learn how each in turn
is itseff made up of various smaller branches, and, if
I journeyed far enough, should finally reach the source
of the main brook far up the mountain side. Even then,
however, I might not have seen every source of the great
river, for some of those sources are hidden springs,
sharing their Hving fountains with those more readily
seen and being thus as truly a part of the great river as
those which my eye caught at once.
The growth of the Bible is like that of the river rather
than like that of the flower. As I sow the seed and
watch the unfolding' of the flower life, so I should deHght
to sow again the seed of the Hfe of Scripture and observe
how the many branches of that Hfe have shaped them
selves and entered into the book as a whole. That,
however, cannot be done. The Scripture growth is
unique, the only one of its kind, and it cannot be
repeated. As my home is by the fulness of the river, so
I have been born and my days have been Hved by the
completed Bible. The only way to learn the sources of
the sacred volume is patiently to trace my way back
along the Hterary currents out of which it arose, until
I reach the upper waters of the early Hfe of the people
through whom the writings came. And even then I am
Ukely to have overlooked some of the most important
of the hidden fountains from which sprang the biblical
Hfe that has become a part of mine. I must at least be
ready to recognize that such fountains have entered into
the Bible, whether I discover them or not.

OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 3
In the New Testament we are beside the mighty
currents of Hterary Hfe which combined to furnish the
Book of Books. Among these currents we are certain
to find important traces of the earUer streams of
Hterary life, and these may very well suggest how
we are to retrace the Unes of growth through which
the Bible has arisen. Let us turn directly to the New
Testament. Even if we begin with the opening of the gospel in
Matthew we shall not read far before we find a reference
to the Law and the Prophets. Among such references
wUl be that in the famiUar verse which we call the
Golden Rule, Matt. 7:12, "All things therefore what
soever ye would that men should do unto you, even so
do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the
prophets." When we first read the gospel story we probably
never asked what Jesus referred to when he spoke of the
Law and the Prophets. Later, when that question did
arise, it was natural for us to think of the Law as the
first five books of the Old Testament, and to assume that
the Prophets referred to Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
Daniel, and the Twelve that we had learned to call the
Minor Prophets. Unless someone has told us differently,
or we ourselves have had exceptional opportunity to
revise that thought, it is stiU the one which controls
when we read of the Law and the Prophets. To be sure
of this, one has only to ask himself, or a Sunday-school
class, or a body of students, even those entering a
theological seminary, what Jesus referred to when he
spoke of the Law and the Prophets, for the reply is
almost invariably such as that I have mentioned.

4 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Now, however, when the correctness of such answers
is questioned we are ready to ask about the reference
again and learn in what respects it is wrong.
Let me hasten then to offer reassurance, in part at least ;
for the reply is correct as far as the Law is concerned.
Beyond that perhaps the question wiU be best answered
if we approach the inquiry along a path of comparison.
If I should say to you, "AU things therefore what
soever ye would that men should do unto you, even so
do ye also unto them: for this is the Old Testament and
the New Testament," you would at once uiiderstand
that in mentioning the Old Testament and the New
Testament I was referring to two coUections of sacred
writings which together we caU the Bible.
So it was in the days of Jesus and the apostles. So
it was, in fact, for aU Jews and for any others who knew
the IsraeUtish writings in the days which we caU
apostoHc. So it is indeed at the present time for those
who have come to understand the language of Jesus and
Paul and others as it is before us in the New Testament.
The Law was one collection of IsraeUtish writings; the
Prophets was another coUection.
It is an easy matter for one to see this for himself
today. He has only to look into a copy of the Hebrew
Bible and find the evidence. This Hebrew Bible, if one
does not already possess it, may be purchased through
the local bookseUer, or may be found in a weU-ordered
Hbrary ready for reference use, or wiU be among the
famiUar volumes at the home of a Jewish friend. And
this friend will be more than pleased to open the book
and explain the order of the Law ^-nd the Prophets as
they stand.

OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 5
For any who are not acquainted with the Hebrew
language, or are not interested in receiving the informa
tion through others, or Uve in a community where none
of the sons of Israel happen to make their home, or
desire to have the material easy of access at any time for
themselves, there is now a happy solution of the question
for only sUght trouble or expense. This solution is
found in an EngUsh translation of the Hebrew scriptures,
made by EngUsh-speaking IsraeUtes in a form so simUar
to the ordinary EngUsh Bible that the reader will hardly
be aware of the real character of the volume in his hand
until he has begim to examine its contents. This
important and useful volume was pubhshed in 191 7, at
Philadelphia, by the Jewish Pubhcation Society, with
the title. The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic
Text; a New Translation.
The Masoretic text is the ordinary standard edition ^
of the Hebrew Bible. In the new translation just
mentioned this text is faithfuUy reproduced in an EngUsh
dress, the Hebrew divisions, the order of the books, the
titles, and other distinctively Jewish features being
preserved, some of these in the Hebrew characters
accompanied with EngUsh equivalents explaining their
meaning. It is a volume, accordingly, that anyone
interested m the Old Testament may weU have for
himself and thus become famiUar with the Bible as it
was arranged in the early days, and as it has come down
through the centuries, the only change being that it is
carried over from the original Hebrew language into
famUiar and pleasing EngUsh.
Acquaintance with this EngUsh translation of the
Hebrew Bible, or with the Hebrew Bible itself, if one

6 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
cares for the original language of the Old Testament, is
both interesting and valuable. The acquaintance
reveals that the fuU title of the IsraeUtish scriptures is
significant, carrying us beyond the Law and the Prophets.
One does weU, first, to note merely a transUteration.
This, as nearly as it may be reproduced in EngUsh
characters, is Torah, Nebiim u-Kethubim (pronounced
torah, nevee-eem oo-kethoo-veem). When it is trans
lated into EngUsh, we have "Law, Prophets, and
Writings." We do weU to remember, however, that the
term "Law" in this title means not so much legislation,
or statute, as teaching, or instruction, or information.
We have seen above that each of the first two terms
of this title refers to a separate and distinct coUection of
writings, as does also the third; so that the Bible of
Israel is composed of three parts, each a carefuUy Hmited
coUection of sacred books. We shaU be aided, therefore,
if we notice what is included in each coUection, as the
names of the several books in each of the three divisions
of the Hebrew volume inform us.
As already mentioned, the books included in the Law
are those we have long known as composing the Penta
teuch, and their names are famiUar: Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Nmnbers, and Deuteronomy.
When, however, we turn farther the leaves of the
Hebrew Bible or the EngUsh translation to ascertain the
names of the books which are included in the Prophets,
the Ust is quite other than famiUar, for the names which
appear are: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve, this last being the
brief and inclusive title for the twelve Minor Prophets
regarded as a single book. AU together, therefore, the

OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 7
Prophets is a coUection of eight writings, all of Samuel
being treated as a single book, and aU of Kings held in
Uke form ordinarUy, though in some editions of the
Hebrew and in the EngUsh translation mentioned above
these two books are divided as in our ordinary Christian.-
translations of the Old Testament.
As we observe the Prophets further we find that the
eight books are separated into two subdivisions; Joshua,
Judges, Samuel, and Kings are called the "earlier
prophets," and Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the
Twelve are grouped together as the "later prophets."
Just why the Twelve were brought together and regarded/
^s a single book is not evidentj Apparently the number
twelve had come to signify some idea of completeness,
so that the twelve smaUer prophetical writings together
made a prophetical whole. Possibly there is more
significance in the fact that these twelve briefer writings
together furnished the material for a manuscript roU
nearly equivalent to one of the longer prophetical books,
such as Isaiah, or Jeremiah, or Ezekiel. The combining
of the twelve writings under one name may have been
brought about to some extent also by the thought that
it would be appropriate to have in the second division
of the Prophets a fourth book corresponding to the
fourth book of the first division, thus making the
"later prophets" equal in number to the "earUer
prophets."^ The titles of the books included in the Writings are
equally interesting, for we read: Psalms, Proverbs,
Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes,
Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles, alto
gether eleven in number.

8 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Such then are the three divisions of the Hebrew Bible,
our ordinary Old Testament, and the names of the
several books of each division as they commonly appear
in the Hebrew Scriptures. I say "as they commonly
appear," for, whUe there are always three divisions of
the Scriptures, and the total number of books within each
division always remains the same, the order of the books
within the second part of the second division sometimes
varies, and the same is true of the books within the third
division. In the second part of the second division, for
example, Isaiah does not always have the first place; in
the third division Psalms sometimes yields the position
of honor, and other variations occur. The Hsts as I have
given them, however, are the ordinary ones and are
convenient to remember, if one desires to have the order
of the books at immediate caU, as we frequently memorize
the names of the books in the EngUsh Bible. For our
purpose in this study, however, it is most important to
keep in mind that there are three divisions in the Hebrew
Bible, and particularly to remember that the Prophets,
as referred to by Jesus and Paul, are the eight books in
1 the preceding Hst beginning with Joshua.
We are now ready to take another important step.
We shaU take it most easUy if we recaU how often in
reading the New Testament we find a reference to the
Law alone, for example. Matt. 5:18, "One jot or one
tittle shaU in no wise pass away from the law"; Luke
2:23, "As it is written in the law of the Lord"; Rom.
2 :23, " Thou who gloriest in the law." With this put the
easUy observed fact that the phrase "the Law and the
Prophets" is much less common, occurring altogether
only some fifteen times (Matt. 5:17; 7:12; 11:13;

'OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 9
22:40; Luke 16:16, 29, 31; 24:27, 44; John 1:45;
Acts 13:15; 24:14; 26:22; 28:23; Rom. 3:21), the
Prophets alone being mentioned about as often (Matt.
26:56; Luke 18:31; 24:25; John6:45; ActS3:i8, 21,
24; 7:48; 10:43; 13:27,40; 15:15; 26:27; Heb. 1:1).
The step we take then is one to bring us where we
can see, from the above-mentioned proportions of the
different classes of references, that the Law was, for the
New Testament writers, the most important portion
of the Jewish Scriptures. The same fact may be seen
in another way. In the New Testament as a whole
there are somewhat more than one thousand references
to the Old Testament books. Of these, nearly three
hundred are to the Law and less than five hundred to aU
the Prophets, with about two hundred to the Psalms,
nearly seventy to the Book of Daniel, and only scattering
aUusions to aU the other books, namely, the nine of the
Writings besides Psalms and Daniel.
In short, the Bible of the New Testament times was
practicaUy the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms, and the'
Book of Daniel. This needs to be modified perhaps by
saying that the Psahns was rather a hymn book of the
early Christians, quoted much as a preacher of today uses
our h)Tnns, though often with somewhat greater author
ity than that with which our hymns are employed.
Perhaps the most striking fact in the proportion of
references used is the large number of times Daniel is
quoted. That disproportion takes a new meaning,
however, as soon as we become aware that more than
two-thirds of the nearly seventy quotations from Daniel
are made in the single Book of Revelation, which raises
interesting questions.

IO HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Reserving those questions, however, for a later page,
and holding ourselves now close to the great current of
sacred Hterary thought called the Law and the Prophets,
let us discover where it leads and the opening of sources
which it brings.

CHAPTER II
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE TIME OF JESUS,
SON OF SIRACH
(About 200 B.C.)
We turn the leaves of our Bible untU we are back to
that portion of the Old Testament caUed the Apocrypha,
and particularly to the book caUed Ecclesiasticus, or,
by the longer title, the Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of
Sirach. Many of the more recently printed Bibles omit
the Apocrypha and so do not contain this very valuable
book, but it may be found in almost any of the older
editions, or may be secured as a separate volume with the
title The Apocrypha Translated out of the Greek and Latin
Tongues, and pubhshed by the University Press at
Oxford. In the Prologue to this Book of Ecclesiasticus, which
was written by the grandson of the author of the book
itself, we read the foUowing important and suggestive
language: Whereas many and great things have been dehvered unto us
by the law and the prophets, and by the others that have followed
in their steps .... my grandfather Jesus, having much given
himself to the reading of the law, and the prophets, and the other
books of our fathers, and having gained great familiarity therein,
was drawn also himself to write somewhat pertaining to instruction
and wisdom  You are intreated therefore to read with
favor and attention, and to pardon us, if in any parts of what we
have labored to interpret, we may seem to fail in some of the
phrases. For things origiaally spoken in Hebrew have not the
same force in them, when they are translated into another tongue:

12 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
and not only these, but the law itself, and the prophecies, and_ttie^
rest of the books, have no small difference, when they are spoken
in their original language. For having come into Egypt in the
eight and thirtieth year of Euergetes the king, and having con
tinued there some time, I found a copy affording no small instruc
tion, I thought it therefore most necessary for me to apply some
dihgence and travail to interpret this book: applying indeed much
watchfulness and skill in that space of time to bring the book to
an end, and set it forth for them also, who in the land of their
sojourning are desirous to learn, fashioning their manners before
hand, so as to hve according to the law.
I have quoted this Prologue nearly entire, in order
that its important information may easily be considered.
Two or three things furnished by the Prologue and
bearing on the history of the Old Testament stand out
with special prominence. We want to give them atten
tion at once.
In the first place, we observe that the writer refers
three different times to the sacred writings used by his
grandfather, and that in each of the three references the
first part of the language is the same, or essentiaUy
the same; in each instance he speaks of the Law and the
Prophets, or, varying his term in the third reference, of
the Prophecies, which is manifestly equivalent to the
Prophets. To this extent his language is the same as
that of the New Testament. From it we see that the
two collections of writings which were the main portion
of the IsraeUtish Scriptures in the days of Jesus and Paul
were likewise definite coUections some two centuries
before Jesus and Paul were born. It is not strange,
therefore, indeed it is most natural, to find the writers
of the New Testament regularly using these terms in
referring to their Scriptures and using them with perfect

OLD TESTAMENT IN THE TIME OF JESUS 13
definiteness. The Law and the Prophets were as
definite and specific to Jews of the apostoUc times as
the Old Testament and the New Testament are to us.
A second point is perhaps even more interesting. It
is the fact that the writer of this Prologue, in each of the
three references he makes to the Law and the Prophets,
adds a reference to some other writings which he seems
to regard in the same manner in which he regarded the
Law and the Prophets, but for which he had no single
name or title, since his phrase in each of the tliree
instances is different. He first speaks of these writings,
or their authors, as "the others that have foUowed in
their steps," that is, in the steps of the writers of the Law
and the Prophets. In his second reference he varies the
phrase to "the other books of our fathers," that is, in
addition to the Law and the Prophets. And in the third
case he merely mentions "the rest of the books." He
was famiUar then with a considerable collection of sacred
writings for which he had no single title.
This reference to a third coUection of sacred books is
of interest because the completed volume of IsraeUtish
Scriptures, as we have already noted, has a title showing
three divisions. Law, Prophets, and Writings, the title
of the third division remaining, even to the present,
without any such specific name as either the Law or the
Prophets, which so happUy designate the first and second
divisions. Whether the Writings of the present Hebrew
Bible are the same books as those referred to by the
writer of the Prologue to Ecclesiasticus perhaps we can
not say; at least we shaU do better not to undertake to
say this at present. That some of the books are the
same, however, there need be Uttle doubt.

14 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
It is worth while noting also that the writer of the
Prologue, though he was careful to mention each time
each of the three coUections of sacred writings, appears
to have had a peculiar regard for the Law. This is
brought out at the close of the Prologue, where he says
he undertook the important task of translating the work
of his grandfather in order that his readers might learn
"to Hve according to the law," leaving the impression,
without doubt, that the Law was of pre-eminent import.
The same idea is revealed in one of the sentences of the
Prologue which I have omitted in the quotation. This
special regard for the Law corresponds to the distinction
accorded the Law in the New Testament. To Hve
according to the Law not improbably would have been
assumed to include Hving according to the Prophets' and
the other writings.
We observe also that the writer of the Prologue
definitely dates the time when he went to Egypt and
began to give attention to his important task; it was in
"the eight and thirtieth year of Euergetes the king,"
that is, Euergetes II, an honorary title of Ptolemy IX,
whose thirty-eighth year was about 132 B.C. From this
it is easy to see that the grandfather of the writer of the
Prologue Hved about two hundred years before the birth
of Jesus, and that some two centuries before the
beginning of our Christian Era the Old Testament,
among the IsraeUtes in Egypt, consisted of the Law, or
our Pentateuch, the Prophets, and at least several other
books which were held in similar esteem.
Considering what we have gathered up to the present,
it wUl be seen that the Jews in Egypt accepted a larger
number of writings as sacred than did their brothers in

OLD TESTAMENT IN THE TWLE OF JESUS 15 \
Palestine. This is particularly evident when we remem
ber that a third diAdsion of the Old Testament was
already recognized in Egypt some two centuries before
the time of Jesus and Paul, whUe no such recognition
appears in the New Testament; the nearest approach to
it is in Luke 24:44, where the evangelist quotes Jesus as
speaking of the things which were written "in the law of,
Moses, and the prophets, and the Psalms." Since the
Psahns frequently had the first place in the third division
of the Hebrew Bible, these words of Jesus may be a
reference to the entire third division, the Writings. The
reference may be only to the Book of Psalms, however.
Perhaps this is more likely to have been the intention,
since, as we have seen in chapter i, only the Psalms and
Daniel, among the books of the third division, received
any considerable recognition from the New Testament
writers. The acceptance of a larger number of books by the
Jews in Egypt at once suggests the possibility of an
attractive inquiry. For the present, however, it may be
siifficient to remember that Egypt had come more under
the influence of Hberal Greek thought than Palestine had,
and that the Egyptian Jews naturaUy responded to a
wider circle of sacred writings. Particularly would they
find satisfaction in books written by their Egyptian
brothers, while their brothers in Palestine easUy depre
ciated any writings which originated beyond the borders
of the ancient home of the nation.
In the time of Jesus, son of Sirach, then, some two
himdred years before the beginning of the Christian Era,
the Old Testament, among the Jews in Palestine, con
sisted primarUy, if not altogether, of the Law and the

i6 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Prophets, whUe in Egypt other books, apparently several
in number, were attaining a dignity akin to that bestowed
on the Law and the Prophets in both Palestine and
Egypt. Having thus retraced the course of the stream
of IsraeUtish sacred thought back through the book
itseU to about 200 b.c, our next step wiU be to foUow
farther along the main current for any discoveries it wiU
furnish.

CHAPTER m
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE TIME OF EZRA
AND NEHEMIAH
(About 450 B.C.)
As we are fortunate in possessing the Book of
Ecclesiasticus, with its informing Prologue, so we are
favored by the Book of Nehemiah for the period some
two and one-half centuries earUer, when Ezra and his
colaborer were leaders in the efforts to restore the sons
of Israel to the home of their fathers. As in our study
thus far we have gathered information from the Bible
itself to show what the sacred collection was in the
periods considered, so now we shaU be best aided if we
pursue the same method.
The important passage in Nehemiah begins with the
eighth chapter, or, as paragraphed in the Revised
Version, with the latter part of verse 73 of the seventh
chapter. There we are told that in the seventh month
of the Jewish year, that is, in the autumn, the people
assembled for the reading of the Law. The reading of
the first day was only a beginning of the presentation
of the book which was placed before the people, trans
lated from the Hebrew into the Aramaic language, which
had become their form of speech in Babylon, and was
explained to them so that they could understand. This
makes evident that the Law at that time was an extensive
writing. 17

1 8 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
On the second day the reading was continued (8: 13).
Some time during that day the readers came to the
portion of the Law in which was given an accoimt of the
feast of booths. The language is so specific that we can
infer from it with certainty where in our Pentateuch
they were reading. It was in what we caU the twenty-
third chapter of the Book of Leviticus. We may see
this easily from the foUowing paraUel arrangement of
the two passages. In the first we have the language
of Leviticus; in the second is given the account of the
reading. Lev. 23 : 42 Neh. 8 : 14
Ye shall dwell in booths seven And they found written in the
days; all that are home-bom in law, how that Jehovah had corn-
Israel shall dwell in booths; manded by Moses, that the
children of Israel should dwell in
booths in the feast of the seventh
month;
A reading of the context of both quotations wiU reveal
various details which confirm the reference of Nehemiah
to Leviticus. The situation is one to stimulate the
historical imagination. As we read the language we
can easily picture the scene and portray for ourselves
Ezra and his associates as they read to those who
gathered about them to learn what was written in the
Law. WhUe a comparison of the preceding passages presents
one of the most striking evidences of the relation between
the Law and the use of it which was made by Ezra and
those with him, there are other passages which indicate
the same conclusion, and it is worth while to carry the
comparison farther. Note, for example, how a state-

EZRA AND NEHEMIAH AND OLD TESTAMENT 19
ment in Deuteronomy and one in Numbers were obeyed,
as we are told by a verse in Nehemiah:
Deut. 31: io-ii Neh. 8: 18
At the end of every seven Also day by day, from the first
years .... in the feast of taber- day unto the last day, he read in
nacles .... thou shalt read this the book of the law of God, And
law before all Israel in their hear- they kept the feast seven days;
ing. and on the eighth day was a
Num:, 29:35 solemn assembly, according unto
On the eighth day we shall the ordinance.
have a solemn assembly: ye shall
do no servile work;
With references in Nehemiah to the passages from
Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy just given, it is
helpful to place one from Genesis deaUng with the life
of Abram, as these quotations will show:
Gen. 12:1 Neh, 9:7
Now Jehovah said unto Abram, Thou art Jehovah the God, who
get thee out of thy country, and didst choose Abram, and brought-
from thy kindred, est him forth out of Ur of the
Chaldees,
The language makes clear that the statement in
Nehemiah grew out of a recollection of the words from
Genesis. It is easy also to find a similar correspondence
between Exodus and Nehemiah, as appears from these
two quotations: Exdn. 13:21 Neh. 9:12
And Jehovah went before them Moreover in a pillar of cloud
by day in a pillar of cloud, to lead thou leddest them by day; and in
them the way, and by night in a a pillar of fire by night, to give
piUar ot fire, to give them Ught; them Ught on the way wherein
that they might go by day and by they should go.
night.

20 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
WhUe other language in Nehemiah referring clearly
to the language of the first five books of our Old Testa
ment might easUy be given, the foregoing quotations are
ample to Ulustrate how the Law of the days of Ezra
assumes much at least of the IsraeUtish writings which
we caU the Pentateuch. The impression made by the
parallels wUl be emphasized if each of the quotations is
read with its context, and the fuUer detaUs are thus
aUowed opportunity to furnish their natural meaning and
suggestion. The reading of this Law seems to have required much
of the seven days of the solemn gathering. This is clear
from the record at the close of the eighth chapter; and
it makes certain that the Law as read was an extended
book, or consisted of writings which together amounted
to what may have been equivalent to our Pentateuch.
Already in reading this graphic account of the
presentation of the Law by Ezra and Nehemiah it may
have been noticed that there is no mention of the
Prophets. Though it was an occasion of the greatest
rehgious import for the IsraeUtes, one in which the
majestic messages of the Prophets would have been
exceedingly fitting, there is not a word in the narrative
to recaU the second division of the Hebrew Scriptures.
This does not mean necessarily that the writings
which Jesus and Paid and the son of Sirach appealed to
as the Prophets were not in existence in the time of Ezra.
It suggests only that the Prophets had not yet come
together into a recognized coUection of sacred writings
to be used as Ezra and his feUows used the Law. The
Old Testament, when the sons of Israel returned from
Babylonia to Palestine and solemnly subscribed to its

EZRA AND NEHEMIAH AND OLD TESTAMENT 21
regulations as read and explained by their leaders, was
Hmited, so far as the Nehemiah account advises, to the
Law, an extensive coUection of regulations and precepts
which could not have been more than our Pentateuch
and may have been only an earUer and briefer edition
of the Law, or even only an extensive priestly source
of it. One other point at least in this narrative of Nehemiah
ought not to be passed over without consideration. This
is the fact that the reading of the Law brought to the
people something which was altogether unfamiUar.
Otherwise we should not read, as we do in Neh. 8 : 14,
that they "found" certain things written in the Law
which was being read, as a result of which they went for
material with which to prepare booths (8: 16) in accord
ance with the directions of the legislation of which they
had just learned.
There is a temptation to inquire at once why the Law
was new to the people, and how it came about that they
and their ancestors had not been observing the rules
which the Law prescribed. It wiU be better, however,
to defer that inquiry tiU a later time, when we shall find
the study less difl&cult and more fruitful.
Indeed now that we have retraced the development
of the Bible until we have found ourselves beyond the
mighty current which came to be called the Prophets
and stiU bears that significant name, it wiU be to our
advantage to turn aside for a moment from the main
stream of scripture movement and growth that we may
search for the sources of the Prophets and discover, as
best we can, whence the prophetic writings came, how
they originated, and possibly something concerning the

22 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
courses of events which produced the second division of
the Scriptures of Israel. In the time of the son of Sirach
this great branch of Scripture was a weU-defined and
clearly understood collection of writings, as we have seen.
In the days of Ezra, two centuries earUer or more, the
Prophets are not even referred to. It is worth our whUe
to seek the development of Hterary events during that
period. We naturaUy turn to the books of the Prophets
themselves.

CHAPTER IV
SOURCES OF THE PROPHETS
In Joshua, the first book of the Prophets, occurs the
well-known story according to which Joshua, the Israel
itish leader, commanded the sun and the moon to stand
still. The language, chapter 10:12-13, is so significant
that it may well be quoted in fuU. It reads as follows :
Then spake Joshua to Jehovah in the day when Jehovah
delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel; and he
said in the sight of Israel,
Sun, stand thou stiU upon Gibeon;
And thou, Moon, in the valley of Aijalon,
And the sun stood stiU, and the moon stayed.
Until the nation had avenged themselves of their enemies.
Is not this written in the book of Jashar ?
Thus we are introduced to a source from which the
writer of our Book of Joshua drew some of his material.
He had before him a writing which bore the title
"Jashar." The word itseU is important. It means
"straight," or "right," or "upright," as we say, or
" righteous." The reader of our Revised Version observes also that
the quotation from this Book of Jashar is poetry.
Whether the entire book was poetical we may not con
clude, but the portion here preserved for us is poetical.
On the basis of this quotation we should be led to infer
that the Book of Jashar was a poetical composition of
notable incidents in the history of the IsraeUtish people.
23

24 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
It had been preserved and cherished untU the time of the
writing of our Book of Joshua.
SimUarly advantageous for us in the study of the
sources of the Prophets is the fact that there is preserved
another quotation from the Book of Jashar. It is
longer than that in Joshua, but its language is so inform
ing that we need the verses in fuU. Let us turn therefore
to II Sam. 1 : 17-27, where the poem as quoted, with its
introduction by the author of Samuel, reads as foUows:
And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and
over Jonathan his son (and he bade them teach the children of
Judah the song of the bow: behold it is written in the book of
Jashar) :
Thy glory, O Israel, is slain upon thy high places!
How are the mighty fallen!
Tell it not in Gath,
Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon;
Lest the daughters of the PhiUstines rejoice.
Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
Ye moimtains of Gilboa,
Let there be no dew or rain upon you, neither fields of
ofiEerings:
For there the shield of the mighty was vilely cast away.
The shield of Saul, not anointed with oil.
From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty,
The bow of Jonathan turned not back,
And the sword of Saul returned not empty.
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives,
And in their death they were not divided:
They were swifter than eagles.
They were stronger than lions.
Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul,
Who clothed you in scarlet deUcately,
Who put ornaments of gold upon your apparel.

SOURCES OF THE PROPHETS 25
How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battlel
Jonathan is slain upon thy high places.
I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan:
Very pleasant hast thou been unto me:
Thy love to me was wonderful,
Passing the love of women.
How are the mighty fallen.
And the weapons of war perished!
From the reading we observe at once some signifi
cant facts, the meaning of which it is useful to
consider. Since both the writer of Joshua and the writer of
Samuel used the Book of Jashar as a source, it would
seem as though both our Book of Joshua and that of
Samuel are later than the Book of Jashar.
Since the second quotation from Jashar is a lament
over the death of Saul and Jonathan, the composition
of the Book of Jashar seems to have been later than the
time of Saul and his son, and the Book of Joshua stiU
later. The language introducing the lament appears to
carry us still farther, for the author of the Book of
Samuel states that "David lamented" over Saul and
Jonathan. To the author of Samuel then the days of
David, as weU as those of Saul and his son, were a period
already past; and the material before us has the appear
ance of being composed as late as the close of the Ufe of
David. This would mean that the Book of Joshua was
compiled after David had died.
WhUe this conclusion is the natural one, it must not
be pressed too far. The Book of Jashar itself may have
been a growth of generations, like the entire Old Testa
ment. If it was, the quotation in Josh. 10:12-13 may

26 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
have been relatively early and the lament over Saul and
Jonathan much later. Conclusive evidence concerning
the date of the Book of Joshua, therefore, must be sought
elsewhere than in the quotation it contains from the Book
of Jashar. Fortimately the Book of Samuel includes other ma
terial which reveals something of the Hterary situation
at the time of David. There are statements which
indicate that the writing of annals, or chronicles, was a
natural thing, and that these may weU have become
sources for the compilations which were made by later
authors. These statements are found in II Sam. 8:i6,
17 and 20: 24, 25. In the former of these we read that,
as a part of the organization of David's kingdom,
"Jehoshaphat the son of Ahilud was recorder," that
is, an officer who kept a record of affairs, perhaps what
we should caU a chronicler, as the margin of the Revised
Version proposes the alternative translation. As a
part of the same poUtical arrangement "Seraiah was
scribe," that is, an official simUar to the secretary with
us who would preserve the events of the Hfe of the king
and his affairs in a more personal way. In 20:24, 25
a similar statement is made, except that the name of the
"scribe" is Sheva. The records prepared by these
ofl&cials would easily become, at a later time, the data
for composing portions of such accounts as have come
down to us in the Prophets.
There is one other phrase in the introduction to the
second quotation from the Book of Jashar which ought
to receive a moment of attention. It is in verse 18:
"And he bade them teach the chUdren of Judah the^song
of the bow." The term "Judah" in the time later than

SOURCES OF THE PROPHETS 27
the Ufe of David most naturally belongs to the period
after the division of the IsraeUtish nation following the
death of Solomon; its use earUer would have been quite
surprising. Apparently, therefore, the language of this
account of the death of Saul and Jonathan indicates that
the Book of Samuel was written after the kingdom of
Judah had become separate and the use of the name
Judah had become matter of fact.
In the Book of Judges also we find suggestions of the
use of sources. One of these instances is in the first
chapter, verses 11 and 12. The author, in describing
the career of Judah, relates that he went against the
inhabitants of "Debir." The author is aware, however,
that the source before him has as the name of that place
"Kiriath-sepher," so he prepares his readers to under
stand the location by the use of a parenthesis, "Now the
name of Debir beforetime was Kiriath-sepher"; and
he then uses the source without changing the name, so
that both of the names stand as a part of the text. In
Judg, 7:1 there is a similar explanation of the name
Jerubbaal as equivalent to Gideon.
The story of Deborah in the fourth and fifth chapters
of Judges is famiUar. The reader of the Revised Version
has noted that, while chapter 4 is prose, the Song of
Deborah in the fifth chapter, as this title itseK impUes, is
in poetry. To the casual reader the relation of the song
to the prose account in chapter 4 may not be apparent.
If, however, one pauses thoughtfully in the reading of
the fourth chapter he will discover that it contains a
completed narrative of the event under discussion.
Likewise in chapter 5 one finds a fuU account of the
events, but here presented in the dress of poetry. The

28 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
suggestion at once offers itself that the author of our
Book of Judges had before him both a prose and a poetic
account of the episode of Deborah, incorporated them,
one foUowing the other, in his narrative, and gave them
the editorial setting which has remained until our time a
story of the highest Hterary chajrm.
If now we turn to the fourth book of the Prophets,
namely, our two Books of Kings as a single book, we
may discover other traces of the composition of the work
out of previously existing sources. For example, we
read in I Kings 11:41, "Now the rest of the acts of
Solomon, and aU that he did, and his wisdom, are they
not written in the book of the acts of Solomon?" The
form of statement suggests that, whUe the account of
Solomon's reign as given in our Book of Kings is some
what fuU, there was a much more extended narrative in
the book of the acts of Solomon, from which the author
of Kings had made only excerpts. It is manifest also
that the author of our Book of Kings was writing
at a date some time later than the reign of the wise
king. In I Kings 14: 29, 15:7 and 23 we find a reference to
"the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah."
This source is likewise mentioned in II Kings 23:28.
In I Kings 15:31 and 16:5 there are simUar references to
"the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel."
The form of phrase in each class of references is that
which would be expected after there had been the lapse
of sufficient time for each of the two kingdoms to write
its own history, and for these histories to be used by the
author of our Books of Kings. We are thus carried along
to the period of the Babylonian exUe as that out of

SOURCES OF THE PROPHETS 29
which "the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel"
and also "the book of the chronicles of the kings of
Judah" arose; and only some time later than that
would they be combined into the interwoven narrative
preserved for us.
It does not follow from the foregoing, of course, that
merely such sources as we have observed were combined
to furnish the writings we possess. The source hints we
have considered are only some that are obvious, apparent
on the surface of the historical composition. There may
be many other sources, hidden springs, as it were, yet
contributing largely to the fulness of the scripture
current. Traces of these we may find later. The
important thing at present is to recognize how the
"earUer prophets" were written by men who made free
use of previous writings, some of which were poetry and
others the result of the activities of annaUst officials
attached to the royal house and charged to preserve
accounts of national or personal affairs. We should very
much Hke to see those primitive documents, but we are
fortunate in possessing so much of their contents in the
later compilations.
When we turn to the "later prophets," Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve, we find traces of
simUar use of documentary sources. We might not
expect this in the writings of the great prophetic leaders
of Israel, yet the pages of these books make it easUy
seen. In the Book of Isaiah there are various indications
of the editorial work through which its pages have
passed. For example, we may compare the title of the
book (chap. 1:1) and the first verse of chapter 2 with

30 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
the language of the first verse of chapter 6. Here is the
paraUel they give;
Isa. i:i Isa. 6:1
The vision of Isaiah the son of In the year that king Uzziah
Amoz, which he saw concerning died I saw the Lord sitting upon a
Judah and Jerusalem, in the days throne, high and Ufted up; and
of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and his train fiUed the temple.
Hezekiah, kings of Judah.
IsA. 2:1
The word that Isaiah the son of
Amoz saw concenung Judah and
Jerusalem.In the first two passages we have the language of an
editor, a later writer than the prophet, who is bringing
together and arranging the messages which the prophet
had spoken. In chapter 6 the prophet himself is speak
ing; his personaHty comes out with vividness and force
through the personal pronoun "I," and we feel ourselves
in hiff^resence. If the reader wiU compare 7:3 and 8:1 in a similar
way he wiU see again the work of an editor and the
language of the prophet himself. Other examples of the
same kind might easUy be given.
A somewhat different use of sources, more like that
in the "earUer prophets," is to be found in 37: 21, where
we read, "Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto
Hezekiah, saying. Thus saith Jehovah, the God of
Israel," the opening words being those of the editor,
followed by the beginning of the message which had been
dehvered by the prophet and is now combined with
other messages into the book as it stands.
In 38 : 1 , 9, and 2 1 we have three examples of somewhat
the same type. The reader should examine them in the

SOURCES OF THE PROPHETS 31
context for himseff. The fact that 38 : 10-20 is poetry,
introduced by verse 9 as "the writing of Hezekiah the
king of Judah, when he had been sick, and was recovered
of his sickness," shows in a marked degree the similarity
of the use of sources here and in the Book of Joshua, as
we have considered above (p. 23).
The editorial work in the Book of Isaiah is revealed
even more strikingly in the account of the mission of
Cyrus, king of Persia, as described in chapters 44 and 45.
To feel the full force of this one needs to re-read the
historical narrative in chapter 39 and note the striking
change in the form of thought and language as the
reading proceeds to chapter 40, a change so abrupt and
marked that one feels that he has passed, as evidently
he has passed, from one class of writing to another
entirely different. The entire situation has taken new
form. We feel that there is no connection between the
two chapters other than the mere collocation of two
distinct works. The work of the editor, even if he were
the prophet himself, has been nothing more than the
placing of the diverse messages next to each other. One
feels that more probably we have here two wholly
distinct works which, for reasons which we do not now
know, have been brought together into a single book.
When we arrive at chapter 44, accordingly, and find
in the latter part of it (vs. 28) how Cyrus the king, who
Uved nearly two centuries after the prophet Isaiah, is
pictured as the shepherd of Jehovah, and m 45 : i as the
anointed of Jehovah, we are not so surprised. Our
previous discovery that the Book of Isaiah as a whole
is an editorial compilation has prepared us to see that the
compiling may have occurred much later than the days

32 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
of the prophet Isaiah, that such prophetic messages as
we have in the later chapters of this book may easily
have been the divine voice of later prophets, unnamed
in the writings, and that their messages were com
bined with those of the great preacher of the days of
Hezekiah. The editorial marks which we have observed in the
Book of Isaiah are equaUy evident in the prophecy of
Jeremiah. A clear instance is discernible in the opening
verses of the first chapter, where the first verse is part
of the title given to the book by the later hand of the
editor, while verse 4 introduces us to the personal message
from the prophet himself, and verses 11 and 13 are
similar and tj^ical affirmations with which he introduces
other oracles. In 18:1 we find a further example of the
editorial introduction, and in 18:5 of the prophetic
message. Chapter 25: 13 gives additional evidence of a sUghtly
different sort. In the midst of the prophet's message
there is inserted the solemn declaration that "aU that
is written in this book, which Jeremiah hath prophesied
against aU the nations" wiU be brought to pass, a state
ment which obviously belongs to a time after the oracles
of Jeremiah had been coUected.
Perhaps the most suggestive material in the Book of
Jeremiah, however, is contained in chapter 36. It is
too extended to reproduce in fuU. One should turn to
the book and read carefully the entire narrative. He
will thus be impressed with the function of the prophet's
amanuensis; and he will readily observe that the form
of speech may have been largely influenced, particularly
in the introductory and connective statements, by the

SOURCES OF THE PROPHETS 33
hand of the prophet's assistant rather than by the
prophet himself. When with this obvious fact we place
the traces of later editorial adjustment also, the way is
open for understanding without di6&culty how the book
as it has come to us is the last stage in a series of natural
changes. This result is especiaUy marked in the case of
the Book of Jeremiah for those who take occasion to
compare our EngUsh version, or its Hebrew original, with
the Greek translation as we have it in the Septuagint, or
the EngUsh translation of the Septuagint. The Septu
agint reveals a striking rearrangement of the material
of the EngUsh version.
The Book of Jeremiah furnishes, in chapter 52: 1-27,
an opportunity beyond any other of the prophets for an
unusual consideration of source material. This oppor
tunity reveals itself if the student, with the foregoing
passage before him, will turn to II Kings 24:18 — 25:21,
where he will find the entire passage dupUcated in almost
the same words throughout. Such a, dupHcation is of
course no accident, nor is it a mere coincidence. Evi-
dentiy both of the narratives are taken from a common
source, or one of them from the other. Also the student
should not overlook the closing sentence of the fifty-first
chapter of the prophecy, "Thus far are the words of
Jeremiah." This statement is obviously the language of
a later editor, who then closes the book, chapter 52, with
a selection, part of which serves the purpose of the
compiler of our Book of Kings in a similar connection.
How long after the career of Jeremiah this editorial work
was done there is Uttle in the book itself to assure.
We turn now to the prophecy of Ezekiel, wondering
whether we shaU meet traces of the hand of the compiler

34 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
as we have in Isaiah and Jeremiah. We are made aware
at once that the form of composition is different. At the
opening of Ezekiel there is no extended and formal title,
such as that with which the other books have been
provided. It is the prophet himself who speaks; and
his language is like that of Isaiah and Jeremiah, where
their messages have not been edited by the hand of the
compiler. As far as we may infer from the form of the
book which bears the name of Ezekiel, it has come to us
in quite the Hterary structure given it by the prophet.
In the Twelve, the writings which in our EngUsh
version we have learned to caU the Minor Prophets, we
may expect to find repetition of the characteristics
revealed by the works already considered; and our
expectations will not be disappointed. I shaU not take
space to reproduce the various instances in these twelve
brief writings which show both the personal messages of
the divine messengers and the marks of editors, or com
pilers, through whose hands portions of the messages
have manifestly passed. In general, the opening verses
of each book give evidence of the compUer's handling of
the prophetic material which he found. The Book of
Jonah, however, is regularly a narrative in the third
person, as though the hero of the work had no part in
its composition other than to furnish the material which
the author fashioned into the masterpiece which we have
inherited. In the Book of Zechariah, on the other hand,
we have, between the eleventh and tweUth chapters, a
change of thought and form almost as abrupt as that at
the close of the thirty-ninth chapter of Isaiah. Sufficient
examples of the various characteristics which we have
previously considered wUl offer themselves to any who

SOURCES OF THE PROPHETS 35
desire to pursue the study through the several books as
they stand.
It would be highly interesting to know when and
where the Uterary processes which we have been observ
ing began, and when they ceased. The work of some of
the prophets and other writers and the time of their
messages, as weU as the sphere of their activities, we
can ascertain with considerable certainty. David died
probably about loio b.c. That the prophetic activity
of Amos may be placed in about the middle of the eighth
century, closing perhaps near 745 B.c, and was foUowed
by the labors of Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah before the year
700, is reasonably sure. That Jeremiah had his dis
tinguished career a Uttle more than a century later,
d3dng possibly about 585, and was followed in the next
generation by Ezekiel, we may accept as substantially
correct. Haggai and Zechariah clearly belong to the
close of the exUe, about 520 B.C., and Malachi appears
to have a place two or three generations later. For most
of the others the days in which they spoke are painfully
uncertain. Conjectures have of course been made, and
the dates proposed may be found in the commentaries or
other similar discussions. For the purposes of this study
such uncertainties are of Httle value. We are concerned
primarily with the processes through which the writings
passed. Even less sure than the times of composition of the
originals are the times, or periods, when the compiling
and final editing of each of the composite works occurred.
As some of the sources, particularly the poems, which
later were woven into the Prophets are clearly ancient
and early took the literary form which their authors

36 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
conceived, so it is equaUy certain that some of the final
literary labors which we have inherited belong to the
period of the exUe or later.
As to the time when the several writings, in their
completed form, were coUected and received the sacred
impress by which they became thereafter and stiU remain
the Prophets, we are left whoUy in doubt, other than that
the evidence of the son of Sirach, as we have viewed it in
chapter ii, makes sure this achievement as early as about
200 B.C. It may have been some time previous to that,
but we cannot so assert. It cannot have been as early
as the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, at the middle of the
fifth century, for the Law alone at that time received the
sacred distinction. Fortunately our benefit from the use
of the Prophets does not hinge, in any degree, on our
lack of knowledge in this matter.

CHAPTER V
THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE TIME OF
JEREMIAH AND JOSIAH
(About 620 B.C.)
Before we retrace farther the course of the growth of
the Old Testament it wiU be of service to recaU briefly
what we have discovered thus far.
In chapter i we saw how, in the days of Jesus and
Paul, the Old Testament consisted chiefly of the Law
and the Prophets, together with large use of the Psalms
and the Book of Daniel and some sUght reference to
others of the Writings, principaUy Proverbs. Some two
centuries earUer, in the time of the son of Sirach, the
situation was much the same, larger consideration,
apparently, being given by the IsraeUtes in Eg37pt to the
books outside of the Law and the Prophets. Following
the stream of sacred thought still farther toward its
source, we discovered that, under the leadership of Ezra
and Nehemiah, about 450 B.C., the people accepted the
Law only, no reference being made to the Prophets,
though the occasion was such as to make that reference
most natural if the second division of the Old Testament
had then been recognized as a part of the sacred books of
the nation. From our study in chapter iv, however, it
has been clear that, though the Prophets had not become
a definite coUection of accepted Scripture as early as the
fifth century B.C., many of the individual books of the
|7

38 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Prophets, if not aU of them, though perhaps not in
the complete form in which we possess the books, were
composed and more or less known at that date, or at
least the sources out of which they were compUed were
ready for that use.
We retrace the course of development one stage
farther, therefore, fully conscious that, whatever we find
the main current to be, there are lesser streams about us,
either already contributing to the main flow of the
thought of national rehgious Ufe or opening into it at
' points nearer the source, where we shaU meet them as
we proceed. In this next step we are favored, as we have been in
each of the preceding steps, with highly important
material from the Bible itself to direct our way. ' It is
found in the twenty-second and twenty-third chapters
of the Second Book of Kings. The language is so im
portant that the more relevant portions require repro
ducing here in fuU, beginning at 22:3.
And it came to pass in the eighteenth year of king Josiah, that
the king sent Shaphan .... the scribe, to the house of Jehovah,
sa}dng. Go up to HiLkiah the high priest 
And HOkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I
have found the book of the law in the house of Jehovah. And
Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan, and he read it. And
Shaphan the scribe came to the king  And Shaphan the
scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath dehvered me a
book. And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to
pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law,
that he rent his clothes 
There foUows (22: 12 and on through much of chap. 23)
the somewhat detailed account of the effect which this
event produced on the king and, under his leadership,

JffiREMLVH AND JOSIAH AND OLD TESTAMENT 39
on the affairs of the kingdom, amounting to what we
have come to caU the reformation under Josiah, about
620 B.C.
As we examine the passage there is no indication that
the reading of the Law on this occasion required con
siderable time. Though the book which was brought
to the king and later read before the people is called the
Law, just as that which was read by Ezra and his
associates nearly two centuries later was called the Law,
there is no mention here that the reading extended to
even a second day; and the impression given by a study
of the passage is that the book was read twice in a single
day, and that these readings were only two of several
important incidents which the day involved. Even
if it be assumed that these two readings of the Law were
on different days, the account leaves no doubt that the
book which was brought to King Josiah was brief in
comparison with that which Ezra and his associates read
and explained to their fellow-IsraeUtes. '
Obviously it is important then to discover the con
tents of this Law which had been presented to the
nation. In this effort the method of comparison is once
more our proper and fruitful course, and we can make
the comparison because the account in Kings offers
specific references to the Law as Josiah had learned of
its demands and was putting it into execution. It is
possible accordingly to foUow up the references and
learn of the book of the Law to which they point. Some
parallels taken from the Book of Deuteronomy and the
Second Book of Kings wiU aid in reveaUng the situation.
The first has to do with the IsraeUtish worship of other
gods than Jehovah.

40

HOW THE BIBLE GREW

n Kings 22:17
Because they have forsaken me,
and have burned incense unto
other gods, that they inight pro
voke me to anger with aU the
works of their hands, therefore
my wrath shall be kindled against
this place, and it shall not be
quenched.

Deut. 29: 25-27
Then men shaU say, Because
they forsook the covenant of
Jehovah, the God of their fathers,
which he made with them when he
brought them forth out of the land
of Egypt, and went and served
other gods, and worshipped them,
gods that they knew not, and that
he had not given unto them:
therefore the anger of Jehoyah was
kindled against this land, to bring
upon it aU the curse that is written
in this book:
The reading of the two passages easUy shows that the
second grows out of the first. That which was indicated
in the language of Deuteronomy found its fulfilment in
the situation described in Kings. To the extent of this
paraUel then we may infer that the Law found in the
Temple was represented in our Book of Deuteronomy.
Another incident mentioned in II Kings (23:1-2)
points to a requirement of the Law according to which
the people were to assemble for the reading of its pre
cepts; and in Deuteronomy we find such a requirement.
Note the parallel:

Deut. 31:10-11
And Moses commanded them,
saying, At the end of every seven
years, in the set time of the year
of release, in the feast of taber
nacles, when aU Israel is come to
appear before Jehovah thy God
in the place which he shall choose,
thou shalt read this law before aU
Israel in their hearing.

II Kings 23:1-2
And the king sent, and they
gathered unto him aU the elders
of Judah and of Jerusalem. And
the king went up to the house of
Jehovah, and all the men of Judah
and aU the inhabitants of Jerusa
lem with him, and the priests, and
the prophets, and aU the people,
both small and great: and he read
in their ears aU the words of the
book of the covenant which was
found in the bouse of Jehovah.

JEREMIAH AND JOSIAH AND OLD TESTAMENT 41
The quotation from Kings readUy witnesses that the
king was carr3Tng out the command embodied in the
language of Deuteronomy. Once more then the Law
of the time of Josiah seems to correspond with the
legislation of our Book of Deuteronomy.
A further striking simUarity between the command of
Deuteronomy and the action of Josiah as stated in Kings
is found in these verses:
Deut. 13:4 II Kings 23:3
Ye shaU walk after Jehovah And the king stood by the
your God, and fear him, and keep pillar, and made a covenant
his commandments, and obey his before Jehovah, to walk after
voice, and ye shaU serve him and Jehovah, and to keep his com-
cleave unto him. mandments, and his testimonies,
and his statutes, with all his heart,
and with all his soul, to confirm
the. words of this covenant that
were written in this book:
A Uke paraUeUsm in language and thought concerning
the destiuction of forbidden forms of worship is found
in the foUowing verses:
Deut. 7:5 II Kings 23:14
Ye shall break down their And he brake in pieces the
altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and cut down the Asherim,
pillars, and hew down their and filled their places with the
Asherim, and bum their graven bones of men.
images with fire.
The reader does not need to be urged to recognize how
the language of Kings is specificaUy a description of the
action which resulted from carrying out the requirement
of Deuteronomy.

42 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
The dependence of Josiah's reformation upon the
legislation of Deuteronomy may be aptly iUustrated in
at least one more paraUel. Here are the words from
Deuteronomy and those from Kings which wait to
furnish the evidence:
Deut. 18:10-11 II Kings 23 : 24
There shaU not be found with Moreover them that had
thee any one that makes his son famiUar spirits, and the wizards,
or his daughter to pass through and the teraphim, and the idols,
fire, one that useth divination, one and all the abominations that were
that practiseth augury, or an seen in the land of Judah and in
enchanter, or a sorcerer, or a Jerusalem, did Josiah put away,
charmer, or a consulter with a that he might confirm the words ot
famiUar spirit, or a wizard, or a the law which were written in the
necromancer. book that Hilkiah the priest found
in the house of Jehovah.
Thus aU the references in Kings to the Law found in
the Temple seem to be references to our Book of Deuter
onomy. This selection of passages from Deuteronomy
is made not from choice but from necessity. There are
no such close parallels between the account in Kings and'
the other books of the Pentateuch as there are between
Kings and Deuteronomy. While phrases here and there
in the Pentateuchal books other than Deuteronomy bear
resemblance to the Kings narrative teUing of the reform
of Josiah, the reader will have great difficulty in dis
covering outside of Deuteronomy any evident basis for
the reform activities. The reform was carried out in
accordance with the legislation which Deuteronomy
presents. It is readily seen, therefore, from the evidence of the
Bible material that in the time of Josiah the Law was a
brief document in comparison with the Law in the days

JEREMIAH AND JOSIAH AND OLD TESTAMENT 43
of Ezra, and it is equaUy clear that the Law of the earlier
period was a considerable part at least of our Book of
Deuteronomy. It was our Book of Deuteronomy, or
portions of it, which was found in the house of Jehovah
in the eighteenth year of the reign of King Josiah.
The days of Josiah are the days of Jeremiah the
prophet also, Jeremiah having begun his ministry in the
thirteenth year of this king (Jer. 1:2). He was therefore
entering upon his distinguished career when the Law was
found. In view of this a comparison of the message of
Jeremiah with the events narrated in Kings and the
instructions pif Deuteronomy is fitting and Ukely to be
suggestive. Such comparison may best be made perhaps by
reading sufficient of Deuteronomy to be impressed with
its thought and language, then reading again the account
of Josiah's reform in the Book of Kings, and following
these with the reading of considerable portions of the
earUer chapters of the Book of Jeremiah. One who does
this wiU recognize easily that the three narratives have
the same underlying ideas and often present them in
similar language. If with Kings and Jeremiah one reads
from the legislation as contained in Exodus and Leviticus,
however, he will not discover the same marked similarity
that reveals itself between Jeremiah and Deuteronomy.
In addition to this general comparison, specific in
stances of likeness are to be noted. In Jer. 19:3-4 the
prophet is speaking as though the words of Huldah
the prophetess in II Kings 22: 17-16 were his own; and
the language of both is readily seen to depend on that
found in Deut. 29:25-27, as the following paraUel
shows:

44

HOW THE BIBLE GREW

Deot. 49:35-37
Then men shall say. Be
cause they forsook the
covenant of Jehovah, the
God of their fathers, which
he made with them when
he brought them forth out
of the land of Egypt, and
went and served other gods,
and worshipped them, gods
that they knew not, and
that he had not given unto
them: therefore the anger
of Jehovah was kindled
against this land, to bring
upon it all the curse that is
written in this book;

n Kings 23:16, 17
Thus saith Jehovah, Be
hold, I will bring evil upon
this place, and upon the
inhabitants thereof, even
all the words of the book
which the king of Judah
hath read. Because they
have forsaken me, and have
burned incense unto other
gods, that they might pro
voke me to anger with all
the works of their hands,
therefore my wrath is
kindled against this place,
and it shall not be
quenched.

Jer. 19:3, 4
Hear ye the word of
Jehovah, O kings of Judah
and inhabitants of Jerusa
lem: Thus saith Jehovah
of hosts, the God of Israel,
Behold, I will bring evil
upon this place, which who
soever heareth, his ears
shall tingle. Because they
have forsaken me, and
have estranged this place,
and have burned incense
in it unto other gods, that
they knew not, they and
their fathers and the kings
of Judah, and have filled
this place with the blood of
innocents. ....

Dedt. 7:5
But thus shall ye deal
with them: ye shall break
down their altars, and dash
in pieces their pUlars, and
hew down their Asherim,
and bum their graven
images with fire.

n Kings 33:14
And he brake in pieces
the pillars, and cut down
the Asherim, and filled
their places with the bones
of men.

In a sinular way we should read together Deut. 7 : 5,
II Kings 23:14, and Jer. 17:1, 2. Jek. 17:1, z
The sin of Judah is
written with a pen of iron,
and with the point of a
diamond: it is graven upon
the tablet of their heart,
and upon the homs of your
altars; whilst their children
remember their altars and
their Asherim by the green
trees upon the high hills.
In Deuteronomy the admonition is given, in Kings the
humble monarch responds with thorough Uteralness, and
in the language of the prophet is graphicaUy portrayed
the sin of those who are ignoring the warning which has
been uttered.
SimUar paraUels may be made from the foUowing
passages, the comparison of which I leave to the interest
of the reader to make. In Jer. 22:3 the prophet speaks
as though the words of Deut. 10:17-18 were directly in
this thought. The words in Jer. 11:3-4 are a distinct

JEREMIAH AND JOSIAH AND OLD TESTAMENT 45
echo of the warning of Deut. 27:26 made more effective
by combining with the IsraeUtish experience so vividly
portrayed in Deut. 4:20, and Jer. 19:13 pictures the
inevitable outcome of disregarding the teaching laid
down in Deut. 4:19.
Thus the material furnished by the Book of Jeremiah
further indicates that the Law in the time of Jeremiah
and Josiah was a book similar to our Book of Deuter
onomy. In discovering this we have not gone outside
of the information provided by the writings themselves.
Letting the Bible be its own interpreter, we have been
led to see how the Law in the time of Jeremiah was a far
less extensive work than the Law in the time of Ezra, an
earUer and much smaUer edition, as we might say, of the
later code for the Israelitish people. This briefer Law
then, as Josiah put it in force, was the Old Testament,
the accepted sacred writings, as early as the last quarter
of the seventh century B.C. It is fitting, therefore, that
we should now seek the course of events through which
the Law as used by Jeremiah developed, during the
course of two centuries, into the Law as presented to
the nation by Ezra and Nehemiah. Our task, not easy
perhaps, is to discover as many as we can of the lesser
streams of legal and didactic thought which flowed into
a single stream between 620 and 450 B.C. It is a search
for sources of the Law as those sources may be dis
cernible in the Law itself.

CHAPTER VI
SOURCES OF THE LAW
From our study thus far we see that one of the sources
of the Law in the time of Ezra was the earUer Law of the
time of Jeremiah. We should be very glad if we could
know just what that earUer Law was, how extensive it
was, and the nature of its contents. Unfortunately
that may be impossible. The Law which was foimd in
the Temple apparently has not been preserved in the
form it then had, and there may be no way by which
it can be reconstructed with certainty.
There is, however, a practical course for us to foUow.
We may first examine the contents of the Book of
Deuteronomy and learn what it offers concerning its
origin. This may furnish some clue to the extent and
nature of the earUer Law. At any rate, such a step is
the proper one to be taken.
Turning then to our Book of Deuteronomy we find
promising suggestions in the direction we desire to go.
In 31:9 it is recorded that "Moses wrote this law,"
evidently referring not to the Book of Deuteronomy
itseU but to the earUer Law which the compiler of
Deuteronomy was using. In 31:24 there is a further
reference to the legislation which Moses had prepared;
the compUer tells of the time "when Moses had made an
end of writing the words of this law in a book," that is,
the Law which the author of Deuteronomy possessed
46

SOURCES OF THE LAW 47
as a basis of the new edition of IsraeUtish Law which he
was preparing.
In this same suggestive thirty-first chapter, at the
twenty-second verse, there is preserved another impor
tant statement concerning the sources of the book,
particularly as those sources were inherited from Moses.
Here the compiler introduces the words, "So Moses
wrote this song the same day and taught it to the
children of Israel," apparentiy referring to the relatively
long poem quoted in the thirty-second chapter, in the
introduction to which (31:30) we are told again that
"Moses spake in the ears of all the assembly of Israel
the words of this song, until they were finished."
These statements in the thirty-first chapter are
among the most significant ones in the Book of Deuter
onomy bearing on the Mosaic authorship of the contents.
They are not extended, nor are they very definite.
They are sufficient, however, to show that the author
of the book in its present form freely used material which
he attributed to Moses. Apparently Moses was thought
of as the one who had originaUy prepared the Israelitish
legislation which Hes at the basis of the fuller code of
legislation comprised in Deuteronomy.
It is well worth while to pause and consider another
item of information arising from the language quoted
above. This item is the statement that Moses wrote
poetry, some of which appears to be preserved. Moses
then was a poet as weU as a lawgiver. This is hardly a
common thought in our time. The ordinary reader of
the Bible, even a reader who has given considerable study
to the contents of the volume, probably does not often,
if ever, think of Moses as a poet. Here is an element

48 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
of the great IsraeUtish leader then which has been over
looked, and yet it is one which is likely to be highly
important. This importance Ues in the close relationship between
poetry and Hfe as a whole, especiaUy in the earUer days.
From those early times Moses was led to make his
supreme contribution to the Hfe of man. We need not
wonder then if he was moved to use the rhythm of poetic
phrase or the emphasis of poetic couplet as a means of
bringing more adequately to the people the rules which
were to guide the path of Ufe; and as we pay him this
new tribute we rightiy enlarge our view of his greatness;
the splendid mental portrait we already possessed takes
on new Hnes of charm and power.
Such are some of the impressions which result from a
sympathetic reading of the Book of Deuteronomy itseU
with the desire of learning what it can furnish relative
to its authorship. These impressions, however, are
only the beginning of those which await us, and we
gladly pass on to notice others.
One of these is received through thoughtful observa
tion of the form of language as a whole. This observa
tion reveals that much of the account is written in the
third person, quite in accord with what we should expect
after considering the definite statements above showing
how the author of the book in its present form gathered
material from earUer Mosaic sources. Two or three
examples of the language which are a witness to this fact
are in place. In the opening verse of the book we read:
"These are the words which Moses spake unto aU Israel
beyond the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah.
. . , ." And then follows an explanation by the

SOURCES OF THE LAW 49
compiler, so that the reader of his day may understand
the conditions out of which Moses spoke. As soon as
this explanation is furnished, we read again (vs. 3):
"And it came to pass in the fortieth year, in the eleventh
month, on the first day of the month, that Moses spake
unto the children of Israel, according to aU that Jehovah
had given him in commandment unto them  "
Thus the compUer is careful to impress upon his readers
how he is introducing the great lawgiver whose teaching
is about to be stated in the direct language of Moses
himself. If in previous reading of the Book of Deuter
onomy we have not observed how the language shows
that Moses did not write it in its present form, that is
because we have read the language for other purposes
than to discover what it freely offers concerning its own
origin. This distinction which the compiler makes between
his own work and the material which he attributed to
Moses appears strongly in the phrase "beyond the
Jordan," which occurs at various times in the Book of
Deuteronomy as a whole. When the author of Deuter
onomy uses this phrase for himself, indicating the
geographic point from which he wrote, for example in
1:1, s; 4:41, "beyond the Jordan" is east of the river
"in the land of Moab," the writer thus indicating that
he Uved and wrote after the people had crossed the
Jordan. When, however, the phrase "beyond the Jor
dan" is clearly a part of language attributed to Moses,
it points to locaUties on the west side of the Jordan.
We see this in such instances as the words of 3:25,
"Let me go over, I pray thee, and see the good land that
is beyond the Jordan, that goodly moimtain, and

50 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Lebanon"; or, in 11:30, where Moses urged the people
to look forward to Gerizim and Ebal, adding, "Are they
not beyond the Jordan, behind the way of the going down
of the sun . . . . ? " The writer thus keeps clearly
before his readers how Moses did not cross the river,
while the writer himself, at a later date, was Hving on the
western side of the famous stream.
The details we have thus noted are sufficient to
impress upon us how the Book of Deuteronomy, like the
Law in the time of Ezra, was a compilation from previous
legislation, particularly legislation attributed to Moses.
As we feel this, it is in place to recall what we gathered
in the preceding chapter, where we found how the Law
in the time of Josiah was a considerable portion at least
of our Book of Deuteronomy. Two results stand out
before us: we see that the Law in the time of Josiah
is represented in our Book of Deuteronomy; we see
no less surely that the Book of Deuteronomy is a
compilation. ^
The next inquiry naturally is whether the Law in the
time of Josiah was our Book of Deuteronomy as a whole,
or whether it was the important source used by the
compiler of Deuteronomy. As far as we have examined
the material, our answer would be that the Law in the
time of Josiah may have been either Deuteronomy or its
main source. So we look farther to discover what we
can bearing upon the question.
The step we take is not an easy one. Perhaps the
Book of Deuteronomy alone furnishes nothing which
aUows a decisive reply to our inquiry. Its contents, as
we have seen, correspond to the contents of the book
which Shaphan took to the king and Jeremiah later

SOURCES OF THE LAW 51
employed as the basis of his stirring messages to the
people. Its extent is such that it might have been read
as Josiah and those about him pored through the pages
of the startUng document which was brought to their
attention by the temple keepers. It is needful accord
ingly to look farther than the book itself.
We turn first perhaps to the beginning of the book and
examine to see whether it appears to be the beginning of
an independent work, or whether there are indications
that it is connected with the Book of Numbers, and so,
as it now stands, gives evidence of being only a portion
of the continuous narrative which we call the Pentateuch.
In this examination it will be best to turn to the Bible
and read continuously from some portion of the last
chapter of Numbers on over into the first chapter of
Deuteronomy. Somewhat adequate impression may be
gained, however, from a quotation of the last verse of
Numbers followed by the opening words of Deuter
onomy. Here are these passages:
Num. 36: is Followed by Deut. i : i
These are the commandments and the ordinances which
Jehovah commanded by Moses unto the children of Israel in the
plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho.
These are the words which Moses spake unto all Israel beyond
the Jordan in the wilderness, in the Arabah over against Suph,
between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and
Di-Zahab. What is the impression received from the reading?
Are these adjoining sentences of a single narrative, or are
they two expressions of two similar ideas ? Is the first
a summary of the account which it closes, the second a

52 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
forecast of the history which it serves to introduce?
Probably most readers will incUne to the second alterna
tive, feeUng that we are in the presence of the ending
of one work and the beginning of another. This impres
sion is likely to be strengthened if one turns to the close
of Leviticus, foUowing it with the opening of Numbers,
and then in like manner to Exodus-Leviticus and to
Genesis-Exodus. He wiU find at the close of Leviticus,
to be sure, a summary, but it is not foUowed by one in
the first verse of Numbers, and it may have been merely
a summary in the midst of a narrative. The divisions
between Genesis and Exodus and between Exodus and
Leviticus seem qmte arbitrary, breaking up the con
tinuity of the account in Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus
as a whole. Altogether the relation between Numbers
and Deuteronomy, when compared with the relations
between the other books, suggests that Deuteronomy
is a separate compilation.
Before we adopt that as a conclusion, however, we
shaU do weU to turn to the close of the book and notice
how it is related to the Book of Joshua. On doing this
we find that the concluding portion of Deuteronomy is
an account of the death of Moses. We go on to the
opening verses of Joshua and read, "Now it came to
pass after the death of Moses the servant of Jehovah,
that Jehovah spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses'
minister  " Thus the Joshua narrative appears
to continue that in Deuteronomy If one opens the
Bible and reads the passages in fuU, he wiU recognize how
fittingly the two books join together. Apparently the
books are a single work which has been arbitrarily
divided at this point.

SOURCES OF THE LAW S3
This discovery may well prompt us to turn the pages
of the Bible further and examine the relation between the
Book of Joshua and the Book of Judges. Is the Book
of Judges a continuation of the account in Joshua ?
With that question in mind we look to the close of
Joshua and find that 24 : 29-30 is an account of the death
of Joshua. This is separated from the Book of Judges
by only three or four sentences, and the two books might
be severed portions of one historical work, so far as that
evidence is concerned, since the first verse of Judges
refers to what occurred after the death of Joshua. If,
however, one reads on through the first and second
chapters of the Book of Judges, he discovers quite
surprising material. In addition to noticing that the
first chapter as a whole deals with conditions at the very
beginning of the occupation of the country west of the
Jordan, he finds that in chapter 2 Joshua is stiU aUve,
and the account treats him as though there had been no
reference to his death. Some meditation on these ele
ments of the history reveals that in the early portion
of the Book of Judges we have an account substantiaUy
paraUel to that in Joshua. The two books are not
different chapters of a single history; they are different
histories of the same events, and the opening sentence of
the Book of Judges is an editorial adjustment made when
the two histories were brought together for the arrange
ment of the Prophets as the second portion of the
IsraeUtish Scriptures.
If now we turn back and read through Deuteronomy
and Joshua as a whole, it wiU be easy to see that the story
of Joshua is needed to continue the history begun in
Deuteronomy. If the style of the narrative is observed,

54 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
as weU as the events narrated, one wiU see also that
the Hterary quaHties of Deuteronomy are manifest in
Joshua, even in the EngUsh translation. Deuteronomy
and Joshua then furnish good evidence that they are
dissevered sections of a single historical work.
Is it possible then that the Law which was found in
the Temple in the eighteenth year of King Josiah was
Deuteronomy- Joshua as a single book? Apparently
this cannot be. In addition to the fact that the two
books together are much longer, it seems, than what was
read by Shaphan and by the king, there is nothing in the
account of the reformation under Josiah to indicate that
the Book of Joshua was a part of the temple Law.
There is another possibihty. We recaU, as explained
above (chap, v), how the Law which was discovered in
the Temple may have been merely one of the main
sources of the present Book of Deuteronomy. Since that
temple Law was not Deuteronomy- Joshua as a whole,
and it is clear that Deuteronomy and Joshua in their
present form belong together, we are now brought easily
to the conclusion that the temple Law was merely the
chief source out of which our Deuteronomy was compiled.
What then is the relation between Genesis-Exodus-
Leviticus-Numbers as a single continuous narrative and
Deuteronomy-Joshua as another single continuous
narrative? Are these reaUy separate, independent
works, as the close of Numbers and the opening words of
Deuteronomy have led us to think possible, if not
probable? Or is that apparent independence a mere
Hterary accident, Deuteronomy being actually a con
tinuation of the story in Numbers ? Undoubtedly this
latter alternative is reaUy in accord with the facts in

SOURCES OF THE LAW 55
spite of the language at the point of union. The contents
of the two books as a whole indicate that the second
continues, in a general way at least, the narrative which
is contained in the first. One might even be judged
harshly for proposing that Deuteronomy is not a con
tinuation of Numbers, if the proposal had not been made
merely as a fair analysis of the material bearing on the
question, particularly the language where the two books
touch each other. How there came to be a summary
at the end of what we caU the Book of Numbers and
another introducing what we caU the Book of Deuter
onomy it is not easy to teU. Perhaps the most probable
explanation is to recaU how, in the early use of the
narrative, convenience led to the breaking up of it into
parts, and then to recognize how the material in Deuter
onomy especiaUy is of a somewhat distinct character, a
new summary of the earhest legislation, and an editorial
titie such as we now find at the beginning of the book
was a natural aid to the reader. At the same time a
summary of the preceding division, what we caU the
Book of Numbers, would have been equally natural.
There is a significant outcome of our investigations
thus far. While we may stiU speak of the Pentateuch,
that is, a single work in five parts, because the word has
a specific meaning, we are more concerned, from the
point of view of Hterary history, with the first six books
of the Bible, the Hexateuch, as the word is used to
describe the early Bible narrative, a single work in six
parts. Our study of the testimony of the books themselves
then brings us face to face with a larger problem than
we have been aware of heretofore. It is not the problem

56 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
of the origin of the Book of Deuteronomy alone; it is
not even the question of the origin of the Law, the
Pentateuch; it is the question of the origin of the
Hexateuch as a whole with which we are deaUng.
This new aspect of the study furnishes a happy
feature. In discovering that our search for the sources
of the Law is really a search for the sources of the Hexa
teuch, we are carried along to see the close relation
between the Law and the Prophets and to the evident
relationship between the sources of the two, for the Book
of Joshua belongs to both. We need at once then to
recaU some of the material we. gathered in chapter iv,
where we have taken into account sources of the Book
of Joshua as one of the Prophets, since what was there a
source for the Prophets becomes here relevant as a source
of the Hexateuch and of the Law as a part of the Hexa
teuch. The recoUection of one element of that discussion is
the most significant. This element is the study of the
quotations from the Book of Jashar (pp. 23-27), which
brought us to the conclusion that the Book of Joshua
was composed at least as late as the close of the life of
David. The meaning of that is now evident for the
further study of the Hexateuch and its sources. Joshua
we have foimd to be at least as late as the days of
Solomon, and at the same time it reveals itself as part
of the continuous history beginning with the Book of
Genesis. The Hexateuch then, and so the Law, assumed
its final form not earher than the death of David.
While this is highly interesting as we look for the
sources of the Law, it ought not to take us away from the
consideration of further sources as revealed through

SOURCES OF THE LAW 57
investigation of the material furnished by the Law itself.
We turn then to notice some passages in the Law which
give a further clue to the early documents which its
compilers employed. Happily we have definite mention
of a work which suggests that it was akin to the Book of
Jashar. This is in the Book of Numbers (21 : 14), where
we read: Wherefore it is said in the book of the Wars of Jehovah,
Vaheb'in Suphah,
And the valleys of the Amon, :
And the slope of the vaUeys
That inclineth toward the dwellings of Ar,
And leaneth upon the border of Moab.
If the title of the work here referred to were not given
as the Wars of Jehovah, we might easily infer that this
quotation, Hke those in the Prophets, had been selected
from the Book of Jashar. Like those it is poetic, and
it indicates conditions connected with the rugged life
of the IsraeUtish nation.
Two verses farther along (Num. 21:17-18) we meet
another quotation from a poetic source, introduced as a
song of Israel when they had been furnished with water
to meet their need. Whether this is another quotation
from the book of the Wars of Jehovah it is impossible to
say, but there is no hint that one source is employed in
both instances, and perhaps the probability is that the
two poetic selections are from separate writings.
We have only to turn a leaf, or less, and find in
21:27-30 a considerable selection from a poem which is
attributed to those "that speak in proverbs." Appar
ently this is stiU another source, though the variation in

58 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
name may be only a recognition of difference in titie of
the particular poem rather than the use of an additional
coUection, or book, of poetic compositions. Whatever
the facts of authorship in detaU, we are manifestly in
the presence of a variety of sources which have been
UtUized by the compiler of the Law.
Before we leave this aspect of the question of source
material for the Law we should think of the extended
poem in the fifteenth chapter of Exodus, which is caUed
the song of "Moses and the chUdren of Israel." This
description may not be intended to indicate authorship.
It must, however, be at least another reminder of the
Israelitish conception of Moses as a man with poetic
temperament at the same time that he was the foimder of
the national legislation. In this fact is re-emphasized
the primitive relation between poetry and the rules
for directing conduct. This relationship may weU be
kept ui mind in our further effort to retrace the
currents of Uterary composition among the IsraeUtish
people. There are two other interesting statements in the
Pentateuch concerning the part which Moses shared in
preparing the way for the writings to which his name has
become attached. One of these is preserved in the Book
of Numbers. In 33 : 2 it is recorded that " Moses wrote "
an account of the departure of the IsraeUtes from Egypt
according to the command of Jehovah. Such an account
would naturally be something in the form of annals of
the journeys which the people made. Much of the
remainder of chapter 33 is composed of brief descriptions
of journeys which the people accompHshed, and thus
fuffils our expectations. We have before us in the

SOURCES OF THE LAW 59
chapter, therefore, some portion of a brief and early
record of the tiavels of the people, a record which entered
naturaUy as a source into the later compUation.
Two obvious inferences are to be kept in mind from
what we have just noted. We must be impressed with
the fact that the Book of Numbers at this point is a
narrative some of the material of which is specifically
credited to Moses. Along with that it is equaUy clear
that the language at the opening of this thirty-third
chapter of Numbers is from an editor who is introducing
Moses as the author of the source from which the editor
has chosen to select.
The other statement concerning Moses as an author
is found in Exod. 24:4, where we read that "Moses
wrote all the words of Jehovah" which had been given to
him on the occasion mentioned. While the nature of
what is attributed to Moses here is entirely different from
that attributed to him in the thirty-third chapter of
Numbers, the Uterary form of the two passages is sub
stantially the same, and the resulting inferences are quite
alike. Both call attention to Moses as an author of
material incorporated in our Pentateuch; both make
clear the work of an editor upon the material which he
had drawn from Moses as a source.
We are now ready to observe that the narrative of
the Pentateuch as a whole is ordinarily in the third
person. This may be verified on almost any page of
any one of the five books. It appears to be a significant
fact. While it is entirely conceivable that a writer
would use his own name in the third person, as though
someone else were presenting him, that possibihty seems
altogether improbable both from the general form of the

6o

HOW THE BIBLE GREW

language as we have observed it and from other con
siderations which will offer themselves later.
Among these considerations are the facts presented
in passages such as the following, each of which must be
allowed to have its own proper weight in leading to a
conclusion concerning the Uterary development of the
Pentateuchal writings. The first of the passages which
I mention has to do with the naming of Isaac. This
naming itself is one of the weU-known incidents of the
Bible and is often retold. That there are three different
forms of the incident is not so weU understood. The
passages containing these three versions of the giving
of the name are Gen. 17:17, 19; 18:12; and 21:5-6, and
their significance may best be seen by placing them in
paraUel columns.

Gen. i8:i3
And Sarah laughed with
in herself, saying, After I
am waxed old shall I have
pleasure, my lord being old
also?

Gen. 3i:s-6

And Abraham was a
hundred years old, when
his son Isaac ["laughter"]
was bom unto him. And
Sarah said, God hath made
me to laugh; everyone that
heareth will laugh with me.

Gen. 17:17, 19
Then Abraham fell upon
his face, and laughed, and
said in liis heart. Shall a
child be bom unto him that
isa hundred years old ? and
shall Sarah, that is ninety
years old, bear? ....
Sarah thy wife shall bear
thee a son; and thou shalt
call his name Isaac
["laughter"!.

The three passages should be read in fuU if one is to
receive the proper impression, but in any comparison the
variations in the accounts of the naming of the chUd
are evident. In the first the name Isaac, meaning
"laughter," is given because of the unbeUeving laugh
of Abraham. In the second it is Sarah who is lacking
in faith concerning the birth of the chUd Isaac. In the
third the laughter on the part of Sarah which explains

SOURCES OF THE LAW 6i
the name of the chUd is not the laugh of unbeUef but
that of joy.
As soon as these patent facts are before us and we
seek an explanation, the simple one is to conclude that
three different accounts of the birth and naming of
Isaac have been combined by a compUer without
attempting to harmonize them. For us, in our desire
to understand the origin of the Mosaic writings, this
preservation of the variant accounts is highly fortunate.
If the compiler had entirely re-written the story of the
incident we should have been deprived of the important
information we now possess.
Another incident of somewhat simUar import is the
story of the explanation of the name Jehovah. There is
an explanation in Exod. 3:13-15; in Exod. 6:2-6 an
explanation of the name is given as though nothing of
the sort had preceded; and the second explanation varies
from the other. These dissimilarities may be seen best
by placing the two passages side by side.
Exod. 3: 13-14 Exod. 6: 2-6
And Moses said unto God, And God spake unto Moses
Behold, when I come unto the and said unto him, I am Jehovah:
children of Israel, and shall say and I appeared unto Abraham,
unto them. The God of your unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as God
fathers hath sent me unto you; Almighty: but by my name
and they shall say unto me, What Jehovah I was not known to them.
is his name ? what shall I say unto .... And moreover I have heard
them? And God said unto the groaning of the children of
Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and Israel .... and I have remem-
he said. Thus shalt thou say unto bered my covenant. Wherefore
the children of Israel, I AM hath say unto the children of Israel, I
sent me unto you. am Jehovah 

The most casual reading of the passages wiU disclose
that a single writer would scarcely have offered these

62 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
two explanations of the introduction of the name
Jehovah, and particularly in such close proximity to each
other. The ordinary reader of the Bible, however,
naturaUy does not discover the two accoimts, since he
either does not read the two passages at a single sitting,
or he reads for other than Hterary and historical purposes,
and the Hkeness of the two does not reveal itself. That
there are two accounts, however, is evident; and the
explanation is most easUy found in the recognition that
our Book of Exodus is a composite formed of at least two
documents and the editorial work of the compUer.
A further example of the fusing of two accoimts of a
single incident is the story of the departure of Jacob
from the home of his parents to spend some time with
his uncle Laban. The most sigmficant portions of the
combined accounts are Gen. 27:42-45 and Gen. 28:1-7,
which I leave to the reader to arrange in their proper
paralleUsm. He wiU be particularly impressed with the
two quite different reasons assigned for the making of
the journey.
One more instance of the Pentateuchal paraUels,
selected from the opening part of the narrative, wiU be
sufficient to iUustrate the editorial method of composition
which the Mosaic legislation displays. It is the account
of the creation of vegetation and man as given in Gen.
1 : 11-12, 26-27, and again in 2 : 5-7. The material is so
important that the fuU quotation is more than justffied.
Gen. 1:11-12, 26-27 Gen. 2:5-7
And God said. Let the earth put And no plant of the field was
forth grass, herbs yielding seed, yet in the earth, and no herb of
and fruit-trees bearing fruit after the field had yet sprung up; for
their kind, wherein is the seed Jehovah God had not yet caused

SOURCES OF THE LAW 63
Gen. 1:11-12, 26-27 Gen. 2:5-7
thereof, upon the earth: and it it to rain upon the earth: and
was so. And the earth brought there was not a man to till the
forth grass, herbs yielding seed ground; but there went up a mist
after their kind: and God saw from the earth, and watered the
that it was good. whole face of the ground.
And God said. Let us make man And Jehovah God formed man
in our image, after our likeness: of the dust of the ground, and
and let them have dominion over breathed into his nostrils the
the fish of the sea, and over the breath of life; and man became a
birds of the heavens, and over the living soul.
cattle, and over aU the earth, and
over every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth. And
God created man in his own image,
in the image of man created he
him; male and female created he
them. The dupHcation is obvious. In each there is the
creation of varieties of vegetable life, and yet the second
account begins with a specific statement that there had
not yet been any such creation of plant Ufe as the first
account clearly describes. In the second accoimt we
find the creation of man as ingenuously introduced as
though no reference to such creation had previously been
made. The conclusion is natural and simple. In the first
two chapters of Genesis we are in the presence of a
narrative of the creation resulting from the combination
of at least two accounts, the compUer being more
interested to preserve both forms of the report than to
bring them into agreement, or to take the time to caU
attention to the variations 9f detaU and the disagree
ments in the resulting narrative as a whole. This may
be a method of writing history to which we are not
accustomed, but the outcome is certainly fortunate for

64 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
us as a means of reveaUng the processes through which
the Pentateuchal, or rather the Hexateuchal, accounts
have been preserved.
These examples of paraUel narrative, as we have
noted them, interwoven into the Hexateuch and edited
by the hand of a compiler, or compilers, are sufficient
to Ulustrate the general processes through which the
Mosaic legislation arose and the methods which were
employed in bringing the result about. We need further,
at this point, only to recaU what sources, or tj^es of
sources, have revealed themselves as we have examined
the language of the Law itself.
At the basis of aU the material assembled in the
Pentateuch then Ues the inheritance which the nation
had received from Moses. He was remembered, by the
writers of later days, as the writer of annals of the
IsraeUtish travels, as the singer of heroic stories con
cerning Israel and her history, and as the framer of
legislation and other rules for the guidance of the people's
life. How extensive the writings of Moses were, in what
form he left them, and how recoUections of his thought
and service were compiled by others and related to his
own writings, as his friends would certainly have been
disposed to preserve his career and explain its meaning
for those who foUowed — all this we are not told. We can
merely draw such inferences as detailed study of the
history warrants, and there seems no occasion here to do
it at all. Our purpose is merely to understand the
elements of Hexateuchal growth and the processes of
development. With this Mosaic basis for IsraeUtish legislation the
compUers had access also to other early poetic story and

SOURCES OF THE LAW 65
other traditions. As an outcome, somewhere before
the eighteenth year of King Josiah, there was prepared
the Law which was then found in the Temple. With
regard to who the compiler or compilers were we have no
information. How extensive the book was we are not
told. A study of the Book of Deuteronomy in its
relation to the reformation of Josiah, as recorded in the
twenty-second and twenty-third chapters of II Kings,
leads to the conclusion, as we have seen, that the temple
Law must have been a considerable portion, perhaps
nearly aU, of the contents of Deuteronomy.
Thus the Book of Deuteronomy, largely as we have
it, became the book of legal guidance for the IsraeUtish
people before the year 600 b.c. Then came the national
overthrow and the exile, but the national Law and the
other writings were cherished and preserved and thus
became possible sources of further writings. These
writings, as we have observed, included the Book of
Joshua as weU as the Law, resulting in a Hterary Hexa
teuch rather than the Pentateuch alone. As Joshua is
the first of the Prophets, we have been carried along
inevitably to think of the sources of the Law as inti
mately related to those of the Prophets. This opens the
larger question of the growth of the Law and the Prophets
as a whole.

CHAPTER VII
THE GROWTH OF THE LAW AND
THE PROPHETS
The outcome of our study thus far is a discovery that
the several books caUed by Israel the Law and the
Prophets were the result of a long development in which
the writings of various authors and editors were finaUy
compUed into books, and these books were gathered into
two collections, the earher of which was known as the
Law and the later as the Prophets. This outcome pre
sents itseU through an examination of the several books
themselves, beginning with the specific language of the
New Testament and then foUowing up the suggestions
and clues which continuously open for our use.
This method commends itseU because it meets the
requirement of being faithfid to the Scriptures. Where
the Bible itseK leads, aU lovers of the book wUl readUy
foUow. If the method discloses some elements of the
Uterary development of the Bible which are not generaUy
famiUar or universally accepted, the outcome is not the
fault of the method. As far as the Bible, even the
EngUsh Version, is concerned, the elements of growth to
which attention has been caUed might have been
generally known long ago. They have failed to become
understood because most of us have failed to observe
the historical data which were lying ready at hand and
waiting for proper use. And we also are to a large
degree blameless in the matter because the training
66

GROWTH OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 67
furnished us has tended to obscure or hide the Hterary
history of the Bible. Our teachers and we have usuaUy
gone to the Bible as a book of devotion, or a book of
doctrine, and we have passed by on the other side when
we came near the appeal of the book for attention as a
source of its own history.
Now that an examination of the Scripture itseU
reveals its growth, we ought perhaps to summarize the
results already attained. We have been traveUng from
near the mouth of the river of Scripture back toward the
various sources of this wonderful stream of Hfe and
thought; now it may be useful to retrace our steps, note
briefly what we have discovered, and thus gather some
thing of the actual Uterary movements out of which arose
the Law and the Prophets.
We may begin then by recalUng how the earUest
specific references of the Bible to authorship are those
which mention Moses as a writer of annals and other
material. These references have been considered in
some detail, apparently covering all specific indications
of his authorship which the Pentateuch contains.
Accordingly, as far as the testimony of the Law itself is
concerned, the Hterary history of the Bible began about
1200 B.C., since the period to which Moses belonged is
not far from that date. Whether there was an earher
Hterary development the Hexateuch does not show.
There may have been such a history, and fragments of its
Uterary expression may be imbedded, without descriptive
marks, in the Hexateuchal narrative. Perhaps it is
most natural to assimie such a Hterary heritage. If we
do, we are Ukely to find the remains of it in such genea
logical Hsts as those of the tenth and eleventh chapters

68 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
of Genesis, and in such snatches of primitive poetry as
Gen. 4:23-24, where these early couplets are preserved.
And Lamech said unto his wives:
Adah and ZUlah, hear my voice;
Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech:
For I have slain a man for wounding me,
And a young man for bruising me:
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
Truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.
Interesting as such verses are, however, and bearing
inherent marks of primitive thought and expression, we
are unable to date them from the material offered by the
Bible itself. We cannot even say that they are earUer
than the time of Moses, though we may feel that they
are. As far as the bibUcal testimony is concerned, the
Scriptures trace themselves back only to Moses, the
leader, the poet, and the lawgiver of the sons of Israel;
and to him it attributes only portions of the material
which was employed by the later writers.
During the two centuries or so between Moses and
David no author, in the proper sense of the term, seems
to have appeared. The Scripture evidence for the
period is fragmentary, but it leads to that conclusion.
There are, however, some suggestive, though incidental,
references to Uterary activity.
In Josh. 8:32 (cf. 24:26) it is said that Joshua wrote
a copy of the Law. Though this does not make the
successor of Moses an author, it does indicate education
and the possibUity of Uterary Ufe. This would have been
natural for associates of Moses, particularly for his close
companion, who assumed his leadership. What the Law
was of which Joshua is said to have mad? a copy may

GROWTH OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 69
be inferred from what we have already gathered con
cerning the work of Moses and the Uterary contribution
which he made to the IsraeUtish people. Obviously we
are not able to say just what was its nature or its
extent. On page 27 I have already called attention to the
language of Judg. i : i i-x 2. It has a significance beyond
what the use of it there properly brought out, a sig
nificance which is appropriate and important here.
This is foimd in the older name of the place, Kiriath-
sepher, which means "City-of-books." In other words
the people who Uved there before the IsraeUtes came
into the country had reached the stage of cultural
development where one of their towns was known as a
city of books pre-eminently. Into such an atmosphere
the sons of Israel entered when they passed to the west
ward of the Jordan River and made that part of the
country their home. Any education, culture, and Ut
erary tendency which they already possessed found a
favorable soU in which to grow, and it would have been
strange if progress had not been made.
The story of Deborah I have used on page 27 to
illustrate the double type of source material in the
Prophets. It rightly serves another purpose here.
While we may not be able to say certainly that either
the prose or the poetic account is contemporary, or
nearly so, with the event, yet it seems more natural to
think that the poetic story at least belongs to about the
period when the incident occurred. If this is correct,
then this poem, and very likely more or less of other
similar Hterature, appeared during the half-dozen genera
tions from Moses to David the king. The heritage from

70 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Moses and from the Hterary predecessors in Palestine
had not been lost; perhaps it was rather beginning to
be improved. Another incidental but suggestive statement belong
ing to this period occurs in I Sam. lo: 25, where we read
that Samuel told the people about the kingdom and wrote
this in a book. How much may have been written, or
the nature of it, we can only guess, but at any rate the
later compUer of the Prophets looked back to Samuel
as the writer of an account of the government and its
meaning for the people who had providentiaUy come
under his direction. The generation preceding that of
David, therefore, as weU as that foUowing him, gave
some attention to recording the events which seemed of
most concern for the national welfare.
Such are the foimtains and brooklets of Uterary
thought and expression which the Bible reveals concern
ing the days previous to the estabhshment of the kingdom
under the direction of the son of Jesse. IndividuaUy
they might not seem to mean much toward a national
Hterature, but taken together and viewed as the early
sources of a Hterary development they are amply suffi
cient as a promise of aU that manifested itself later.
When we arrive at the period of David and Solomon
and their successors the evidence of Hterary efforts
increases. According to II Sam. 11:14, David wrote a
letter to his general, Joab; and from this period on there
is somewhat frequent reference to the writing of letters
or to other Hterary activity. It was at this time, as
we have already seen (p. 25), that the Book of Jashar
appears to locate itself, and here we find the earhest
mention of the annaUst and secretary. In connection

GROWTH OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 71
with the story of the reign of Solomon we meet a refer
ence to the book of the acts of this king (I Kings 11 :4i),
this being the first mention of such a narrative. After
the kingdom was divided, about 935 B.C., each of the two
resulting kingdoms began a similar narrative. For the
kingdom of Judah it is caUed the Book of the Chronicles
of the Kings of Judah, and for the northern kingdom we
have the corresponding form, the Book of the Chronicles
of the Kings of Israel.
Some inferences are obvious. The literary inher
itance from Moses and his successors did not suffice.
The sons of Israel had reached a development where they
desired the work of the historian, the historian of those
times to be sure, but at any rate the labors of a class of
men whose business it was to record and preserve some
thing of the royal achievements. This was a require
ment for the undivided nation, and it was regarded as
equally essential for each of the two branches into which
the nation separated.
The significance of this for the Hterary history of the
people and the growth of the Bible deserves to be well
considered, especially in its relation to other data.
Among these other data is the fact that the Hexateuch
contains much material in addition to the legislative
nucleus inherited from Moses and the poetic thought
received from him and other singers. It contains an
outhne of the history of the world from the beginning of
time, and this outhne history, as we have observed, is
composed in various instances of dupUcate accounts
woven together. At the same time there is no evidence
that these duplicate stories of the ancient days were
written in the period of the events. There is no mention

72 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
of the date, or periods, when they were written. The
earhest mention of Uterary Hfe which would naturally
have produced such historical narratives begins with
David and Solomon.
How are we to explain these various data of Hterary
activities ? Undoubtedly they are related to each other.
What is the relation? The answer is perhaps almost
obvious as soon as we look at the entire situation with
an open mind. Before we state it, however, there is
one other element of the situation which claims attention
for a moment.
Two of the prominent figures in the early part of the
ninth century, that is in the time of Ahab and a Httle
later, were the prophets EHjah and EHsha. The Books
of Kings contain a long account of the careers of these
men. Yet there is little or nothing to indicate that they
wrote their messages. They belonged to the age when
the oracle of the prophet was only oral. The accounts
of their labors were preserved by others than themselves.
Whether those who wrote these messages and the events
connected with the prophetic careers were friends of those
days and wrote contemporary records we are not advised.
Since there were royal secretaries, however, there may
weU have been prophetic secretaries. Perhaps there is a
suggestion of such secretary friends in the story of the
sons of the prophets as told in II Kings 2:3-7. The
significant fact for the purposes of our study now is
that we have copious narratives of prophetic life and
thought, but narratives not prepared by the prophets
themselves. Altogether we have most important material out of
which to frame an answer to the question suggested in the

GROWTH OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 73
second paragraph above. We have a legal inheritance
from Moses, poems which he composed, the songs of
other early bards, the beginning of royal annals in the
reign of David, the continuance of such records for both
of the later kingdoms, the law as it appeared in the time
of King Josiah, and the combination of all such material,
together with an outUne of the history of the world from
the beginning of time, this outline itself showing its
composite nature, as in the incidents of the creation of
man, the story of the flood, and the naming of Isaac — ¦
all these elements combined as early as the time of Ezra
into a single narrative the chief part of which we caU the
Pentateuch. How did this come about ?
The reply, in addition to what has already been
indicated, obviously is that, as each of the two kingdoms
foUowing the death of Solomon was interested to record
its own achievements, so the leaders of each became
desirous of carrying its history back to the dawn of time,
made use of such traditions and other materials as were
avaUable, and wrote a history accordingly. As the
materials were not the same for the writers of both
kingdoms, so the two histories varied in the respective
accounts of the events described. The leaders of the
two nations, when they were taken to Babylonia, carried
these histories with them. Surrounded by the thought,
culture, and historical materials of Babylonia, some of
them, particularly the priestly scholars, were led to take
StiU a third view of IsraeUtish history, law, and life, and
yet to cherish the writings which they had inherited.
And out of all these elements arose the Hexateuch, as
naturally as the fuU-flowing river is the gathering
together of many fountains, brooklets, creeks, and other

74 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
larger streams. In some places it exhibits the combina
tion of three sources, with the work of an editor; in other
places only two main sources.
The composition of the Hexateuch, however, did not
absorb aU the avaUable materials of IsraeUtish thought,
history, and law. Indeed it made use of material cover
ing only the time previous to and including the days of
Joshua; and the fact that a faithful study of it reveals
its composite nature reveals also that it was the product
of selections, and that the remainders of those selections
were discarded or left for such lafer service as might be
desired. In other words, a proper study of the language
of the Bible to learn its history introduces us to an
IsraeUtish Hterature of considerable extent, only the
choicest portions of which, as so regarded by the later
compilers, have been preserved.
This becomes increasingly evident as we pass on later
than the days of Ezra and the formation of the Hexateuch
to consider the formation of the Prophets into a single
closed coUection of sacred writings. It is to be seen in
the fact that, whUe the several books of the Prophets are
not referred to in the time of Ezra and evidently had not
yet been exalted to the sacred dignity bestowed on them
a Httle more than two centuries later, yet the contents
of nearly or quite all of these writings are devoted to Ufe
and events previous to Ezra's work. In the case of the
earUer prophets, namely, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and
Kings, this is obvious* the last of these having reached its
natural close when the kingdoms came to an end. While
it is not so evident in the case of the preacher-prophets
Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the
others, it is sufficiently clear to require only mention in

GROWTH OF THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS 75
order to be recognized. These men Hved before Ezra's
time. The course of events which led to the selection and
acceptance of these Prophets as the second division of
the IsraeUtish Scriptures is reasonably certain. The
actual marks of the process, to be sure, have not been
discovered; and it is easy to see that the compilers were
not concerned in leaving a record of what they did and
how they came to do it. They were concerned with the
enterprise itself, the better preservation of their sacred
writings, and the use of these in the development of the
nation. The needful materials for this work, the
assembUng of the Prophets, were l)dng ready at hand, and
the appearance of the collection about 200 B.C. leaves
Httle doubt concerning the substance of what occurred.
It was this: IsraeUtish history as it had been written in
the kingdom of Judah and a simUar history as it had been
written in the northern kingdom, each covering the tune
from Moses to Solomon, were used, edited, and combined
with other available sources to produce our Books of
Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and the beginning of Kings.
In a similar way the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings
of Judah and the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of
Israel, with other sources, were brought together, the
result being now before us in the Books of the Kings, as
these cover the period from Solomon to the exile. The
oracles of the great preachers of Israel, from Amos to
Malachi, were handled in a simUar maimer and brought
into substantiaUy their present form. FinaUy, some
where about two centuries before the birth of Jesus, aU
these writings were so used and came to be so regarded
because of their pecuHar worth that, through divine

76 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
providence, they became a distinct and spedaUy recog
nized coUection of sacred books. Since we do not know
the detaUs of the extended process there is no need that
we should attempt to narrate them. It is important,
however, that we keep in mind how natural the growth
was, and that we enter into sympathy with the spirit,
historical, Hterary, and reUgious, which brooded over
the development.

CHAPTER vm
THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS
Our study thus far has revealed how the Law and the
Prophets developed. Beginning from the New Testa
ment we traced back the various stages of growth and
the sources which were employed by the sacred writers.
Having done that, we retiaced our steps (chap, vii),
observing the natural development which the Law and
the Prophets show. Now it is in place to seek the
processes through which the third division of the Hebrew
Bible, the Writings, came to be a recognized and closed
collection of books.
In this search we should recall, from chapter i, how
Jesus and the authors of the New Testament books seem
not to have had the Writings as a definite collection.
No one of the New Testament speakers or writers refers
to it. In view of this we cannot expect to find in the
Bible any evidence of the formation of the third division
of the Hebrew Bible as a whole. We can only study the
growth of the several books, but there are some items of
material in such a study which make it particularly
useful. It has been already noticed (pp. 8-9) that the Book
of Psalms was the portion of the Writings most used in
New Testariient times, and that the Psahns ordinarily
have stood first among the books of the third division
of the Hebrew Scriptures. To the Psalms then we nat
uraUy give first attention in the present chapter.
77

78 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
WhUe most readers of the Bible are accustomed to
think of the Psahns as a single book, they are reaUy a
combination of five books. The Authorized Version
unfortunately has never revealed this. In the Revised
Version, however, the fact is easUy seen, the divisions
being noted and a separate title given for each division.
Thus the student is advised that the five books in the
Hebrew are arranged as foUows: Book I, Pss. 1-41;
Book II, Pss. 42-72; Book III, Pss. 73-89; Book IV,
Pss. 90-106; Book V, Pss. 107-150.
At once there is a desire to know how it came about
that the Israelites regarded the Psahns as a book of five
parts, or, more accurately, why the scribes of Israel
preserved their marvelous collection of sacred songs in
five divisions. We must therefore examine some of the
data offered by the Psalms in reply to the question
before us.
The ordinary reader, even though faithful in his use
of the Bible, may not have noticed that some of the
psalms are ahnost exact dupUcates of others. Students
of the history of the Psahns, however, have discovered
that such repetitions occur, and it wiU be helpful here to
consider some of them. This may best be done by such
paralleUsm as I have used in the case of the composite
narrative of the Law and the Prophets. One of the
striking instances is that of Ps. 14 when compared with
Ps. 53- Ps. 14 Ps. 53
The fool hath said in his heart, The fool hath said in his heart.
There is no God. There is no God.
They are corrupt, they have done Corrupt are they, and have done
abominable works; abominable iniquity;
There is none that doeth good. There is none that doeth good.

THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS

79

Ps. 14
Jehovah looked down from heaven
upon the children of men.
To see if there were any that did
understand.
That did seek after God.
They are all gone aside; they are
together become filthy;
There is none that doeth good, no,
not one.
Have all the workers of iniquity
no knowledge.
Who eat up my people as they eat
bread,
And call not upon the name of
Jehovah ?
There were they in great fear;
For God is in the generation of
the righteous.
Ye put to shame the coimsel of
the poor,
Because Jehovah is his refuge.
Oh that the salvation of Israel
were come out of Zion!
When Jehovah bringeth back the
captivity of his people,
Then shall Jacob rejoice, and
Israel shall be glad.

Ps. 53
God looked down from heaven
upon the children of men.
To see if there were any that did
understand,
That did seek after God.
Every one of them is gone back;
they are together become filthy;
There is none that doeth good, no,
not one.
Have all the workers of iniquity
no knowledge,
Who eat up my people as they eat
bread,
And call not upon God ?
There were they in great fear
where no fear was;
For God hath scattered the bones
of tiJTn that encampeth against
thee:
Thou hast put them to shame,
because God hath rejected them.
Oh that the salvation of Israel
were come out of Zion!
When God bringeth back the
captivity of his people,
Then shall Jacob rejoice, and
Israel shall be glad.

Two or three points at least need to be noticed in the
comparison. One of these is that the Fourteenth Psahn
is in the fijrst of the five books and the Fifty-third in the
second book. Again, in the Fifty-third Psahn the name
Jehovah does not appear; the title God takes its place.
Further, there are some verbal differences in details,
especiaUy in the latter part of the Psalms. Apparently
one of the Psalms is a revision of the other. This is the
simplest explanation of what one sees, and it is an
entirely natural explanation, the more appeaUng in view

8o HOW THE BIBLE GREW
of what we have observed concerning the editing which
occurred in the Law and the Prophets. It may be noted
m addition that the title given to the Fifty-third Psahn
is different from that given to the Fourteenth.
There are two other similar dupHcations in the
Psalms, each of them even more suggestive in some
respects than the dupHcation just considered. Psahn
40:13-17 is dupUcated in the five verses of Ps. 70, this
being another repetition of a part of the first of the five
books as a portion of the second book, but differing from
the case we have noticed in that a part of Ps. 40 is repro
duced in the second book as an entire psahn. Further
comparison of detaUs may be left to the reader.
The third instance of dupUcation shows the reverse
process: Ps. 57:7-11 of the second book has been com
bined with Ps. 60:5-12 of the second book to form Ps.
108 of the fifth book, and the title given to the new
formation disregards most of the material in the titles
of the two from which it was taken.
The reader probably has no difficulty in agreeing that
where these dupHcations occur the second form is a
revision, or combination with revision, of the other
psalm or psahns. It wUl readily be seen also that the
five books composing our single Book of Psahns are
imdoubtedly five separate coUections, each very probably
belonging to its own period of Israelitish Ufe and finaUy
brought together into the national hymnal, certain
dupHcations being retained. In modern times we have
an analogous development in the several numbers of the
Gospel Hymns, popularly known as the Moody and
Sankey Hymns, which suggests another similarity. Just
as these modern songs bear that popular titie, even

THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS 8i
though many of them did not come from either Moody
or Sankey, so the Book of Psahns is frequentiy called
the Psahns of David, though a very superficial examina
tion of the titles of the Psalms shows that many of them
are not even ascribed to David, and a considerable
number are specificaUy ascribed to other IsraeUtish
poets. (In a similar way, no doubt, we have come to
speak of the Law of Moses, giving to the entire body of
IsraeUtish legislation the name which was attached to
the first collection.)
Thus the Book of Psahns in itself alone is a striking
example of the principle of growth which we have found
exempHfied everjrwhere in the formation of the Hebrew
Bible. When the process began we are unable to say.
That it received a special and enduring impetus from the
son of Jesse is indicated by the place which the name of
David has always received in connection with the
IsraeUtish hymns. How long the process continued is
equaUy difficult to state with certainty. It seems not
to have been completed when the Prophets were set
apart some two hundred years b.c, or the Psalms would
then have been accorded similar distinction and honor.
On the other hand, the collection, through its use in the
days of Jesus and the apostles, offers its own evidence
that it was then estabhshed and accepted.
It will not be amiss, before we pass from consideration
of the Book of Psalms, to note two or three other bits of
information which the book provides. One of these is
the language of Ps. 72:20, which is not a part of the
psalm, properly speaking, but an editorial note affixed to
the second of the five books, or possibly intended as a
comment upon both Book I and Book II. The language

82 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
is: "The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended."
In other words, the Davidic psalms known to the author
of that note had aU been included in the second, or in the
first and second together, of the five Books of Psalms.
The question of how there come to be psahns assigned
to David in each of the other three books we may pass,
since the answer is not easy, particularly from material
afforded by the Psahns themselves.
I caUed attention on page 79 to the fact that the
reviser of Ps. 14, who gave it the form which we call Ps. 53,
substituted the title God for the name Jehovah as a part
of his revision. This change may indicate only a personal
preference. Tt might, however, reveal a type of thought
characteristic of much of the national feeUng. In either
case it is suggestive to compare these uses of the divine
titles with uses which occur in the Hexateuch, for
example in the first and second chapters of Genesis. In
the first chapter, or rather through the third verse of
the second chapter, the title God alone is employed, while
following that there is a combination of Jehovah and
God into a single title, Jehovah God, and elsewhere in
the further narrative we often find Jehovah alone.
Do all these usages concerning the divine names,
together with what we have discovered concerning the
sources of the Law and the Prophets, offer a suggestion
concerning the Uterary history of the Old Testament
writings ? May it be that the kingdom of Judah came
to prefer the use of the name Jehovah and the kingdom
of Israel the use of the title God? In view of their
rivalry in other respects such preferences certainly would
not have been strange. And is it possible that, after
both kingdoms had passed away and the IsraeUtish

THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS 83
priestly scribes in Babylonia in the midst of polytheism
felt the need of emphasizing monotheism, they were led
to use the title God rather than the national name
Jehovah? Apparently they may have done so. Such
usage would not have been unnatural. Rather it would
have come easily out of the situation as we now know it.
And is it out of such a situation that the use of Jehovah,
Jehovah God, and God, as we find these titles in the Law
and the Prophets and the Psalms, arose and therein find
their explanation? Obviously this is not impossible;
and it may be weU to hold this suggestion of the Bible
itself in mind until we have other evidence, either to
disprove or to confirm.
In estimating this suggestion, especially in view of the
terms which are used by modern writers on the Old
Testament, we should know that the Hebrew word for
God is tiansUterated Elohim (pronounced eloheem).
With this the reader should recaU the famiUar fact that
the divine name for the deity of the IsraeUtes is trans-
Uterated in the Revised Version as Jehovah. It is then
seen that the initial letters of the two Hebrew titles for
the deity are E and /. At the same time it should be
known that Jehovah is not an actual transUteration of
the divine name. This Hebrew name was held so sacred
among the people of Israel that, far back in the Old
Testament times, they stopped pronouncing it, and, as
only the consonants of the language were written, only
the consonants of the name have come down to us.
These, as usually transUterated, are / (or Y)hv (or w) h,
and are called by scholars " the tetragrammaton," that is,
"the four-character" ("name" or "word" being supphed
in thought).

84 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Where this divine name occurrs in the Hebrew,
IsraeUtish readers pronounce the word for master, lord.
This Hebrew word is ordinarily transUterated adonai.
IsraeUtes stiU say "Adonai" when in reading they come
to the divine name. Christians, however, as early as the
fourteenth or the fifteenth century began to combine
the two words, pronoimcing the consonants J hv h with
modifications of the vowels of adonai. We should
expect perhaps as an outcome such a word as Jahovaih,
but it did not come into use. Instead, one of the earliest
results of the combination of the two words was the form
Johouai. Later the form Jehovah was adopted. This
is now known not only to be a hybrid term but also to
have no good linguistic basis for its vowels.
Careful investigations have been made concerning
the origuial pronunciation of the divine name itself, that
is, investigations to discover the vowel sounds which were
originaUy a part of the name. These investigations
offer different possibiUties, such as Jahveh, Jahvah, or
even Yahu. Also, since the J is pronounced somewhat
like F, and the v represents a Hebrew character pro
nounced quite Uke w, as suggested above,. the name is
sometimes written Yahweh; and stiU other variations
occur, showing that scholars are stiU much in doubt as
to what the original pronunciation was.
The makers of the Revised Version naturaUy shrank
from such a radical change as the adoption of any one
of the preceding forms. Theur simplest course was to
employ the name already somewhat in use, Jehovah.
As a result, the readers of even the Revised Version are
unacquainted with what knowledge we have concerning
the name as it was used by the IsraeUtes in early times.

THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS 85
WhUe this study of the titles for God may have
seemed to take us aside from our main theme, it reaUy,
has only thrown Hght on it and has given opportunity
to observe how the study of the Psalms is not only
sigmficant in itself but also an aid in understanding
the use of terms in a study of the growth of the Law,
the Prophets, and the Writings; and I have merely
caUed attention to aspects of the Psahns which are
most important for the history of the book and for
the history of the Old Testament. Passing by other
interesting questions, therefore, we may now approach
the second of the books in the coUection of the
Writings. The study of the Book of Proverbs approaches in
interest that of the Psalms. Though it does not afford
such varied data concerning its history, it furnishes
sufficient to Uluminate the development of the book.
The. study should be made with the Revised Version, of
course, which reveals something of the poetic character
of this piece of Hterature, as weU as hints concerning its
authorship, which the Authorized Version conceals or
obscures. We first notice the title contained in the first verse:
"The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of
Israel." AU thoughtful readers of the book have con
sidered it at one time or another. Ordinarily the reader
assumes, with naturalness, that this is a title for the
entire book. If he reads carefuUy through the book,
however, he discovers in the fiirst verse of the tenth
chapter that a simUar title, but briefer, "The proverbs
of Solomon," is given as though nothing of the sort had
already been written. Such a titie at this point can

86 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
hardly have been an insertion into the completed book.
An insertion of such a sort would be absurd. Instead
of thinking of the title here as an insertion, it is easiest
to imderstand that in it we have the beginning of an
original coUection of proverbs ascribed to Solomon, that
chapters i to 9 are another coUection, or possibly col
lections, and that the title m 10:1 was retained in its
place when the two collections were brought together.
Already then, even without going farther, we have
evidence from the Book of Proverbs itself that it is a
growth. Moreover, as the title in 10:1 reads "The"
proverbs of Solomon, the coUection included under that
title appears to have been supposed by the compUer to
be aU of the proverbs of the wise king then known. In
this matter, however, the reader who does not under
stand the Hebrew language must be wamed that the
Hebrew expression is hardly as definite as the EngUsh,
and the title may be translated simply, "Proverbs of
Solomon," though perhaps that is not the most natural
rendering. Whatever the rendering, it does not change
the obvious fact that already in the first half of the Book
of Proverbs we have at least two coUections of Solomonic
sayings. Further observant reading shows that the book as it
now stands contains stiU other coUections. One of
these begins with 22 : 17 and is attributed to "the wise,"
though even the Revised Version leaves the titie obscure.
It becomes clearer, however, as soon as one reads on to
24:23 and finds the title, "These also are sayings of the
wise," thus showing that we have here two short col
lections of proverbs each ascribed to the weU-known men
called "the wise."

THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS 87
When we arrive at the twenty-fifth chapter a further
title is no less striking and significant, for we read,
"These also are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of
Hezekiah king of Judah copied out." Here then we are
introduced not only to a new collection, and one attrib
uted to Solomon, but to one which definitely dates itself
as later than the days of Hezekiah. How it came about
that so long after the life of Solomon sayings purporting
to come from him were brought together and attached
to a compilation of at least four collections of proverbs,
two of which were ascribed to other authors than
Solomon, we need not pause now to discuss. We must
be impressed, however, with the manifest evidence that
the Book of Proverbs as a whole is a slowly gathered
compUation of various IsraeUtish sayings.
There are stiU two other titles in the book which
heighten this impression. Chapter 30 is introduced as
"The words of Agur the son of Jakeh," and at the
opening of chapter 31 we find the heading, "The words
of king Lemuel; the oracle which his mother taught
him," or, as the Revisers have suggested in the margin,
and certainly a very interesting title, "The words of
Lemuel king of Massa, which his mother taught him."
Accordingly, in the Book of Proverbs as a whole we have
at least seven different coUections of wise sayings mani
festly assembled at the end of a somewhat extended
period, time enough having elapsed between two of the
Solomonic coUections for two others to have been
attached to one of the earher coUections assigned to the
wise son of David.
In addition to the foregoing it should not be forgotten
that the book belongs to the third division of the Hebrew

88 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Bible, none of which up to the time of the son of Sirach,
some two centuries B.C., had yet become recognized as
on a par with the Law and the Prophets in estimate and
use among the IsraeUtes in Palestine, though a more
exalted position seems to have been accorded some of
these writings among the sons of Israel in Egypt. As
in the case of the Psalms, however, though to a much less
extent, the Proverbs were used as Scripture by the New-
Testament writers (cf. p. 9).
In the Book of Job there is comparatively Uttle to
indicate its origin, or the time from which it came. This
is largely true even of the Hebrew; it is even more the
case with the Enghsh Version, which cannot carry over
the Hterary hints of the original language. There are,
however, some outstanding facts. One of these is that
the book is chiefly a poetical work and is the outcome of
the highest poetical art. If the poetry of this book is
compared with the poems imbedded in the Law and the
Prophets, however, striking differences in form and
thought wiU be apparent at once. In addition to these
differences the Book of Job is a long composition and
exhibits poetic skiU of a sustained character as weU as
remarkable in quaUty.
Another important fact of the book, as bearing on the
question of the period from which it arose, is its theme,
the age-long problem of evU and the suffering of good
men. This characteristic differentiates it from the early
poetry of Israel. The author was a phUosopher as weU
as a poet. As philosophy is a relatively late type of
reflection, the very nature of the subject-matter of Job
indicates that it belongs to the later period of IsraeUtish
Uterature. This accords with its place in the third

THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS 89
division of the Old Testament. Altogether the hints
of the book itseU imply that it was written at least later
than the majority of the Law and the Prophets. Its
ordinary place among the Writings, third in the Ust, may
be due to its length, next to that of Psalms, together with
its being regarded as subordinate to the book bearing the
name of the great king, Solomon.
The Song of Songs is the first -of the five books
designated pre-eminently by the Israelites as the five
Megilloth, or rolls, which were read in connection with
the celebrations of the five leading sacred days of the
nation. The Song of Songs was used with the Passover,
Ruth at Pentecost, Lamentations at the ninth of the
month Ab observed for the destruction of Jerusalem,
Ecclesiastes at the feast of Booths, and Esther at the
feast of Purim. In view of these facts it is proper to
observe that these five writings are arranged together
and in the above-mentioned order in the third division
of the Hebrew Bible, and we may consider them in the
order in which they appear.
The Song of Songs, like the Book of Job, has little
evidence within it to show the period from which it arose
or what led to its arrangement foUowing Job in the
sacred collection. Possibly the five MegiUoth first
attained a special sanction in relation to the five sacred
days, then came to be attached to each other, and later
were given place next in importance to the Psalms,
Proverbs, and Job. At any rate the position which
they have among the Writings, particularly as foUowing
the relatively late Book of Job, suggests that they were
written late in the development of Israel's Hterature, or
were late in being recognized as of superior worth and

90 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
sacredness. It is not out of harmony with this that the
Song of Songs is dedicated to Solomon, since this heading,
like headings of portions of the Prophets, of some of
the Psahns, and parts of the Book of Proverbs, is most
naturally to be regarded as the title attached to the book
when it was given its final revision and form. When
this occurred, we are left quite in doubt. When the book,
with its four companion MegiUoth, was given a secure
place among the closed coUection of the Writings there
is nothing even in the New Testament to indicate. It
is possible, therefore, that the Writings became a definite
coUection only after the days of Jesus and Paul, and that
the Song was not regarded as sacred untU Jesus and the
apostle had completed their work.
In the case of the Book of Ruth we are aided some
what more, but not at all as we should desire. There is
enough, however, to make clear that the book deals
with events and customs long previous to the period of
the author. This is seen from the opening words, " the
days when the judges judged," a period evidently long
anterior to the writing of the book. It is seen also from
the parenthesis of 4:7, "Now this was the custom in
former times in Israel," and from the genealogy in
4:18-22, which carries the composition past the days of
David and, for the student of Hebrew, in view of some
of the words used, perhaps indicates a date as far along
as the exile. The fact that the book has a place among
the Megilloth and in the midst of the Writings makes it
appear probable, for the same reasons as in the case of
the Song of Songs, that it belongs to the later days of the
Uterary development of Israel. Pointing in the same
direction is the deUcate and charming dignity given to

THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS 91
the marriage between an Israelite and a woman of for
eign birth. In the earlier Uterature the question of in
ter marriage with non-IsraeUtes is not discussed; such\^
unions were taken for granted. In the very late Book of
Nehemiah (13:23-31) the subject is considered, and
such unions are put under the ban. The Book of Ruth
reads like a quiet and feUcitous protest against the new
and narrow point of view.
Lamentations, the third of the MegiUoth, is another
exquisitely beautiful poem whose Hterary charm can be
only poorly reproduced in EngUsh dress. The fact that
the poem is a dirge in no respect lessens its beauty.
From the book itself we are aided Uttle in discovering
the time and place of the author. He was least of all
concerned about preserving such marks of origin, and
we are left in extreme doubt. Indeed there are some
indications to the Hebrew student that this poem, Uke
others we have considered, may be a compilation, the
outgrowth of two or more of the unknown poets whom
Israel produced. Traditionally it is connected with the
prophet Jeremiah, and there is no impossibility that
some of his poetic oracles may have been a basis for the
poem as it now stands. Its place among the Writings,
however, for reasons such as we have noted in the other
Megilloth, perhaps points to a relatively late period as
the time of its composition or compilation.
As Lamentations bears a title which amounts to a
dedication to the prophet Jeremiah, so the first verse of
the Book of Ecclesiastes looks backward to the days of
King Solomon. Other than this dedication to the wise
king, as though he were the writer of the work, it contains
nothing to refer its composition to an early period of

92 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
IsraeUtish Uterary history. Its place among the Writ
ings, its philosophic attitude and method of thought, its
entire unUkeness to the Uterary remains of the Solomonic
days, and the characteristics of its language for the
Hebrew student all lead toward a date after the exile
as the time of its composition. With these considera
tions its position as the fourth of the MegiUoth, suggesting
the same conclusion, should be kept in mind as we pass
on to the Book of Esther.
Esther, as the fifth of the MegiUoth, gives far more
material to guide in forming some opinion as to the time
when it was written. The book recounts certain inci
dents which are connected with the reign of King
Ahasuerus of Persia, whom we know better in history as
Xerxes, whose rule began about 485 B.C. From the first
verse of the book we learn that the writer was far enough
removed from the time of Xerxes so that the period of
that king is referred to as "those days." This leaves no
doubt that our story of Esther was written some decades
or generations after Xerxes' time, and thus may weU
belong to the fourth or third century B.C. Even if it
were composed as early as about the year 400, the
material which it offers in its relation to the other
MegiUoth and the Writings as a whole is indicative of a
relatively late date both for itseU and its companion
books. The Book of Daniel, for the reader of the Enghsh
Bible, gives the chief surprise when it is presented as a
work which belongs to the later periods of Israel's
Hterary activity. The surprise is due to the fact that
the reader has grown up accustomed to think of Daniel
as one of the prophets and of the Book of Daniel as

THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS 93
belonging to the prophetic writings. The place of the
book in the arrangement of the EngUsh translations has
made this thought most natural. The reader of the
Hebrew Bible has no such difficulty, except as he may
have been first only a reader of the EngUsh and may
have experienced something of a shock when, for the
first time, he became aware of the place which the Book
of Daniel holds among the IsraeUtish works themselves.
Recognizing then that Daniel not only belongs among
the Writings but foUows the Book of Esther, which, as
we have seen, leaves no doubt as to the late date of its
authorship, we are eager to see directly what the Book
of Daniel furnishes to explain the place which was
assigned to it by the scribes of Israel.
Turning to the book, then, we observe that it makes
no claim to have been written by Daniel; instead it is
an account in the third person, a story about Daniel
written at some period later than that to which he is
assigned by the author. The language in the book which
is ascribed to Daniel is, in substance, quotations which
are embodied by the author within his own work. We
are left, therefore, to material in the book, or to what we
can learn about it from other sources, for our information
as to the date when the writing was composed and the
author from whom it came. Our method of study gives
first place to what the book itself presents.
Daniel is introduced to us as one of the captives
carried away at the time of the exUe. At some later
period the author describes events which he connects
with the remarkable career of Daniel and some of his
companions. Such a portrayal might have been within
two or three generations, or it might easUy have been

94 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
much later. The book may have been written, accord
ingly, anywhere from 550 B.C. down to the time when the
several books included in the Writings were brought
together, thg,t is, as late as the time of Jesus himself, or
later. As an aid to some more definite period within those
broad limits, two or three considerations may be noted.
We should keep in mind that the place which the book
occupies among the Writings, far along in the third
division of the Hebrew Bible, is undoubtedly significant.
We may recaU, as mentioned on page 9, the high regard
in which the book was held in the days of the New
Testament, or rather when the Apocalj^se of John (the
Book of Revelation) was written, and may place this
in connection with the fact that the book appears not
to have gained any recognition untU after the Prophets
became a closed collection, about 200 B.C. It is entirely
possible then, if not probable, that this story of visions
was composed as late as the second century before the
time of Jesus, and yet, in view of its special character,
attained to the distinction it enjoyed in the apostoHc
days, though only two or three centuries had passed
since it was written.
The "special character" of the Book of Daniel and
the exceptional attention which was given it by the
author of the last book of the New Testament are worthy
of further thought. Indeed the two facts are so closely
related as to be essentiaUy one. This is to be seen in
part from the Greek title of our Book of Revelation.
That title is Apocalypse. The service which it renders
is to connect the last book of the New Testament with
the considerable number of writings outside the Bible

THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS 95
which are also apocalypses. The word apocalypse
means "that which reveals," so that the mission of
apocal3^tic Hterature in general was the reveaUng of the
future. This may be seen from the reading of any one
of these books. The writers of this Hterature made use
of the great names in the history of Israel for working
out this apocalyptic idea. Thus there are apocalyptic
books connected with the names of Moses, Isaiah, Ezra,
and others.
To this class of apocalyptic Hterature the Book of
Daniel obviously belongs, since its chief purpose is to
picture things from the time of Daniel, the days of the
exUe, on to later times. This constitutes its special
character. In this fact we may well have some hint
concerning the period of its composition.
It wiU be sufficient for the purpose in hand if the
reader wUl turn to the eleventh chapter of Daniel, begin
at the fortieth verse, read carefully to the end of the
chapter, and observe how peoples and places are men
tioned specifically, and how the narrative deals with
details. Let these facts impress themselves clearly.
Then read on into the twelfth chapter, notice how the
language soon becomes general rather than specific, how
it begins to lose grasp of details, and how the author
represents Daniel himself as being quite in doubt con
cerning the things which are to occur.
Now let the reader turn to the Apocalypse and
observe the language in 1:3: "for the time is at hand."
The writer warns the reader at the very outset of the
book that it deals with events then present. Turn now
to 22:10 and find the same significant words repeated:
"for the time is at hand."

96 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
One sees directly that the writer of the Apocalypse
was not looking to a distant future for the realization of
the pictures he portrayed. He was manifestly writing
of things which were part of his own time. The visions
of his book are apocalyptic pictures of things which were
conceived as consummating just then. In a word, he
had employed pictures to describe events known to his
readers, national events connected with Greek, Mace
donian, and Roman powers, and would have his readers
see the meaning of these events at the moment. In
short, he was writing weU-known history in the form of
prediction, putting it in the form of symbol as the one
which would best serve the needs of those for whom he
had been led to pen a book of sympathy, comfort, con
solation, and renewal of needed courage.
The Book of Daniel does not, in so many words,
advise its readers that "the time is at hand." It does,
however, as clearly as the Book of Revelation, deal with
events consummating at the tune the book was written.
This is the meaning of such language as that at the close
of the eleventh chapter, referred to above; and it is
equaUy clear from the figurative mention of a relatively
few days in the twelfth chapter (vss. ii, 12).
In other words, the apocal)^tic writer, when he
passes from the narration of details of history to the
general forecast of release from the dreadful conditions
which he depicts, thereby tells us the time out of which
he writes. If his s}maboUc language is sufficientiy
definite to permit us to identify the events to which he
refers, we can discover quite accurately the date of his
authorship. It is as though an American writer in 191 7
should write the history of the United States up to that

THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS 97
moment, sketching events largely by symbols, and then,
in the face of world-carnage, after quite specific reference
to present events, should close his book with general
suggestions concerning the world-outcome. The future
student of American history, acquainted with the events
of the year 191 7, would be able to ascertain from the
supposed American apocalyptic itself that it was written
in the third or fourth year of the world-war.
Altogether an apocalypse, briefly described, is
chiefly history written in the form of prediction. The
Book of Daniel is such a work. The writer of the book
surveyed selected aspects of Israelitish and related
history up to his own time, describing the events largely
in Symbol, doing this with considerable detail, and then,
in what we caU the tweUth chapter, sketched a general
outcome from such history and immediate conditions.
The desperate situation in which the IsraeUtish nation
found itself was quite sufficient occasion for such method
of approach. A preacher-historian of another nation
might not have adopted such a method; it was adopted
in Israel and served its purpose. As a result the Book
of Daniel is the classic representative of Israelitish
apocalyptic Uterature and presents to us this type of
writing in its most exalted form. For a fuller under
standing of its significance one should read the encyclo
pedia articles on apocalyptic literature and the works
there referred to. It is sufficient for our purpose here to
discover, as we have, how the Book of Daniel itself, when
properly approached, discloses its apocalyptic character
and gives the key to its understanding.
Using the key to discover the date of the Book of
Daniel, what do we find ? The answer has aheady been

98 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
suggested as emerging from the material at the close of
the eleventh chapter. There are indications in other
portions of the book also. Without taking space to
discuss the possibiUties in detail, it wiU be enough for
the purpose of this study to say that careful examination
of the work has led to the conclusion that the material
symboHcally presented in the book points to the terrible
Maccabean struggle against Antiochus Epiphanes as
the time out of which the author wrote. This makes the
date of composition about 165 B.C., and the conclusion
fits in with the considerations of Hterary form and place
of the book among the Writings, as we have already
noted the possibiUties in those directions.
We have yet to consider the growth of Ezra-
Nehemiah and Chronicles, and these may fittingly be
taken up together because of the relationship which
exists between the two books.
While Ezra-Nehemiah precedes Chronicles in the
Hebrew Bible, the material included in Chronicles deals
with tune previous to that covered by Ezra-Nehemiah.
This may be seen by noticing that Chronicles presents
an outline sketch of history from the beginning of time
to the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and that the Book of
Ezra-Nehemiah continues that history. This relation
ship is so pronounced that the last two verses of Chron
icles are repeated as the beginning of Ezra-Nehemiah
(Ezra i:i-3a). The style of language also is an indi
cation to the student of Hebrew that the two books come
from a single author, or school of authors.
Accordingly the date of composition of the entire
work is not earUer than the latest of the events
mentioned. These may be the portion of the genealogies

THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS 99
contained in I Chron. 3:19-24, which seems to carry
the lists of names six generations later than Zerubbabel
and so perhaps as far along as 350 or 325 B.C. With
these indications of date it should be kept in mind that
the main structure of Ezra-Nehemiah is regularly in the
third person and shows how the events narrated belonged
to the past, perhaps some distance in the past. The
addresses of the leaders, Ezra and others, are quotations
embodied in the main structure by the compiler. Alto
gether, then, Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah, as a continuous
sketch of one aspect of Israel's history, is manifestly a
late work. Though earher, it may be, than the Book of
Daniel, it was placed last in the arrangement of the
Writings, very Hkely because at the time the arrange
ment was made Daniel was more highly regarded and was
given the preference of order. This inference seems the
more natural when we remember, as stated on page 15,
that the final arrangement of the Writings had not
occurred in the New Testament times, when the Book
of Daniel was receiving far greater attention than any
of the other books of the Writings except Psalms.
Before we leave Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah it is
worth while to recall some of the sources which this
outline history mentions, since they may otherwise be
overlooked, though they are significant. There is, for
¦ example, the source, or rather Ust of sources, contained
in I Chron. 29:29, where we read: "Now the acts of
David the king, first and last, behold, they are written
in the history of Samuel the seer, and in the history of
Nathan the prophet, and in the history of Gad the seer.
. . . ." This statement is informing because it cites
sources for the history of the times of David which are

ICO HOW THE BIBLE GREW
not referred to in the Book of Kings (cf. pp. 28-29).
Apparently, therefore, these sources are relatively late,
later than the compilation of the Prophets, and not at
aU contemporary with the events with which they dealt.
With the foregoing it is weU to place the language
found in II Chron. 9:29 as follows: "Now the rest of
the acts of Solomon, first and last, are they not written
in the history of Nathan the prophet, and in the prophecy
of Ahijah the ShUonite, and in the visions of Iddo the
seer concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat?" Thus
two further sources are indicated in addition to those
in the previous quotation, sources which are not men
tioned among those which were used for the compilation
of the Book of Kings.
It is equaUy suggestive to think of the source material
referred to in H Chron. 12:15: "Now the acts of
Rehoboam, first and last, are they not written in the
histories of Shemaiah the prophet and of Iddo the seer,
after the manner of genealogies?" Thus we have not
only a further source of the Chronicles but also an
intimation concerning the nature of these sources; they
were primarily genealogies. Indirectiy we are advised
how, in the later periods of IsraeUtish life, some of her
writers gave special attention to the study of famUy and
tribal relationships. The Book of Chronicles itself is
evidence of that fact.
We have now completed our survey of the growth of
the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, as that growth
is to be learned from the writings themselves. The
survey is hardly more than an outUne and has nothing
of the completeness which fuU consideration of aU the
material would reqmre. Completeuess, however, has

THE BOOKS OF THE WRITINGS lOi
been no part of my purpose. I have had in mind rather
the point of view and the method of approach which the
Bible itself offers as the proper one for those who desire
to learn how the Scriptures have come to us.
As an outcome of our survey some impressions are
distinct. We are aware that the Old Testament is the
final result of a long series of compilations coming from
the hands of various compUers who employed many
sources and sources of various kinds. A careful study
of the Ufe of the people and their circumstances would
disclose how such a course of Hterary development was
natural, and why one should not be surprised that the
Bible reveals the development which he finds.
One is likely to have received another impression
equaUy significant. He feels that the order of the
writings in the Hebrew Bible is largely the order in which
the various books were completed and accepted as the
component parts of the sacred writings of the nation.
There are exceptions, some of which have been indicated
and discussed, but on the whole the order of the books as
they are preserved is very much the order in which they
were compiled. If this is kept in mind it makes much
easier the effort to locate the Old Testament books in
the order in which they arose.
It should be remembered, however, that the order
of the present books does not necessarily correspond
with the order of origin of the sources. Frequently the
compilers brought together sources from widely separate
periods of Hterary development. In the Book of
Genesis, for example, we have side by side a late account
of the creation (Gen. i:i — 2:4a) and the much earUer
account contained in the foUowing verses. The compiler

I02 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
regarded the later account as better for the opening of
his narrative and gave it the place of preference. It is
the compilation, this'combining of the different accounts
near the days of Ezra, which shows the chronological
place of our present Book of Genesis and the beginning
of our Old Testament.
The Book of Psalms is another outstanding example
of the combination of early sources with late and of the
late formation of the work as a whole. Some of the
separate psahns, or portions of them, were composed in
an early day. The persistent connection of the name of
David with the collected work carries us back to his
time as that when the beginnings occurred. But the
coUection as a whole, with its five divisions, may date
from the New Testament period, or the days not long
before. The order of development is particularly manifest in
the arrangement of the three general divisions of the
Hebrew Bible, the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.
First the Law was developed and became a distinct and
definite collection of sacred Hterature, about 450 B.C.
, About two and one-haU centuries later the Prophets
\arrived at a simUar point of recognition. Neither the
Old Testament nor the New gives any information as to
when the third division of the Hebrew Scriptures became
a distinct coUection and assumed its place following the
/"other two. Apparently the Writings did not attain this
'i position until after the days of Jesus and Paul and after
the composition of many of the New Testament books.

CHAPTER IX
THE HEBREW BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO GREEK
The quotation from the Prologue of the Book of
Ecclesiasticus (p. ii) has already called attention to
the translating of Hebrew literature into Greek. The
author of the Prologue made such a translation of some
of the works of his grandfather. This occurred in the
second half of the second century B.C.
That this was not the first time that Hebrew thought
was translated and given a Greek dress is easily seen.
From much earlier days, as every student of Greek and
Egyptian history knows, there had been Greek colonies
in Eg3^t, and their language and literature had assumed
a prominent place in the land of the Pharaohs, particu
larly for purposes of business and commerce. As Greeks
had gone to the attractive Egyptian shores and adapted
themselves and their language to the new conditions, so
had many of the sons of Israel. How early Israelitish
emigration into the land of the Nile occurred may be
seen from such statements as those in Isa. ii:ii, 27:13,
Zech. 10:10, and especially the long account beginning
at Jer. 42 : 13 and continuing through the forty-fourth
chapter. As early as about 600 B.C., accordingly,
many of the IsraeUtes went to Egypt to live. While
there is nothing to indicate that they soon forgot their
native tongue, it is very certain that in the passing of
generations, with the adaptabiUty which has ever char
acterized them, they became famiUar with the Greek
103

I04 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
language, already a chief medium of trade in Egypt,
and found themselves largely dependent upon it.
One of the chief evidences for the preceding state
ments is the translation of the Old Testament into
Greek. This translation is ordinarUy caUed the Sep
tuagint. This title, from the Latin word septuaginta,
meaning "seventy," is later than the translation and
/connects it with the tradition of its origin as given, for
(example, by Josephus {Antiquities of the Jews xu. 2),
/ according to which the Old Testament in Greek was the
work of seventy (or seventy-two) translators invited
i from Palestine to Egypt by Ptolemy PhUadelphus
j about 275 B.C. From what we have aheady gathered
concerning the origin and growth of the Old Testament,
it is evident that all of it was not translated into Greek
as early as the third century B.C.; the Book of Daniel at
least, at that date, appears not yet to have been written.
At the same time, what we have noted of the way in
which Jews went to Egypt as early as the days of Jere
miah makes clear that their descendants, as far back as
the third century B.C., may very naturaUy have become
so adapted to the Greek language as to feel the need for
a translation of some of their Hebrew Scriptures, par
ticularly the Law, and thus a beginning of the transla
tion may have been made. We need not stop for the
present to ascertain when the translation was com
pleted. It is more important, for the immediate purposes of
our study, to notice what the contents of the Old Testa
ment in Greek are, and what they indicate concerning
the growth of the Bible as a whole. Fortimately this
is comparatively easy, since the Septuagint has come

HEBREW BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO GREEK 105
down to us and is easily accessible not only for the
Greek student but also in Enghsh translation. Indeed
the Greek has been preserved in somewhat variant
forms. These variations, however, are not serious as
far as the main contents and the order of the books are
concerned; in fact, the differences may furnish some aid
in ascertaining the growth which we desire to understand.
In our search we may best make use of the edition
of Henry Barclay Swete, the most recent and pubhshed
in such form as to be easily used, as it is considered the
most accurate. The full title is The Old Testament in
Greek According to the Septuagint. It was issued in
three volumes by the Cambridge University Press, the
first volume appearing in 1887, the second in 1891, and
the third in 1894.
On opening these volumes we are at once impressed
with the order in which the books appear, for, trans
Uterated into their ordinary EngUsh forms, they are as
foUows:

I. Genesis

16.

II Ezra

2. Exodus

17-

Psalms

3. Leviticus

18.

Proverbs

4. Numbers

19.

Ecclesiastes

5. Deuteronomy

20.

Song of Songs

6. Joshua

21.

Job

7. Judges

22.

Wisdom of Solomon

8. Ruth

23-

Ecclesiasticus

9. I Ejngs

24.

Esther

10. II Kings

25-

Judith

II. Ill Kings

26.

Tobit

12. IV Kings

27.

Hosea

13. I Chronicles

28.

Amos

14. II Chronicles

29.

Micah

15. I Ezra

30.

Joel

lo6 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
31. Obadiah 42. Lamentations
32. Jonah 43. Epistle of Jeremiah
33. Nahum 44. Ezekiel
34. Habakkuk 45. Daniel
35. Zephaniah 46. Susanna
36. Haggai 47. Bel and the Dragon
37. Zechariah 48. I Maccabees
38. Malachi 49. II Maccabees
39. Isaiah 50. Ill Maccabees
40. Jeremiah 51. IV Maccabees
41. Baruch 52. Psahns of Solomon
The reader of the English Bible observes in these
titles much that is famiUar, and he is equaUy impressed
with considerable which appears strange. Of the famU
iar names, I Kings and II Kings appear in place of the
two Books of Samuel, III Kings and IV Kings replace
I Kings and II Kings, I Ezra and II Ezra are new, one
looks for Nehemiah in vain, and the order of the various
books of the Prophets is quite unexpected.
The unfamiliar titles, however, probably make the
chief impression. They are Wisdom of Solomon, Eccle
siasticus, Judith, Tobit, Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah,
Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, the four Books of Mac
cabees, and the Psalms of Solomon, altogether thirteen.
One notices also that the threefold division of the
Hebrew Bible is disregarded. The books of the Law
retain their position at the head of the Hst and in the
familiar order, but the Prophets as we have found them
collected and emphasized as the second main division of
the Hebrew Scriptures are scattered and rearranged,
the so-called Minor Prophets receiving precedence in
place. The Writings have been handled as freely as
the Prophets.

HEBREW BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO GREEK 107
The reader at once desires an explanation of what
is before him. Unfortunately the explanation is not
wholly easy to give. There are, however, some aids
toward an explanation. One of these is the fact that the
books of the preceding Hst, substantially in that order
and number, composed the Old Testament of the early
Christians. Professor Swete, in his edition of the Sep
tuagint, merely reproduced the contents of the ancient
Vatican manuscript, as far as it contains the Old Testa
ment, and supplied what it lacks from other similar man
uscripts. These ancient manuscripts were written in
the fourth or fifth century a.d. and carry the evidence
back that far with certainty. As they give every evi
dence of having been copied from generaUy accepted
earUer manuscripts, they reaUy show the books which
were used by the Christians of the third century, and
possibly of the second or first, thus reveaUng substan
tiaUy the Old Testament as it was known by those of the
apostolic days. Paul himself may have been acquainted
with most of the books comprised in the Hst.
A second aid toward an explasation of the books in
cluded in the Greek Old Testament is the fact that the
Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible began among the
IsraeUtes in Egypt, as we have seen above. Whether
aU the translating was done there we cannot say, but
what we do know points to the conclusion that Egypt
was the home of this important transfer of the Hebrew
Scriptures into the world-language of the time. Alexan
dria was perhaps the most cosmopoUtan city of that age,
a center of culture, learning, business, and commerce,
and a gathering-place of nations. Such a center always
tends to Uberahty of thought and comprehensiveness of

io8 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
views, in rehgion as well as in other affairs. In a situa
tion of that type it was natural that even the sons of
Israel should take a wider view of Judaism and her
sacred books than was taken in Palestine. They ac
cepted books which were never favorably regarded by
their Palestinean brothers; the preceding Hst, inherited
by Christianity from Egyptian Israel, is ample evidence
of this. In short, the Old Testament in Greek is easily
explained as arising out of the Jewish-Greek life in
Egypt. We can understand why so large a number of
writings were recognized as Scripture by the Jews in
the land of the NUe; it is difficult to find an IsraeUtish
community elsewhere which would have been likely
to accept so many books that were unacceptable at
Jerusalem. A further aid toward understanding the Old Testa
ment in Greek is furnished in the Prologue to the Book
of Ecdesiasticus (quoted on pp. 11-12 above). This
aid is the author's threefold mention of books in addi
tion to the Law and the Prophets, books which he evi
dently regarded as of value similar to that of the two
coUections named. This regard for those books has
already been noted in chapter i (pp. 13). Now we
are in better position to feel its significance. There it
disclosed a wider field of sacred Jewish Hterature in
Egypt than in Palestine. Now we see that the exist
ence of such a large body of sacred Jewish books in
Egypt paved the way for the early Christians to inherit
from the Egyptian IsraeUtes a much larger Old Testa
ment than would have come to them from the land of
Palestine. The beginnings of the larger Old Testament
had occurred in the second, and possibly at the close of

HEBREW BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO GREEK 109
the third, century B.C. as the result of Jewish life about
the borders of the NUe.
Thus we have a natural and satisfactory explanation
of the origin of the Old Testament in Greek. Concern
ing the detaUs of the development we are not informed,
but the books themselves are evidence that they were
translated, or written, where IsraeUtes had adopted the
Greek language as their ordinary speech while they
remained faithful to the teaching of their fathers and
therefore revered their sacred writings.
The words "translated, or written" I have just used
intentionaUy as opening the way to a further important
consideration. This is the question whether the thir
teen books of the Greek Old Testament, in addition to
the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, were written
in Hebrew and translated into Greek, or whether some
or aU of them were composed in Greek and combined
with the Greek translation of those which were com
posed in Hebrew. Important as the question is, how
ever, we do not need here to discuss it at length. There
is need only to mention that the answer evidently hinges
on a study of the language of the books. This leads to
the conclusion that some of the books were first written
in Hebrew, for example, I Maccabees, and that others as
certainly were composed in Greek, for example, the Wis
dom of Solomon. This is valuable for our study. It
shows that the Egyptian Jews did not feel that the use
of the Hebrew language was essential as an element of
one of their sacred writings.
Along with the facts thus gathered we should no
tice the meaning of the entire rearrangement of the
order of the books of the Old Testament in its Greek

IIO HOW THE BIBLE GREW
dress. The Ust itseU has already emphasized that rear
rangement. It shows that the marked Une between the
Prophets and the Writings has been removed, and that
the books outside of the Law have been combined in an
entirely new way, either by accident or as the result
of a new idea as to what the arrangement ought to be.
Whether by accident or by design, the new arrangement
discloses a sense of freedom on the part of those respon
sible for the change. They undoubtedly knew of the
threefold division; the Prologue of Ecclesiasticus is evi
dence for a knowledge of the Law and the Prophets at
least. But even the faithful scribes in Eg5rpt did not
feel controlled by the estabhshed division, and the
Prophets were handled as freely as the later works which
Egyptian Jews were led to include in their sacred col
lection as a whole. One wonders if this means that, as
far back as the closing of the Prophets in Palestine,
which we have seen to have been as early as 200 b.c,
or earlier, the spirit of Judaism in Egypt was of the freer
type, and the Prophets as a separate collection never
possessed the significance and restraint for Israel in
Egypt which they received in Palestine. If such was
the fact, it helps to account for the order of the Old
Testament books in Greek.
Thus we have the Greek Old Testament, the Sep-.
tuagint, before us. It claims our interest in the ways
that have been mentioned; and it would be almost as
attractive in other ways, which must be passed over
wholly or nearly so, because they are not essential
for the purpose we have in mind. Let me merely
mention one of the aspects of the study of the
Septuagint.

HEBREW BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO GREEK in
In the Book of Jeremiah in Hebrew, and in our ordi
nary English versions, the prophecies against the na
tions are contained in chapters 46 to 51 inclusive. Not
so in the Septuagint. There chapter 25 is broken at the
end of verse 13, and the prophecies against the nations
are inserted, verse 14 is omitted, and, after the proph
ecies against the nations have been included, the trans
lation is resumed with 25:15 of the Hebrew and the
ordinary English. In addition to that the prophecies
against the nations have an arrangement in the Greek
entirely different from that in the Hebrew. Still fur
ther, as an outcome of all the variations in the Greek
book, the Septuagint as a whole is only about seven-
eighths the length of the Hebrew.
Such differences between the Hebrew and the Greek
of the Book of Jeremiah manifestly raise urgent ques
tions. We want to know how such differences arose,
and we are likely to ask whether the translator, or trans
lators, omitted portions of the Hebrew text.
It is quite possible, of course, that the translator
omitted parts of the Hebrew. To assume that he did,
however, does not account for the entire rearrangement
of the prophecies in the Septuagint. Ordinarily too a
translator is more disposed to make additions to his
text, so that the translation is longer than the original,
these additions being helpful as explanations for the
readers of the translation.
In short, we seem compelled to look beyond the
translator for a key to the facts which the Book of
Jeremiah presents. As soon as we do this and recall
how some of the Hebrew Old Testament at least was
translated into Greek previous to the gathering of the

112 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
prophetic writings into a single collection about 200 B.C.,
there is offered as an explanation of the facts in hand
the probability that the Septuagint of Jeremiah was
translated from an earlier and briefer edition of the
book than the Hebrew we now have. In other words,
the simplest explanation of the differences between the
Septuagint and the Hebrew Jeremiah is to think that
the process of growth through which the book began to
pass from the time of the prophet himself continued after
the Septuagint translation was produced, and that the
later revisers and editors of the Hebrew work recon
structed and enlarged its contents. This is a simple
method of understanding the growth of the Book of
Jeremiah, and it is in harmony with the evidences of
growth of the entire Old Testament, as we have observed
these evidences, which appear from the Hterature itseK.
The experiences through which the Book of Daniel
has passed are perhaps as suggestive as those of Jere
miah. Space need not be taken here, however, to ex
hibit details. These would merely impress once more
the free handling which the Old Testament received
among the Greek-speaking Jews in Egypt and the con
tinued editorial activities of the Hebrew scribes them
selves. In this chapter thus far I have pointed out chiefly the
relation of the Old Testament in Greek to the Hebrew,
from which most of it was translated, and the natural
ness with which the Greek included various writings in
addition to those contained in the Hebrew. This is
worth whUe for its own sake. Those who wish to be in
formed concerning the Bible need to be conversant with
such facts because of their own value. It would be un-

HEBREW BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO GREEK 113
just to the modern student of the Bible if the facts were
obscured. The material which has been presented has a more
important service, however, than merely to sketch the
course of Hterary movements which resulted in the forma
tion of the Septuagint. That larger service is to furnish
a point of contact between the Old Testament and
early Christianity, between the Old Testament and the
New Testament, and between the Hebrew Old Testa
ment and some of the Christian versions, particularly
the Douay, or Roman Cathohc, version. We shaU see
this in more detail as we pass on to the succeeding
chapters. Just here, however, we ought to recall the main
reason why the early Christians naturally received the
old Testament in Greek, the larger coUection of Jewish
sacred books, instead of the Law, the Prophets, and the
Writings only. This reason is easily seen by the reader
of the New Testament. On nearly every page he finds
reference to the bitter opposition which arose between
the Israelitish leaders in Palestine and those who be
came the followers of Jesus. There was such opposi
tion, to some extent, outside of Palestine, in Macedonia
for example, as the sixteenth and seventeenth chapters
of Acts relate, but it was not so general as that which
Palestine displayed-
Out in the Greek world, accordingly, the disciples
of Jesus gained their permanent and most important
hold upon the people. Egypt was one of these coun
tries where Christianity thus estabhshed itseU. Inter
estingly enough, this success of the gospel in Egypt
seems to have been without serious opposition. The

114 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
New Testament records no instance of hostUity to the
gospel story. On the contrary, the very few references
to Christian activity in the land of the NUe indicate a
favorable attitude toward the new movement. It was
to Egypt that Joseph and Mary went as a means of
protecting the life of the infant Savior. Among those
at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost who listened favor
ably to the preaching of the apostles were visitors from
Egypt and the North African district of Libya farther
west (Acts 2:10).
These are the only statements in the New Testament
suggesting how the gospel was carried to Egypt and
Northern Africa beyond. And yet Northern Africa was
early one of the fields of active Christian Ufe and soon
became prominent among the fields of Christian influ
ence. We look for an explanation of these facts. We
want to know why the seemingly slight effort to sow the
seed of Christianity in Northeastern Africa bore so ex
cellent a harvest. An explanation may be found, partly
at least, in the Hberal attitude of mind which was al
ready characteristic of the people in Egypt and their
neighbors. Thus Egypt and other portions of the Greek world
accepted Christianity, and the Christianity which
spread over the Greek world naturaUy received the Old
Testament in Greek rather than the Law, the Prophets,
and the Writings. The acceptance of the Law, the
Prophets, and the Writings, the Scriptures of the Jews,
would indeed have been a stiange event. It was the
Hebrew Scriptures that their persecutors from Jerusalem
accepted and exalted above aU else. The Hebrew Scrip
tures, unless they were translated, were an unknown

HEBREW BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO GREEK 115
tongue. For Christians to ask translation of them
would have been to ask food at the hands of tormentors,
when religious sustenance was already their own posses
sion in the Scriptures in Greek.
The Law, the Prophets, and the Writings therefore
stood for the time as the sacred books of the Israelites
alone. The early Christians, almost without exception,
had no need for the Hebrew and were content that it
should belong to the Jews only. A few of those who
became followers of Jesus retained their devotion to the
Hebrew. Paul was one of these, cherishing the ancient
Hebrew books as a fountain of the waters of Hfe; but even
he and any others of the same learning and type of mind
must have used the Greek in their ordinary work, for
only the Greek was understood by the majority of the
people to whom they went. And the translation which
they used was the Septuagint or other Greek versions
of the Old Testament.
I have just said, " the Septuagint or other Greek ver
sions." It is useful to know that, while the Septuagint
was the ordinary Greek version of the Old Testament,
it did not remain the only one. Some of the Septu
agint was very poor Greek, either from the point of
view of Hterature or from that of adequate translation
of the Hebrew thought, or from both these considera
tions. Also, after the early Christians came to employ
the Septuagint and appeal to it, Greek-speaking Jews
who abhorred Christianity found occasion for making
further translations more to their own liking and with
Hterary quaHties that they regarded as of a higher order.
Thus were made the translations bearing the name of
Aquila, Theodotion (both of the second century a.d.).

Ii6 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
and Symmachus (of the third), these dates indicating
that in the days of Jesus and the apostles only the Sep
tuagint was available for Greek-speaking people who
were interested in the books which we caU the Old Tes
tament. It should be mentioned also that some of the books
of the Septuagint not in the» Hebrew Old Testament,
especiaUy some of those which were written in Greek,
were composed later than the latest of the Writings.
While the dates of these various books are quite uncer
tain, some of them, for example the Wisdom of Solomon
and rV Maccabees, may have been written as late as
about the time of the birth of Jesus, or even later. This
is a further indication that the Septuagint was a slowly
developed collection and may have been stiU flexible in
its contents at the dawning of Christianity.
Thus we see the contents of what we caU the
Old Testament at the period when Jesus carried on his
ministry and when the books of the New Testament
were beginning to be written. Among the Jews in
Palestine the Old Testament consisted of the Law, the
Prophets, the Psahns, the Book of Daniel, and some use
of the remaining books of the Writings. This was the
practical situation at least, whether the Jewish leaders
had definitely come to such a conclusion or not.
Among the Jews outside of Palestine there was no
such definiteness of scripture content, and ordinarUy a
larger number of books was accepted. The Law, the
Prophets, and the Writings had been translated into
Greek. The process of translation had begun some
300 years before and had been continued as occasion
arose, until aU the books were included. The later

HEBREW BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO GREEK 117
books, particularly the Book of Daniel, had not been
given a Greek version untU well along in the second
century B.C., and perhaps not until the first. AU these
translations, at any rate those outside the Law, were
held in a comparatively flexible condition and were re
garded as a relatively changeable coUection. By the
side of these books, or rather mingled with them, were
various other writings, some of them originally written
in Hebrew and later translated into Greek, and others
composed in Greek, to aU of which the Greek-speaking
Jews gave recognition similar to that which they gave
to the books translated from the Hebrew.

CHAPTER X
THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The story of the growth of the New Testament
obviously cannot be told with any detaU in a single
chapter of a volume Hke this, or even in a much larger
essay. Fortunately there is no occasion to undertake
such a story. For those who desire the fuUer account
there are already numerous books which may be used
for the purpose, and the dictionaries of the Bible have
abundant material of Uke sort. The purpose of this
chapter is quite different. It endeavors only to sketch
the origin and development of the different writings
included in the New Testament, to indicate their re
lation to the books of the Old Testament, and, in doing
both of these things, to pave the way for understanding
how the versions of the entire Bible came into existence.
In a word, the purpose here is to show the relation of
the New Testament to the growth of the Bible as a
whole. WhUe the story of the gospel and of Christianity
began with the work of Jesus, the New Testament as
separate books, and especially as a coUection of writings,
had its origin some years later. It is so because Jesus
did not write books, or at least wrote nothing which has
been preserved. This does not mean, of course, that
Jesus could not write; such passages as John 8:6-8 and
Luke 4: 16-19 indicate that he wrote when he wished, and
that he was accustomed to read the Jewish Scriptures.
iiS

THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 119
He merely chose oral rather than written messages as
means of introducing the good news.
The companions of Jesus and his later foUowers
used the written page as deUberately as he had preferred
the spoken word. Yet we are not informed as to how
early they did this. Some of them may have written
out, while he spoke, brief reports of his teaching, but
we do not know that they did. It was not strange if
they did not, for they already possessed the Jewish
Scriptures, to which he constantly appealed as the basis
of what he said, and it was natural that they were con
tented, while he was with them, with the Scriptures
already in hand.
When Jesus was taken from them, however, they
began to desire written copies of what he had said, both
for their own satisfaction and for use in repeating his
message to others. The New Testament itself furnishes
valuable information concerning this fact. We find
it in the first four verses of the Third Gospel. These
verses are far too little known and read, and it is worth
while to reproduce them here in full.
Luke 1:1-4
Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to draw up a narrative
concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us,
even as they dehvered them unto us, who from the beginning
were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to
me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the
first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus;
that thou mightest know the certainty concerning the things
wherein thou was instructed.
It wiU be seen that the language is highly suggestive.
The marginal rendering of the last four words is even

I20 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
more informing than the words themselves. The margin
reads, "which thou was taught by word of mouth."
This undoubtedly brings out the meaning of the Greek.
It caUs attention to the oral message which was stiU
received by the disciples of Jesus. At the same time it
is a reminder of the need of verifying that oral message
by the written accounts of Jesus and his work. Of these
written accounts the writer of our Third Gospel would
make his own account most important, and Theophilus
is exhorted to study it carefully.
The language quoted shows that already several nar
ratives concerning the Ufe and work of Jesus had been
written. "Several" puts the matter very conserva
tively, for the Greek, as clearly as the Enghsh, reads
"many." Interpreting that word in its most conserva
tive sense, however, we cannot make it mean less than
"several." Accordingly, at the time in which our Third
Gospel was compiled, the author knew of several at
tempts of a similar sort, several sketches of the Ufe and
work of Jesus. What does this mean when taken with
the fact that we have only four Gospels ?
First, it means, clearly enough, that the "many" did
not include our Third Gospel; there were "many" before
that was compiled. Secondly, the "many" did not in
clude our Fourth Gospel, for all students of the Gospels
are agreed that our Fourth Gospel was written later
than the other three. Of the "many" then we have
in our New Testament only two at the most; and pos
sibly we have only one, Mark, for it is not at all certain
that Matthew is earUer than Luke, or that the writer
of Luke was acquainted with Matthew. Altogether,
before the writing of our Third Gospel, there had ap-

THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 121
peared a considerable number of accounts of the min
istry of Jesus, aU but two of which, and possibly aU but
one of which, have ceased to exist, at least in the forms
in which they were then known; but this reference to
them in the Preface to Luke tells us how early the
followers of Jesus were eager to possess written stories
of his career.
The reader has observed how I have spoken of the
Third Gospel as a compilation. There is evidently no
occasion to urge that it is such; the writer knew of
various previous narratives, was not satisfied with them,
and made use of them and of further investigations
to produce a better account. The language of the Pref
ace leaves Uttle doubt on that point, and certainty
might be secured in other ways, if our purpose led
in those directions. For the present it does not, and I
call attention to the fact that the Gospel is a compilation
ordy to ask the reader to consider this in connection with
what has been found to be the origin and form of growth
of the Old Testament writings. Apparently the methods
of the earlier days were still employed, and we surely
need not be surprised that such was the case.
It is easily seen from all the foregoing that consider
able time had elapsed between the death of Jesus and
the preparation of our Third Gospel. The fact of the
production of several narratives of his life makes that
certain, for they would hardly have all appeared at once.
The passing of a period of some length is more specifi
cally indicated by one part of the Luke Preface. I
refer to the words "as they delivered them unto us,
who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers
of the word." Thus the writer of the Gospel tells us

122 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
that he was not acquainted with Jesus personaUy, and
that he belonged to the second generation of Christians.
We see then that he was writing at the dose of one gener
ation at least after the days of Jesus.
No one of the other three Gospels provides such defi
nite information concerning its origin as that which we
have found at the beginning of Luke. StiU, it would
be possible by examination of the language of the others
to discover something of the manner of their develop
ment. To do so might be attractive, but the purpose
of this study is not chiefly an'analysis of the scripture
material. Our intention is rather to select material
which is particularly illustrative of the scripture growth.
What we have observed in Luke accompHshes that pur
pose for the Gospels, and further details may be found
in books especially devoted to the presentation of ana
lytical study. Here it is sufficient to indicate the present
outcome of gospel study concerning the authorship and
dates of the four accounts of Jesus' Hfe and service which
have been preserved for us.
Accordingly we have reason for assurance that the
second of our Gospels, Mark, was the first of the four
to be written. It was probably composed as early
as about the year 70. Matthew and Luke foUowed,
perhaps in that order, and may very probably have
been written as early as the year 80, possibly earlier.
Matthew, like Luke, is a compUation of previous sources
rather than the independent work of a single author.
These three Gospels together are called the Synoptic
Gospels, that is, the Gospels which present a common
view of the Hfe of Jesus. Every reader of the New
Testament, espedaUy every Sunday-school teacher or

THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 123
advanced Sunday-school scholar who has attempted
careful study of the Gospels and has used one of the so-
called harmonies of the Gospels, is already aware how
manifest is that common view of Jesus in the first three
gospel narratives. That common view itself easily sug
gests that the three Gospels have some close relationship,
either that they arose from the use of common sources,
or that the later ones, Matthew and Luke, are both de
pendent on Mark, their compilers using other sources
in addition to our Second Gospel.
The Fourth Gospel is considerably later than Mat
thew and Luke and, like them, may be the work of more
than one writer, having passed through editorial revision,
even though most of it came from the apostie John,
or from the presbyter of Asia Minor of the same name,
both views having earnest advocates. In any case the
composition of this Gospel was not much earher than
the year 100A.D., and it may have been some years
later. The Book of Acts is closely connected with the Third
Gospel. A comparison of the Preface of the Gospel
with the opening sentence of Acts makes this relation
evident. As the author of the Gospel used the work
of previous writers as well as the results of his own care
ful investigation for the first treatise, we may expect
that he employed a similar method in the Acts. There
is no doubt that the book shows such a method. A
simple way in which to be assured of this is to notice
that the earUer portions of the book, up to 16:10, are
written in the third person, when abruptly the narrative
changes to the first person, "We sought to go forth into
Macedonia, concluding that God had caUed us to preach

124 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
the gospel unto them"; and later the third person is
resumed. The date of composition would naturally be
a Uttle later than that of the Third Gospel; how much
later we are unable to say.
As a generation or so passed after the death of Jesus
before the Gospels and the Book of Acts were written,
it is quite possible that some of the New Testament
writings were penned earUer than the Gospels. Paul
was not only the greatest of the early missionaries, but
also the one who left more writter accounts of his
labors than did any of his fellow-workers. It is appro
priate, therefore, to examine his letters in order to dis
cover as well as we can in a brief space how they came
to be written, when they were composed, and something
of the experiences through which they passed in be
coming a large part of the New Testament.
A promising place at which to begin is Paul's state
ment in I Cor. 5:9-10: "I wrote unto you in my epistle
to have no company with fornicators; not at all meaning
with the fornicators of this world," etc. We first observe
that while this statement is in what we call I Corinthians,
Paul refers to a previous letter which he had written to
Corinth. Accordingly our I Corinthians must be at
least the second of letters that Paul wrote to those
Christians. Paul mentions also one of the important topics which
he had discussed in that previous letter, the subject
of fornication; not, however, fornication in the physical
sense but in the spiritual sense. Now, interestingly
enough, there is in our II Corinthians (6:14 — 7:1)
the foUowing passage dealing with precisely the question
Paul refers to in I Cor. 5 : 9-10.

THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 125
Be not unequaUy yoked with unbelievers: for what fellowship
have righteousness and iniquity ? or what communion hath light
with darkness ? And what concord hath Christ with Belial ? or
what portion hath a believer with an unbeliever? And what
agreement hath a temple of God with idols ? for we are a temple
of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in them, and
walk in them; and I wiU be their God, and they shall be my
people. Wherefore ,
Come ye out from among them,
and be ye separate,
saith the Lord, And touch no unclean thing;
And I wiU receive you,
And wiU be to you a Father,
And ye shall be to me sons and daughters,
saith the Lord Almighty. Having therefore these promises,
beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
The reader wiU observe that in thought and language
this passage may very weU be the one to which Paul
refers in I Cor. 5:9-10.
There is another element in the situation which we
need to notice. This is that the preceding passage
breaks the connection between II Cor. 6:13 and 7:2.
That there may be no uncertainty about this I bring
the separated verses together.
II Cor. 6:11-13 Followed by 7:2-3
Our mouth is open unto you, O Corinthians, our heart is
enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in
your own affections. Now for a recompense in like kind (I
speak as unto my children), be ye also enlarged. Open your
hearts to us: we wronged no man, we corrupted no man, we took
advantage of no man. I say it not to condemn you: for I have
said before, that ye are in our hearts to die together and live to
gether.

126 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
The reader wiU probably find it impossible to say where
6:13 ends and 7:2 begins, unless he knows the passage
by heart, or opens his Bible to assure himself.
What then is the explanation of the facts before us ?
Let us see what some of the possibiUties are.
We know that it was the custom in those days to
copy letters on papyrus leaves. One such leaf would
just about have sufficed for the passage in our II Cor.
6:14 — 7:1. In the hands of a careless copyist such a
leaf might easily have sUpped out of the letter to which
it belonged and then have found place among the leaves
containing our II Corinthians. Once in there, the copy
ist would easily (cf. the statement of Jerome quoted on
p. 148) have assumed it to be a part of II Corinthians
and copied it as that when the next copy was made,
just as though it were a part of the letter with which it
chanced to be.
One is more inchned to accept such an explanation of
the placing of II Cor. 6 : 14 — 7 : i because of other mate
rial which a study of II Corinthians offers. This other
material is hardly as easy to present as that already
introduced, but perhaps it may be sketched sufficientiy
for its significance to be weighed.
If one reads thoughtfully through all of II Corinthians
at a single sitting he can hardly fail to receive two dis
tinct impressions. In the first six or seven chapters
he feels that Paul was happy and wrote with confidence
and joy. In the reading of chapters 10 to 13 inclusive,
however, there is certain to be an equally definite impres
sion that Paul was writing in sadness and pain, with a
consciousness that he must assert his apostoUc authority,
and having in mind an individual offender against

THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 127
Christian proprieties. And if the reader wiU now re-read
the earher chapters, particularly 2:1-11, he may natu
rally feel that these verses refer to the repentance of such
an offender and convey the full forgiveness which Paul
himself shows and desires that those in Corinth likewise
shall display.
In that second chapter the reader will discover also
that Paul refers to a letter which he had written with
sorrow and pain (vss. 3 and 4). Hear what the apostie
says: And I wrote this very thing, lest, when I came, I should
have sorrow from them of whom I ought to rejoice; having
confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all. For
out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote imto you
with many tears; not that ye should be made sorry, but that
ye might know the love which I have more abundantly unto
you. Is this a reference to the manifestly painful portion of
our II Corinthians, that is, chapters 10 to 13 inclusive ?
At the least those chapters present just the sort of mate
rial that the reference requires. It is entirely possible
then that the last four chapters of II Corinthians are
the letter of which Paul speaks in II Cor. 2 : 3-4. Taking
the evidence altogether as it stands, we most naturaUy
conclude that chapters 10 to 13 are part or aU of the
letter mentioned in II Cor. 2 : 3-4.
Some inferences are entirely clear. Since Paul in
I Cor. 5 : 9 refers to an earUer letter, he must have written
one previous to our I Corinthians, and I Corinthians
was at least the second letter he addressed to these
Christians. Also, since I Corinthians is evidently not
the painful letter mentioned in II Cor. 2:3-4, there must

128 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
have been a letter between I Corinthians and the begin
ning of II Corinthians. Altogether, we are certain
that Paul wrote at least four letters to the Corinthian
Christians. If he wrote two letters just as the two stand
which we have, then two others are entirely lost. This
is quite possible. At the same time, in view of the inter
est which the Corinthians manifestly took to preserve
what Paul wrote them — otherwise none of his letters
would have come to us — together with what has appeared
from our study, it seems more probable that we have in
II Cor. 6 : 14 — 7 : i a small portion of the letter mentioned
in I Cor. 5 : 9, that our I Corinthians is a second letter,
that II Cor. 10 : i — 13 : 14 is most of the painful letter
mentioned in II Cor. 2:3-4, and so a third letter, and
that the first nine chapters of II Corinthians are what
remains, if not all, of a fourth letter sent by the apostle
to the Christians in Corinth. It should be added that
by further analysis of our two letters it is possible to
find traces of a fifth letter, and chapter 9, or chapters 8
and 9 together of II Corinthians are sometimes regarded
as remains of such a letter.
I have already indicated how a fragment of the first
of four letters might very easily have become incorpo
rated in another letter, that which we call II Corinthians.
The present arrangement of that letter as composed
chiefly of portions of two letters is Hkewise not at aU
strange. For obvious reasons the letter of gladness
and consolation would be more highly regarded than the
painful one. Also the occasion of the painful letter was
such that any extended greeting was out of place, an
abrupt beginning such as we find at the opening of
chapter 10 being what we should expect. Further,

THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 129
this painful letter was probably comparatively short.
Of course there was no particular occasion for those who
cherished the letters on account of their contents to
be concerned in a chronological arrangement. Accord
ingly it is not only possible, but perhaps even probable,
that in the assembUng of letters from Paul the com
forting letter should have been given preference over the
letter bearing sadness of thought, and that the sad letter,
being without any special greeting, should have been
attached to it. If the present form of II Corinthians
did not need an explanation of its arrangement, we
should not think of one. With an explanation as a
permanent challenge, and with so easy and natural
an explanation at hand in the material itself, we
are Hkely to accept it. In doing so we are only dis
covering once more how the biblical writings as they
have come to us are the outgrowth of processes of
compilation. The close of the letter to the Romans, that is, from
the concluding verses of chapter 14 on, offers another
attractive study in the handUng of the PauUne writings.
One may see this from merely giving attention to the
marginal notes of those chapters in the Revised Version.
It is well to examine them in connection with the read
ing of this discussion. From such an examination it is
evident that the ancient manuscripts furnish a variety
of endings to the letter. In fact, those early authorities,
including the quotations from the letter made by Chris
tian writers of the second century, for example Origen,
and his remarks about the ending of the letter, disclose
even greater early variations than the marginal notes
of the Revised Version indicate.

I30 , HOW THE BIBLE GREW
With these facts m mind we turn to the letter itself
and note how the close of the fifteenth chapter is a
benediction and apparently the close of the letter to
which it belongs. Also the first verse of chapter i6
reads like the beginning of a letter, as though the writer
is introducing Phoebe, the bearer of the letter, to those
who are to receive it from her. The passage is worth
reproducing here: RoM. 15:33 Followed by 16:1
Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.
I commend unto you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of
the church that is at Cenchreae:
These sentences side by side in a single letter would be
a very unusual arrangement.
The contents of the sixteenth chapter are equaUy
suggestive for our study, particularly verses 3 to 15
inclusive. They should be read through carefully.
This reading wiU show a long Ust of greetings for Paul's
friends who Hve at the destination of the letter. Unfor
tunately only two of these friends, Prisca and Aqmla,
are elsewhere referred to with certainty; the Rufus
mentioned (vs. 13) might be the same as the one of Mark
15:21, but if so we should not gain any particular aid.
Prisca and Aquila, however, are highly suggestive. Not
long before Paul was writing to the Christians at Rome,
Aquila and Priscilla (Priscilla is another spelling of
Prisca) had been driven from Rome and were in Corinth
(Acts 18:1-3); frona there they went on to Ephesus
(Acts 18:18-19). They remained at Ephesus and had
a home there when Paul was writing our I Corinthians
(I Cor. 16:19); and at a later period they seem to

THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 131
have been there stiU (II Tim. 4:19). The sixteenth
chapter of Romans accordingly appears not to be ad
dressed to Christians at Rome but to Christians at
Ephesus. The details of the questions raised must be left to
the larger works on the history of the New Testament.
It is sufficient here to recognize that the last part of
the letter to the Romans, as soon as it is sympathetically
examined, discloses, Hke II Corinthians, a combination
of originally separate writings of Paul, the combination
having been made by those who were more interested
in preserving the helpful messages received from the
great apostle than in combining them in such a manner
as to show the geographical relations bf the different
letters. We may now turn to the letter to the Philippians,
particularly the fourth chapter. Especially from the
tenth verse on Paul rejoices in the assistance and com
fort he had received from his PhiUppian friends, and he
takes occasion to refer to earUer aid of a similar sort
(vss. 15-16). He says:
And ye yourselves also know, ye Phihppians, that in the
beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no
church had fellowship with me ui the matter of giving and receiv
ing but ye only; for even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again
unto my need.
Acts 16:11 — 17:15 should be read in this connection.
Whether this is done or not, what did Paul mean by
reminding the PhUippians not only of giving to meet
his needs but also of "receiving" from him ? What had
they received from him? Evidently not material
contribution of money or something else, for they did

132 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
not need it, and he was not so situated as to be able to
offer it. Had Paul sent them merely an oral message
as Epaphroditus (vs. i8), the bearer of their gifts,
returned home ? That is possible, but, in view of what
we know of Paul, is it at all probable ? Would he not
have been far more Hkely to send, on each of the two
or more occasions mentioned, a letter of gratitude,
commendation, and encouragement? There is Httle
doubt that he did so. His language is a deUcate way
of recalling for them the messages he had sent and very
likely the assurances he had received from them in
return for the help he had given.
Our letter to the PhUippians then indicates that it is
aU that remains of a somewhat extended correspondence
between Paul and the Christians at PhiUppi; and such
a correspondence was perfectly natural. One sees
this as soon as he pictures himself back in the situation
and thinks of what Paul and his friends would be inchned
to do. It is possible to find in the letters to Timothy and
Titus, and to a less extent in some of the other Pauline
letters, evidence of compilations and editing, as we have
found such evidence in II Corinthians and Romans.
The analysis is less manifest, however, at least to the
reader of the Enghsh versions, and I shall not endeavor
to present the material here. We already have before
us sufficient to show something of the experiences through
which the writings of Paul passed in coming to the forms
which we have inherited. Very likely we have the most
important of Paul's letters, at least those which to the
early Christians were of most interest and value. That
we have lost considerable is equaUy dear, ai?id it is not

THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 133
at aU outside of possibiUty, or perhaps probabUity, that
the letters which have come to us are merely a fraction,
a major fraction at the most, of aU that the great apostle
either dictated or personally wrote (cf. Gal. 6:11), as
he went from place to place, received gifts and messages
from his friends, and responded in the generous spirit
which his entire career displays.
We are now in a better position to think of the places
from which Paul wrote and of the times when his mes
sages were composed. I attempt only to sketch the tend
ency of opinion to which a study of the material leads.
Accordingly Galatians may be the earUest of Paul's
letters which we have, and he probably wrote it at
Antioch in S3rria, perhaps as early as the year 52 or
53. Then follow the two letters to the Thessalonians,
sent from Athens or Corinth, perhaps in 54 or 55 (cf.
Acts 17:14 — 18:17). Possibly only a few months or a
year later (Acts 19: i — ^20: 2), whUe Paul was in Ephesus
and Macedonia, the letters to the Corinthians were
written. Apparently on this journey, which took him
to Greece and the city of Corinth (Acts 20:1-3), ^e
wrote to the Romans. Whether the close of the letter
as it now stands, especiaUy the sixteenth chapter as
greetings to the friends in Ephesus, was composed then
we cannot say. Ephesians, PhUippians, Colossians,
and Philemon, the so-caUed letters from Paul's imprison
ment, written from Rome (or, as some think, from Cae-
sarea), may have been sent before the year 60. The
letters to Timothy and Titus, the so-caUed pastoral
epistles, are a Uttle later. Their dates depend on whether
Paul was released from prison and made another mission
ary journey, at the close of which he was again in prison

134 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
in Rome and wrote the pastorals, or at least wrote the
letters from fragments of which the pastorals as we have
them were compUed. The entire matter of these dates
is quite uncertain, and its consideration includes the
question of whether Paul suffered martyrdom as early
as the year 60 (or possibly earher) or not until several
years after that.
By comparing these dates for Paul's letters with
what has been said above concerning the dates of com
position of the Gospels, it wiU be seen that probably
all of Paul's writings were earUer than the earhest of our
present Gospels. The apostle may have paid for this
fideUty to Jesus with death before even our Gospel of
Mark was penned. The Gospels were placed first
among the books of the New Testament, of course,
both because they describe the work of Jesus, the
master of Paul, and because the material they con
tain deals with the beginning of the gospel story as a
whole. I have said nothing about the letter to the Hebrews
as a writing from Paul. Differing about this letter in
so many respects. New Testament students are pretty
weU agreed on one point, namely, that the letter was
not written by Paul. As to who did write it there is
no generaUy accepted answer. The names of Mark,
Luke, PrisciUa, AquUa, Barnabas, Apollos, have aU
been proposed, but no one knows or is Ukely to dis
cover with certainty who the author was. The letter
was probably written within a few years after Paul's
death. There remain of the books of the New Testament to
be considered the so-caUed general epistles of James,

THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 135
Peter, John, and Jude, and finally the Apocalypse, or,
as the name appears in the ordinary EngUsh Bible,
the Revelation of John. Each of these books raises
questions which students have followed out in detail.
It is not needful here either to repeat the essentials of
those treatises or to examine at length the language
of the writings. The marks of authorship or composition
are not so evident as we could wish.
Some items concerning these books, however, are
espedaUy worthy of mention and must claim attention
for a moment. WhUe James has often been regarded
as one of the earhest, perhaps the earUest, of the New
Testament writings, composed as early as the year 50,
the letter seems to bear marks of much later authorship
and may belong among the later writings. The letters
bearing the name of Peter, particularly the second of the
two, likewise offer material which suggests later compo
sition. The authorship and date of the letters bearing
the name of John are manifestly connected with the
question of the authorship and date of the Fourth
Gospel, which the letters so much resemble in style and
thought. The Epistle of Jude attracts notice out of
proportion to its extent or its teaching because the author
quotes (vss. 14-15) from the apocalj^tic Book of Enoch
and otherwise shows familiarity with that apocalyptic
writing. And finaUy the Book of Revelation, which
calls itself the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, and (as
mentioned on p. 94) belongs to the apocalj^tic type
of Hterature, cannot be rightly understood unless it
is studied as a writing of that class of composition.
When it is so studied the question of authorship loses
its importance, other than as a matter of historical

136 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
investigation, and the date is to be gathered from the
latest historical events presented with some definiteness,
though symboUcaUy, in the book itself. Unfortimately
the events mentioned in the book are more veiled than
those in the Book of Daniel, and the time of writing
is not at aU easy to discover. Among the most careful
students of the book, therefore, opinions vary between
about the year 70 and a generation or so later, that is,
as late as the year 100. Wrapped up with this difference
of opinion as to date is the question whether the Apoca
lypse is an independent work of one writer or a compila
tion of different apocalyptic sources, all reworked into
the marvelous general unity which anyone feels who
reads the book at a single sitting.
Altogether, then, the order of composition of the
books of the New Testament is, first, the writings of
Paul; second, the Gospels, Acts, the letter to the Hebrews,
and possibly the Apocal}^se, the individual order of
writing of these books being quite imcertain; third,
the general epistles and the Fourth Gospel, and, more
probably here than earher, the Apocalypse, the indi
vidual order in this third group also being not at aU
certain. The general period of composition of the New
Testament writings is between about the year 50 and
the year 100, or a Uttle later.
In the New Testament there is nothing to show when
the letters of Paul were coUected, or when the Gospels
were brought into their present arrangement, or how
either of these collections came to be made; and naturally
the New Testament gives no clue to the time and the
circumstances in which its various parts were assembled
into the complete coUection we now possess. If later

THE BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 137
we discover information by means of which we can
determine at least the time when the coUection was
complete, that is as much as we can expect. Those who
coUected the New Testament were not concerned to
leave a record of what they did; their interest was in
the writings themselves.

CHAPTER XI
THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN
We have now retraced the growth of the Bible up to
the first century of the Christian Era, the New Testa
ment to about the close of that century. What we have
found shows that the Bible at that time consisted of
three elements: first, the Hebrew Old Testament, used
chiefly by the Palestinian Jews; second, the Greek Old
Testament, considerably larger in extent, used by Greek-
speaking Jews and Christians; and, third, the New Tes
tament, just arising from the early Christian movement
and beginning to be used by Jesus' followers. The Law
and the Prophets of the Hebrew Old Testament were a
definite and fixed coUection; the Hebrew Writings, as
far as we have yet discovered, were stiU a flexible group
of books and apparently indefinite in number. The Law
of the Greek Old Testament was probably as definite as
the Law of the Hebrew; the remainder of the Greek Old
Testament was semifluid in its contents and was treated
with much freedom by many, U not by aU, of those who
used it. The New Testament was just forming, in ways
similar to those which had brought about the formation
of the Old Testament, and inevitably was stUl without
fixed content or arrangement.
WhUe such was the situation for the first Christian
century as a whole, the statement may easUy mislead
unless one or two points are considered further, partic
ularly as to the Hebrew Old Testament. This, at the
138

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 139
dose of the century, had probably become quite definite
in the case of the Writings as weU as in the case of the
Law and the Prophets. The evidence for this is not to
be found in the Writings themselves; we should not ex
pect this. It is not to be found in the Greek Old Testa
ment; this would be as Httle expected. It is not to be
found in the New Testament; the writers of the New
Testament were concerned with other matters. It is to
be found, first of aU, in the existence of the Writings as a
closed coUection early in the Christian Era, and in infor
mation which comes to us from Jewish writings outside
the Bible confirming the closing of the third division of
the IsraeUtish Scriptures about the year 90 a.d. It was
then, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans
in the year 70 and the scattering of the Jewish scribes
from that ancient center of Israehtish learning, that a
school, or headquarters, of Jewish scholars arose at
Jamnia, northwest of Jerusalem, entered into extended
discussion as to which should be accepted for their
sacred books, and seems to have arrived at considerable
unanimity of opinion on the books approved. Those
accepted were not essentiaUy different from the present
Law, Prophets, and Writings, that is, the scribes adopted
the Writings and added them to the two earher coUec
tions. This was a very natural step at the time. The Israel
ites had ceased to be a nation in anything more than
name. Their racial ambitions and strivings, however,
especially their supreme functions, rehgious insight, and
action, could not be stopped. Rather the terrible ex
periences through which they were passing were a stimu
lus. Moreover, the rise of Christianity out of Judaism

140 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
and as a protest against it was an incentive for loyal
Jewish scholars to let the world know what they ac
cepted of the so-caUed IsraeUtish Scriptures and what
they rejected. The age-long struggle between Jew and
Christian had begim, and it woiUd have been strange if
Israel had not made for itseU a pecuHar book just as it
became, in a pre-eminent sense, a pecuHar people.
This action of the Jewish leaders, adopting some
books as sacred and rejecting others, was of Uttle import
for the Christians. For them, at that period, the Scrip
tures consisted, first of aU, of the Greek Old Testament,
which was stUl a flexible coUection. With these books
they were coming to esteem various Christian letters,
gospels, and other writings, aU composed in Greek.
These were not at aU fixed in number; they were the
extensive works out of which our New Testament later
arose, and their Hmits were quite flexible. These facts
are important to keep in mind. Our thought of Paul's
letters, for example, is probably quite different from the
thought of many of those who had known directiy of his
labors and his writings. For some of them portions of
his letters which have been lost may have been as pre-
dous as those which we possess; and some of the lost
gospels to which the Preface of Luke refers, or possibly
others of which we do not know at aU, may have seemed
indispensable not only for those who wrote them but for
many others of the early disciples. In short, Christian
ity possessed a manifold coUection of Christian writings,
but there was as yet no definite New Testament.
At this point one aspect of the relation between
the New Testament writings and the books of the Old
Testament should be recaUed. The earhest Christians

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 141
came from among the Jews and did not lose thdr devo
tion to the Jewish Scriptures when they became Chris
tians. Some of the most influential missionaries to the
Gentiles, Hke Paul, carried that devotion to the Jewish
Scriptures over to the GentUes, and the gentile converts
became imbued with a similar love for the Israehtish
writings. When those Jewish missionaries and their
converts among non- Jews wrote of the Hfe of Jesus or of
their own experience and the lessons they had learned
it was as natural as the sunlight for them to employ the
thought and language of the Old Testament. As a
result the writings of the New Testament are rich in
quotations from the books of the Old (cf. p. 9), and, as
must be expected, those quotations are chiefly from the
Old Testament in Greek. There are Hebrew words
carried over, but the way in which they are used — often
translated by the writers^ — ^makes clear that the Hebrew
was an ahen tongue, and that quotations from the Greek
version of the recognized Scriptures was the matter-of-
fact course for an author to pursue. In this respect, then,
as well as in those previously considered, the writings of
the New Testament were far more closely related to the
Old Testament in Greek than to the Old Testament in
Hebrew. WhUe what has been said thus far in this chapter might
appear quite remote from the translation of the Bible
into Latin, precisely the opposite is actually the case.
There can be no inteUigent understanding of the Bible
in Latin without a reasonably clear view of the char
acter and extent of the Bible as it was employed for
translating into the Latin tongue; and it is impossible to
have in mind that Bible without being sure of the Bible

142 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
of the early Christians, the books which they accepted
as their Scriptures. These are now before us with as
much definiteness as the Scriptures had at the close of
the apostoUc days. The Bible of the early Christians
was primarily the Old Testament in Greek, the writings
of the Christians themselves not yet having reached the
esteem in which the Old Testament was held.
One may ask why a Latin translation of the Bible
was made; what occasion there was that the Bible in
Greek should receive a Latin dress. The general reply
is this: A considerable portion of Christianity became
Latin-speaking, and there had to be a Latin translation
of the entire Bible for the same reason that, some gen
erations earUer, the Greek-speaking Jews in Egj^jt re
quired a Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.
It is reaUy more correct to say that early Christianity
was accepted by people who were Latin-speaking, and
that the Bible of necessity was carried over into the
language which these Christians used.
It is worth whUe to review the situation somewhat
more in detail. For doing this the reader may recaU at
once what the Fourth Gospel states (19:19, 20) con
cerning the inscription which was placed on the cross
of Jesus, that it was written "in Hebrew, and in Latin,
and in Greek." Even in Palestine then the languages
of the people, either those who Hved there or visitors, re
quired that a pubhc notice appear in three versions, Latin
apparently having the second degree of importance.
In other portions of the Roman Empire, of which
Palestine was no more than a third-rate province, Greek
was the chief means of communication; this was the
situation in Greece and Macedonia of course, though

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 143
other languages were used by many of the people, and
many were famiUar with two or three. Even in the dty
of Rome itself Greek was the tongue ordinarUy used.
This is clear from the fact that when Paul wrote to the
Roman Christians he employed the Greek and leaves no
hint in what he said that any of those addressed woiUd
find the form of speech strange to their ears. Greek
was the famihar language in the capital of the Latin
Empire, and this shoiUd be kept in mind as we proceed
with the topic before us. We should remember indeed
that Paul wrote in Greek aU his letters of which we know.
In short, Greek was the famihar language of ordinary Hfe
throughout the Roman world.
It was not, however, by any means the only language
in general use. With it ever3rwhere, at least where
Roman law and administration had occasion to go, went
the Latin. So it was in Palestine, as noted above; so
it was in the other provinces and divisions of the empire.
In some of them indeed Latin was the language of the
people. This was particularly the case in the portions
of Northern Africa where Rome had gained control. In
the two or three centuries before the time of Jesus, Rome
had so thoroughly imposed on these peoples the language
and customs of the capital city that the people of North
ern Africa remained more truly Latin than the inhab
itants of the city of Rome itseU. While the dty had
adopted largely the language of conquered Greece, the
people across the Mediterranean retained the Latin
tonjgue which their fathers had accepted whether they
wished or not.
In the Roman world then, the world which was stiU
inherently the Latin Empire, there was ample occasion

144 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
for having the Scriptures in a Latin form. Christianity
could not pass freely among all the people of the Roman
realm before it had been transmitted into Latin speech.
Yet, strange as it may seem, we do not know where
first Christianity was received by those who spoke Latin,
nor where first the Scriptures were Latinized. We do
not even have the earhest Latin Bible, except as we
gather it by combining fragments of early manuscripts
and the many quotations used by the early Christian
Latin authors and thus arrive at some idea of what the
entire translation was. And this leads to the interesting
conclusion that there may have been several, perhaps
even a considerable number, of more or less independent
versions, each probably covering only portions of the
Bible, though some may have included most, if not aU.
At any rate, however it came about, the fragments them
selves of those early Latin scriptures differ widely in
their renderings of the Bible language, and this would
hardly be the case if there had been a single version
recognized for those who used the Latin speech.
Of course we should not be surprised that the Bible
in Latin did not appear from the beginning in a single
recognized translation. The very opposite, in fact, is
what we might expect. Latin-speaking converts in
Syria or in Northern Africa would not wait for an author
ized version; someone among them, or the missionary
who had led them to accept Jesus, who tmderstood both
Greek and Latin would naturally meet the immediate
need by translating important parts of the Scriptures
into Latin, which the converts could read, just as modern
missionaries, for the converts in Asia, Africa, and the
islands of the seas, have translated the Bible into the

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 145
tongues of the people with whom they worked. And thus
in the course of time the Bible as a whole was carried
over into the Latin speech and became avaUable for
those who were Hmited to the use of that language.
How early this occurred we can infer only in a general
way from the use of these varied versions by the early
Christians who wrote in Latin and whose writings have
been preserved. Among these we have pre-eminently
TertulUan, who wrote between the years 200 and 240,
and Cyprian, who died as a martyr in 258. Both of
these men, particularly Cyprian, were connected with
the Christian movement in Northern Africa; both of
them quoted from Latin Scriptures as though the Latin
were weU known and widely accepted; and yet both give
evidence of large variations in the versions which they
employed. This is important for itseK and also for other reasons.
It shows that the earUest Latin Bible of which we know
was the outcome of work among the people of Northern
Africa; and this may probably indicate that the version,
or versions, were made in connection with the early mis
sionary efforts throughout that Latin-speaking province
of the empire. If Latin translations were made in other
parts of the Roman world, they merely help to account
for the existence of so many Latin translations in the
third century that these may be thought of as ahnost a
confusion of versions; and it is worthy of note that the
masses of the people, who were the chief users of these
versions, seem not to have been troubled by the varia
tions among them.
Such was the general situation in the third century,
and such it continued to be through the fourth, not only

146 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
in Northem Africa, but in other Latin-speaking parts
where Christianity had gained acceptance, including the
rural sections of Italy, espedaUy those remote from the
city of Rome.
In the meantime the fashion in language was altering
in the capital of the empire, Rome was dropping the
use of Greek and returning to the Latin of former days,
and this change produced a demand for a corresponding
change in the accepted text of the Scriptures. There
were the Latin versions which we have been considering
ready for use, to be sure; but they did not satisfy the
literary tastes of the capital eUte. They were unsatis
factory, not only because of their variations and uncer
tainty, but also because they offended imperial culture.
Something better must be obtained.
Such are the conditions out of which, just before and
foUowing the year 400, arose the Editio ViUgata, the
common version of the Latin Christian world, the Vul
gate. And we must consider briefly some of the inci
dents connected with its origin.
Chief among these incidents were two men. One of
these was the Roman bishop, or pope, from 366 to 384,
whose name was Damasus. He was himself concerned
for Hterature and wrote in both prose and poetry. The
demand for a more literary version of the Bible easily
appealed to him. The other man was Jerome, or, as his
name is more fully written, Sophronius Eusebius Hier-
onymus. He was born of wealthy parents at Stridon in
what is now the southern part of Austria-Hungary. His
birth brought opportunity for education, travel, and
culture. He was trained in aU the arts of Latin and
Greek Uterature, and he gave himself to the earnest

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 147
study of Hebrew. Correspondence and friendship be
tween him and Damasus opened the way for Damasus
to ask the accompHshed scholar and — for such he had
become — the devoted Christian to prepare the desired
revision of the Latin Scriptures. This request was prob
ably made not far from the beginning of the year 382,
when Jerome went to Rome and entered into that close
companionship with Damasus which was broken only by
the latter 's death toward the close of 384.
It was the thought of Damasus and the plan of
Jerome merely to revise the currnet Latin versions into
a single better version, making corrections from the text
of the Septuagint for the Old Testament and from the
best Greek texts of the books of the New Testament.
There was no thought then of bringing the old Testa
ment into accord with its Hebrew original.
The first portion of the Bible revised, as has often
been the case in modern missionary enterprise, was the
Gospels and the Psalms, the revision of the former ap
pearing in the year 383. The situation and the task are
best seen from parts of the Preface which Jerome wrote
for the Gospels and addressed to Damasus.'
Jerome said:
You urge me to revise the old Latin version, and, as it were,
to sit in judgment on the copies of the Scriptures which are now
scattered throughout the world; and, inasmuch as they differ from
one another, you would have me decide which of them agree with
the Greek original. The labor is one of love, but at the same tune
both perilous and presumptuous; for in judging others I must be
1 1 quote here, and also further selections later, from the language
of Jerome according to the Select Library of Nicene and Fost-Nicene
Fathers of the Christian Church (Second Series, edited by Drs. Philip
Schaff and Henry Wace), VI, 487 ff-

148 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
content to be judged by all; and how can I dare to change the
language of the world in its hoary old age, and carry it back to the
early days of its infancy? Is there a man, leamed or unlearned,
who, when he takes the volume into his hands, and perceives that
what he reads does not suit his settled tastes, will not break out
immediately into violent language, and call me a forger and a pro
fane person for having the audacity to add anything to the ancient
books, or to make any changes or corrections therein? Now
there are two consoling reflections which enable me to bear the
odium — ^in the first place, the command is given by you who are
the supreme bishop; and secondly, even on the showing of those
who revile us, readings at variance with the early copies cannot be
right. For if we are to pin our faith to the Latin texts, it is for
our opponents to tell us which; for there are almost as many forms
of the text as there are copies. If, on the other hand, we are to
gleaa the truth from a comparison of many, why not go back to
the original Greek and correct the mistakes introduced by inac
curate translators, and the blundering alterations of confident but
ignorant critics, and, further, all that has been inserted or changed
by copyists more asleep than awake ? (cf. p. 126).
No comment is needed to make clear how the mere
annoimcement of a revision of the current translations,
together with the appearance of advance portions, as
Jerome's language suggests, was sufficient to arouse
bitter criticism. Those of our day who recaU the oppo
sition stirred up by the appearance of the Revised Ver
sion in 1 88 1 wUl readily note the parallel and wiU better
understand the odium which Jerome had to face.
The death of Damasus in 384 produced a great
change in the plans which he and Jerome had in mind.
The new bishop, Siricius, in his attitude toward Jerome
and his 1 work, was the opposite of aU that Damasus had
been. Naturally Jerome left the city. He decided to
return to Palestine, where he had passed portions of his
earUer life. With friends he made the journey by way

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 149
of Greece and Egypt, finaUy settUng at Bethlehem, in
386, where he lived untU his death, probably in 420,
being the leader of a monastic community throughout
the long period of thirty-four years.
This turn of affairs did not stop his work of Bible
revision, though it temporarUy interfered with it. If
the Roman bishop did not care for his improvement of
the Scripture translations, there were friends who did.
He responded to their requests. In doing this for the
books of the Old Testament he gave up a mere bettering
of the old Latin by comparison with the Septuagint.
He went directly to the Hebrew for the books in that
language and made translations which fidehty to the
Hebrew required. There was apparently no thought in
his mind that he was preparing a translation of the
Bible which would be widely used and remain for gen
erations the accepted form of Scripture thought. He
was only transferring faithfully into Latin, the best
Latin his extended culture could command, that He
brew thought which his friends could not read in its
original form. See how he put it, as we find his lan
guage in the Preface to the Books of Samuel and Kings,
as he was sending the translation to his friends Paula and
Eustochium: First read, then, my Samuel and Kings; mine, I say, mine.
For whatever by dihgent translation and by anxious emendation
we have learnt and made our own, is ours. And when you under
stand that whereof you were before ignorant, either, if you are
grateful, reckon me a translator, or, if ungrateful, a paraphraser,
albeit I am not in the least conscious of having deviated from the
Hebrew original.
Thus faithful was he to the original language of the
Old Testament, which few of the Christians of his day

ISO HOW THE BIBLE GREW
could use with assurance, or could translate into the best
Latin of the time. In the Preface to his version of the
Book of Job he recurs to the subject and adds important
data concerning the service his rendering furnished.
Here is part of what he said in forwarding his translation
of the book to unnamed friends :
Previous to the publication of our recent translation ....
about seven or eight hundred lines were missing in the Latin, so
that the book, mutilated, torn, and disintegrated, exhibits its
deformity to those who pubhcly read it. The present translation
foUows no ancient translator, but will be found to reproduce now
the exact words, now the meaning, now both together of the origi
nal Hebrew, Arabic, and occasionally the Syriac.
In such language he did not mean to say, of course,
that any of the Book of Job was written in Arabic or
Syriac. He was merely reminding his friends, who un
derstood his famiUarity with those languages, kindred of
the Hebrew, how he had made that famiUarity contrib
ute to an imderstanding of the Hebrew and so to the
value of the version he had prepared.
Thus it was that a new Latin version of the Scrip
tures came into existence. Further details concerning
other portions of the Bible woiUd be largely repetitions
in substance of what we have discovered already. The
new version was a labor of love, given by the foremost
scholar of the age, with heroic fideUty to the original
Scripture languages and absolute devotion to the personal
friends for whom the translations were framed. The
work occupied much of his time for more than twenty
years, from 383 to 404. The result, not in his day, but
as a later combination of his various labors, was the
Vulgate.

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 1 51
Before we proceed farther it is important to bear in
mind the extent of the early Latin Bible which Jerome
used as the basis for the version which he produced. To
do this we must consider both the Old Testament and
the New, and in the case of the New Testament it is
necessary to discover what had occurred between about
the year 100, when there was still merely a large number
of independent Christian writings, and the year 400,
when our present New Testament seems to have become
a definite coUection.
As far as the Old Testament is concerned little need
be said. We have already seen that the Old Testament
of the early Christians was the Greek rather than the
Hebrew. That means at once the recognition of the
larger contents of the Septuagint as the writings which
had been carried over into the early Latin Old Testament.
While the fragmentary condition of the early Latin
manuscripts leaves the matter of details in doubt, there
is no question as to the general extent of the books
which the Latin-speaking Christians accepted. It was
substantially the same as the Greek Old Testament
which we found in chapter ix. If it retained something
of the flexibility of Hmits which was characteristic of the
Septuagint, we need not be surprised.
A discussion of the course of events which led to the
adoption of our present New Testament before the time
of Jerome, if the discussion were with any degree of
fulness, would involve the writing of a book rather than
a portion of a chapter. Such books have already been
written. The need here then is sufficiently met if we
recognize the facts, leaving the detaUs to be considered
in the books devoted to that subject. The main facts

152 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
then, as they are available from the early Christian
records, are substantiaUy as foUows:
Ignatius of Antioch in Syria, who wrote some letters
on the way to mart3T:dom, which was not later than the
year 117, used language which indicates famiharity
with considerable portions of the New Testament but
furnishes no information as to whether the New Testa
ment books had yet become a single coUection. Prob
ably the evidence from him is against such a coUection,
for in one of his letters (to the Smyrnaeans) he refers
to gospel language which does not agree with anything
in any of our four Gospels and seems therefore to have
been taken from a writing of which we do not otherwise
know. Ignatius would hardly have used such material
if he had come to understand that only the four Gospels
which we have were recognized sources of the life of
Jesus. Justin Martyr, who wrote some fifty years later,
likewise provides suggestions concerning the Christian
writings then in use and the manner in which they were
employed. He ordinarily referred to the Gospels as the
"memoirs" of Jesus, and he quoted their language with
much freedom, paraphrasing some passages and com
bining others; but this need not surprise us, for he appro
priated the language of the Old Testament in much the
same way. He knew the letters of Paul and did not
hesitate to adapt the language as he did the other writ
ings. Altogether, as to a fixed collection of New Testa
ment books, he gives us no guide.
Concerning the situation about a generation later,
that is, in the last quarter of the second century, we have
more definite material. This material is the so-caUed

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 153
Muratorian fragment, which contains a Ust of New Tes
tament books with comments upon their use and the
estimate in which they were held. This valuable docu
ment was discovered in the Ambrosian Library at MU'an
by the Itahan scholar Muratori, whose name it bears,
and was pubhshed by him in 1740. The manuscript is
thought to have been made in the eighth, or possibly the
seventh, century, but it is a copy from much earher
times, and the work is beheved to have been written as
early as the year 200, or even a few years previous to
that date. The fragment begins with part of a sentence,
which evidently describes the Gospel of Mark, since the
sentences foUowing deal with Luke and John. There
is no doubt accordingly that it contained a statement
concerning Matthew; and preceding pages may have
contained a Hst of Old Testament books. It is impor
tant for us because of its Hst of the books relating to
Jesus and the apostles. Indeed we ought to consider not
only the Hst of the books but the comments of the writer
concerning them, and this leads to a quotation of the
entire fragment as far as it deals with the Christian
writings.' The fragment reads :
with whom, however, he was associated and so was qualified to
speak. The third book of the gospel, that according to Luke, Luke
the weU-known physician, after the ascension of Christ, composed
in his own name as he had received the material, having been
' I translate from the Latin text as emended by the late Professor
Brooke Foss Westcott and printed in his General Survey of the History of
the Canon of the New Testament, 6th ed., pp. 534-38- The reader should
remember that parts of the Latin are hopelessly corrupt and the language
quite uncertain, but that this does not affect the meaning of the docu
ment as a whole.

154 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
aided by companionship with Paul. Though he had not seen the
Lord in the flesh, yet he was fitted to undertake the work, and so
he began his narrative from the birth of John the Baptist.
The fourth of the gospels was written by John, one of the
disciples. As he and the other disciples and bishops were to
gether, he said to them: "Fast with me for three days from today,
and then let us teU each other what has been revealed to us."
That night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the apostles, that
John should write everything in his own name, aU the others
approving  Why need we wonder, then, that John, re
peatedly even in his letters, introduced the matter by saying:
"What we have seen with our eyes, and heard with our ears, and
our hands have fondled, we have written"? [Cf. I John i:i.]
Accordingly, he presented himself not only as one who had seen
but as one who had heard and one who had written in order aU the
marvelous things of the Lord.
The acts of aU the apostles are written in one book. Luke
compiled it for the noble Theophilus, Luke himself having been
present when the incidents occurred, as he shows by omitting the
martyrdom of Peter and the departure of Paul as he was on his
way from our city of Rome to Spain.
The letters of Paul themselves show, for those who desire to
understand, what they are, where, and for what purpose they were
sent. First of aU, one to the Corinthians forbidding divisions in
the church. Then to the Galatians on circumcision. Next
he wrote to the Romans with more detail an exposition of the
Scriptures, arguing profoundly that Christ is the source of the
Scriptures. These letters it is needful for us to discuss individually,
since the blessed apostle Paul himself, foUowing the example of
his predecessor John, wrote to only seven churches by name, as
foUows: to the Corinthians first, Ephesians second, PhiUppians
third, Colossians fourth, Galatians fifth, Thessalonians sixth,
Romans seventh; to the Corinthians and Thessalonians, rightly,
a second time for their correction. Only one church, however, is to
be recognized, though it is scattered over aU the earth. And
John likewise had the privUege of writing to seven churches, yet
he spoke to aU. Fortunately, Paul wrote one letter to PhUemon,
one to Titus, and two to Timothy as a token of love and distinc-

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 155
tion. These are held in honor by the universal church, however,
for the regulation of church discipline. There is current also a
letter to the Laodiceans and another to the Alexandrians, both
falsely attributed to Paul and dealing with the heresy of Marcion;
and there are various other letters which cannot be accepted by
the church universal; for gaU wiU not properly mix with honey.
The letter of Jude, however, and two bearing the name of John
are retained among general letters. Also, the Wisdom of Solomon
written by his friends in his honor.
The apocalypses of John and Peter we are disposed to accept,
though some among us are unwiUing for these to be read in the
church service. The Shepherd, indeed, was written very recently,
in our own time, at the city of Rome, by Hermas, while his brother
Pius was in the bishop's chair [date uncertain, perhaps about
140-55] in the city of Rome. And some think it worthy to be
read, but not to be published for the use of the people in the
church service, nor to have recognition with the prophets com
pleting their number, nor among the apostles till the end of
time. The letters of Arsinous, or Valentinus, or Metiades, however,
we do not think of accepting. Who they were who wrote the new
book of psahns of Marcion, with those of Basilides, founder of the
Asiatic Cataphrygians ....
Thus the fragment breaks off, leaving us in even
greater uncertainty than the translation suggests, and
more in doubt as to the meaning here than as to the
meaning of the opening phrase of the fragment. Never
theless the general import of the narrative is sufficiently
definite. It is an estimate, probably before the year
200, of the writings which properly belonged in the col
lection of Christian Scriptures. Apparently it was more
than the estimate of an individual. Its reference to the
city of Rome indicates that it originated there. Very
likely it represents the Roman view of its time. That
it was regarded as valuable and copied for preservation

156 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
through five or six centuries points to the same conclu
sion. The reader should study the fragment with care, per
mitting each statement to leave its own proper impres
sion concerning the status of Christian writings in that
early period from which the fragment comes. Among
the quite unexpected impressions wiU be the omission of
the letter to the Hebrews, the reference to a letter to the
Laodiceans, and one to the Alexandrians, the inclusion
of the Wisdom of Solomon among the Christian writings
rather than among the Jewish, the mention of the Shep
herd of Hermas, and the association of an apocalypse
of Peter with that of John. In short, about one hundred
years after the close of the apostoUc period there was
stiU considerable flexibiUty in the Ust of books which
later became fixed as the New Testament; and, for our
particular study in the present chapter, it was in the
midst of such indefiniteness concerning Christian Scrip
tures that the Latin translation of the New Testament
had its beginning.
Indeed this indefiniteness continued to a considerably
later day. We know this from the language of Eusebius,
the father of church history, who wrote at the beginning
of the fourth century, or rather as far along in the cen
tury as about the year 325. His language is as foUows:
Since we are deaUng with this subject' [the question of the
New Testament], it is proper to sum up the writings of the New
Testament which have been already mentioned. First then must
be put the holy quaternion of the Gospels; foUowing them the
Acts of the Apostles. After this must be reckoned the Epistles of
Paul; next in order the extant former Epistle of John, and likewise
the Epistle of Peter, must be maintained. After them is to be
placed, if it reaUy seems proper, the Apocalypse of John, concern-

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 157
ing which we shaU give the different opinions at the proper time.
These then belong among the accepted writings. Among the dis
puted writings, which are nevertheless recognized by many, are
extant the so-caUed Epistle of James and that of Jude, also the
second Epistle of Peter, and those that are called the second and
third of John, whether they belong to the evangeUst or to another
person of the same name. Among the rejected writings must be
reckoned also the Acts of Paul, and the so-called Shepherd, and
the Apocalypse of Peter, and in addition to these the extant
Epistle of Barnabas, and the so-caUed Teachings of the Apostles;
and besides, as I said, the Apocalypse of John, if it seem proper,
which some, as I said, reject, but which others class with the ac
cepted books. And among these some have placed also the Gos
pel according to the Hebrews, with which those of the Hebrews
that have accepted Christ are especially dehghted. And all
these may be reckoned among the disputed books. But we have
nevertheless felt compeUed to give a catalogue of those also, dis
tinguishing these works which according to ecclesiastical tradition
are true and genuine and commonly accepted, from those others
'which, although not canonical but disputed, are yet at the same
time known to ecclesiastical writers — we have felt compeUed to
give this catalogue in order that we might be able to know both
these works and those which are cited by the heretics under the
name of the apostles, including, for instance, such books as the
Gospels of Peter, of Thomas, of Matthias, or of any others besides
them, and the Acts of Andrew and John and the other apostles,
which no one belonging to the succession of ecclesiastical writers
has deemed worthy of mention in his writings. And further, the
character of the style is at variance with apostoUc usage, and
both the thoughts and the purpose of the things that are related
in them are so completely out of accord with true orthodoxy
that they clearly show themselves to be the fictions of heretics.
Wherefore they are not to be placed even among the rejected
writings, but are aU of them to be cast aside as absurd and
impious.' " The translation is that of the Seled Library of the Nicene and Fost-
Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, I, iSS-S7, i-e.,
Book III, chap, xxv, of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History.

158 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Such was the estimate of a remarkably weU-informed
man in the first haU of the fourth century. WhUe he
permits his own opinion to appear, he is carefid to out
line the general sentiment of the different classes of
thought among the Christians of his time. What he
says should be carefuUy observed if one desires to under
stand the status of the various Christian writings and to
have a picture of the Hst which composed the accepted
New Testament in Eusebius' day. Two impressions at
least wUl be received. It wUl be felt that when two
centuries and more had been added to the apostoHc
period there was stUl Httle unanimity as to what should
be accepted as properly belonging to the New Testament.
Eusebius admits this even for those to whom he did not
apply the name heretic. Christians in good standing
differed as to what should be included in their sacred
writings. The matter does not stop there, however.
Some of those whom the historian stigmatized as here
tics may have been as sincere as he and his recognized
Christian brothers, and some of the writings which he
and others repudiated may have possessed a measure of
value, if not as Christian teachings, yet as reflection of
the thought of those who composed them and those who
found pleasure in their perusal. We should be interested
to possess them, at any rate, and they may have been
lost to the history of Christianity because they were put
imder the ban of the ecclesiastical historian.
The most important thing, however, to be noted
from the quotation is the revelation of the method by
which a book was accepted, or put among those which
were banned, or left, for the time being, in a state of un
certainty. The dedding factor was the estimate of the

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 159
Christians themselves. In the case of books concerning
which aU agreed at the beginning of the fourth century
the matter was ended and these books were sacred.
Books which all, at least aU who were of the mind of
Eusebius, rejected were thereby discarded. Where
unanimity of opinion could not be reached, there each
Christian accepted what appealed to him and passed
other writings by. Thus, only some sixty years before
Jerome began a revision of the Latin Bible, the New
Testament portion was still without definite and fihal
limits. How this affected the problems which Jerome
undertook must be considered as we proceed.
In this consideration we may be almost surprised to
find that for Jerome the problem of accepted books was
not so much one concerning the New Testament as one
concerning the Old. Indeed, though he had removed
from Rome largely because of opposition, and though he
was in controversy much of the remainder of his Iffe with
Augustine, the supreme leader in Northern Africa and
in Italy, his idea of the New Testament books did not
differ widely from that held by Augustine. It is best,
therefore, to review the situation for the two Testaments
together and to begin with Jerome's idea of the Old.
In some respects the Book of Daniel stimulated
greater difference of opinion than any other, since in the
Septuagint it is so different from the Hebrew. Jerome
felt this, and in his Preface to his translation from the
Hebrew, written to his friends Paula and Eustochium,
he outlined the problem and the manner in which he was
inchned to dispose of it. After speaking of the difficul
ties which the translator of the book, written partly in
Hebrew and partly in Chaldee (Aramaic, as we now caU

i6o HOW THE BIBLE GREW
it), must face, and of the persistent labor which he had
given to the task, he continued:
I say this to show you how hard it is to master the book of
Daniel, which in Hebrew contains neither the history of Susanna,
nor the hymn of the three youths, nor the fables of Bel and the
Dragon; because, however, they are to be found everywhere, we
have formed them into an appendix, prefixing to them an obelus
(t), and thus making an end of them, so as not to seem to the
uninformed to have cut off a large portion of the volume.
The language leaves no doubt as to the personal in
clination of Jerome. He preferred to Hmit the Book of
Daniel to those portions which were in Hebrew and
Aramaic. Those parts of the book which existed only
in Greek he consented to retain as an appendix out of
consideration for those who insisted on keeping the
book in its Septuagint form and extent.
Other quotations from his language would point in
the same direction. He consented, for example, to re
vise the Latin of the Books of Tobit and Judith in accord
with the Septuagint text, but he did this only out of
deference to friends who desired these books in the puri
fied Latin which they could gain from him as from no
one else. In a word, if Jerome could have had his way,
the revised Latin Old Testament which came into exist
ence from his labors would have contained only the
Hebrew Law, Prophets, and Writings carried over into
the best Latin which his genius could command; the
portions of the Old Testament in Greek not found in the
Hebrew he would have omitted from the sacred coUec
tion pf Christian Scriptures.
At the same time he was not concerned for the He
brew order of the books. This appears from a long letter

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN i6i
which he wrote to Paulinus as early as the year 394, in
which he described the value of Scripture study and out-
Hned the books of the Bible. This outhne is unportant
m that it shows, not only the books of the Old Testament
which Jerome thought of as belonging properly to the
coUection, but also the order of their arrangement as
they stood in his mind. Here are the books in the order
in which he describes them:'

Genesis

Hosea

Jeremiah

Exodus

Joel

Lamentations

Leviticus

Amos

Ezekiel

Numbers

Obadiah

Daniel

Deuteronomy

Jonah

Psalms

Job

Micah

Proverbs

Joshua

Nahum

Ecclesiastes

Judges

Habakkuk

Song of Songs

Ruth

Zephaniah

Esther

I Samuel

Haggai

I Chronicles

II Samuel

Zechariah

II Chronicles

I Kings

Malachi

Ezra

II Kings

Isaiah

Nehemiah

He had become interested in the various books them
selves as he found them in the Hebrew manuscripts,
not in the order in which the IsraeUtes held them as the
Law, Prophets, and Writings. Accordingly, while he had
adopted the IsraeUtish view of the proper contents of
the Old Testament, he retained the idea of free arrange
ment that he had inherited from early reading of the
Septuagint. FoUowing the foregoing, in the same letter, he
sketches more briefly his thought of the New Testament,
' Select Library, VI, 99-101.

i62 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
A quotation of portions of his language wiU best show his
feeling: The New Testament I wiU briefly deal with. Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John are the Lord's team of four  The
apostle Paul writes to seven churches (for the eighth epistle —
that to the Hebrews — is not generaUy counted with the others).
He instructs Timothy and Titus; he intercedes with PhUemon for
his runaway slave. Of him I think it better to say nothing than
to write inadequately. The Acts of the Apostles seem to relate
a mere unvarnished narrative descriptive of the infancy of the
newly bom church; but when once we realize that their author
is Luke the physician whose praise is in the gospel, we shaU see
that aU his words are medicine for the sick soul. The apostles
James, Peter, John, and Jude, have pubUshed seven epistles at
once spiritual and to the point  The apocalypse of John
has as many mysteries as words. In saying this I have said less
than the book deserves.
The statement shows that, for Jerome, the New Testa
ment consisted of the same twenty-seven books that are
found in the New Testament today. The order of ar
rangement is somewhat different, and Jerome recognized
that even in his day Paul was not everywhere regarded
as the author of the letter to the Hebrews. Otherwise
the thought of Jerome is the hst familiar to Christians of
the present time.
There were, however, other counsels among the
Christians of that age, and other counsels were those
that prevaUed. Scholarly, cultured, Hterary, brilHant,
and consecrated as Jerome was, he was in Palestine, and
Palestine was not the portion of the Roman world in
which Christianity was most potent. In Northern
Africa, and particularly in Rome, were to be fotmd the
most influential forces of the rehgion which was coming

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 163
to dominate the empire. Here it was that Augustine
was wielding great power, a power which, for the time,
far exceeded that of Jerome. If Jerome held greater
sway over those who knew him intimately, Augustine
exerted a power over the people as a whole beyond any
thing Jerome may have ever desired.
Naturally too Augustine was interested in the ques
tion of the proper limits of the sacred Christian writings.
Fortunately for us also he wrote distinctly what he
thought about the question, and what he wrote has been
preserved. It is a part of his work De docfrina (U. 8).'
The most skiUful interpreter of the sacred writings ....
wiU be he who in the first place has read them all and retained
them in his knowledge .... those of them, at least, that are
caUed canonical  Now, in regard to the canonical Scrip
tures, he must foUow the judgment of the greater number of
cathohc churches; and among these, of course, a high place must
be given to such as have been thought worthy to be the seat of
an apostle and to receive epistles. Accordingly, among the can
onical Scriptures he wiU judge according to the following stan
dard: to prefer those that are received by aU the cathohc churches
to those that some do not receive. Among those, again, which
are not received by aU, he will prefer such as have the sanction of
the greater number and those of greater authority, to such as are
held by the smaUer number and those of less authority 
Now the whole canon of Scriptures on which we say this
judgment is to be exercised, is contained in the following books:
Five books of Moses .... one book of Joshua the son of Nun;
one of Judges; one short book called Ruth, which seems rather
to belong to the beginning of Kings; next, four books of Kings,
and two of Chronicles  The books now mentioned are
history, which contains a connected narrative of the times, and
foUows the order of the events.
' I quote from Select Library .... First Series, II, 538-39, the
most important portions of the language.

164 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
There are other books which seem to foUow no regular order,
and are connected neither with the order of the preceding books
nor with one another, such as Job, and Tobias, and Esther, and
Judith, and the two books of Maccabees, and the two of Ezra.
.... Next are the Prophets, in which there is one book of the
Psalms of David; and three books of Solomon, viz.. Proverbs,
Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. For two books, one caUed Wis
dom and the other Ecclesiasticus, are ascribed to Solomon from
a certain resemblance of style, but the most Ukely opinion is that
they were written by Jesus the son of Sirach. StiU they are to
be reckoned among the prophetical books, since they have at
tained recognition as being authoritative. The remainder are
the books which are strictly caUed the Prophets: twelve separate
books of the prophets which are connected with one another, and
having never been disjoined, are reckoned as one book; the names
of these prophets are as foUows: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah,
Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zech
ariah, Malachi; then there are the four greater prophets, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel. The authority of the Old Testament
is contained within the limits of these forty-four books.
That of the New Testament, again, is contained within the
foUowing: Four books of the Gospel, .... fourteen epistles
of the Apostle Paul — one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians,
one to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the PhUippians, two to
the Thessalonians, one to the Colossians, two to Timothy, one to
Titus, to PhUemon, to the Hebrews; two of Peter; three of John;
one of Jude; and one of James; one book of the Acts of the Apos
tles; and one of the revelation of John.
The two views are before us, and there is no difficulty
in observing the difference of attitude. In the thought
of Jerome we see the reverent scholar influenced by
study of the ancient sources and impressed by Hebrew
inheritance; in Augustine there appears the able and
aggressive ecclesiastic, largely contented with the Scrip
tures as he finds them, and concerned chiefly with
church authority and the recognitiori of that authority

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 165
on the part of individuals. All things considered, it is
easy to understand why the view of Augustine controlled.
Clearly it did control. To be assured of this, one has
merely to compare the preceding Hst with the Hst which
composes the Vulgate. There are variations between
the two Hsts in the order of books, but the titles are the
same. The difference of opinion which Augustine recog
nized, as to what books were to be accepted, gave way
so that the Hst he advocated held the field. The manner
in which he presented his thought, a mark of his abiUty
to persuade, was a deUberate method for leading others
to the same conclusion.
As far as the New Testament was concerned the
views of the two men agreed concerning the books to be
accepted, differing only as to the authorship of Hebrews.
On this point naturaUy the estimate of Augustine pre
vaUed, as it did concerning the Old Testament, and the
letter to the Hebrews has ordinarUy, through the cen
turies, been regarded as coming from the pen of Paul.
In view of this substantial agreement on the part of
these two eminent leaders we can readily understand
why Christian writings other than those in our New
Testament, some of them very favorably considered as
late as the fourth century, lost their recognition from the
close of that century on, except for individuals or local
churches here and there, and never contended seriously
for a place among the accepted books. It is from the
days of Jerome and Augustine then that the New Testa
ment as a fixed coUection practically dates.
The foregoing quotation from Augustme was written
about the year 397. Farther along in the same discus
sion (u. 15) he advises concerning the best version for

1 66 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
use and advocates the old Latin, which is to be corrected,
if needful, from the Greek; even in the case of the Old
Testament the Septuagint should be preferred to the
Hebrew. His approval of the old Latin, among the
Latin versions then available, was not strange. The
translation of Jerome was not yet finished and had had
no great opportunity for recognition, having been made
primarily for the personal use of his friends. Even if
Jerome's work had been completed, however, Augustine,
great and devoted Christian as he was, was not the type
of man to have turned readily to the new version. In
justice to him, nevertheless, it should be added that be
fore his death, in 430, he seems to have recognized some
thing of the worth of Jerome's work.
The outcome is highly interesting. For generations
both the old Latin and Jerome's versions were used, just
as in our day both authorized and revised Bibles are
found. In the course of time, however, the superior
translation from Jerome gradually gained in favor untU
it largely superseded the old Latin.
The growth in acceptance and influence of the ver
sion of Jerome, untU it came to be the common version
for the Latin-speaking world, accordingly developed
from the merits of the work itseU rather than from offi-
dal action. Occasion for official authorization did not
arise, in fact, until after the beginning of the Reforma
tion, when the Catholic church, in the Council of Trent,
issued a decree covering the matter. Previous to that
decree it was possible for a Cathohc in good standing to
advocate the adoption of such a view as that of Jerome;
from the issuing of that decree, April 8, 1546, every
portion of the Vvdgate, for the CathoUc church, is declared

THE BIBLE TRANSLATED INTO LATIN 167
to be of equal authority; and a Cathohc must recognize
the Vulgate alone as the sacred coUection, superior to
both Greek and Hebrew.
There is need to consider briefly the contents of that
official Vulgate. To put the matter accurately I may
be pardoned for quoting the words of the decree, which
gives the general description of the accepted books as
follows: "haec ipsa vetus et vulgata editio, quae longo
tot saeculorum usu in ipsa ecclesia probata est" (this
same old and common version, which by its long use
through so many centuries in the church itself has been
approved). Thus, while the decree determined a par
ticular collection of books, it did not distinguish and
approve a particular translation, and there have been dis
cussions as to what text the description should be under
stood to include. That particular question seems stiU
to be open, for within the last few years there have
appeared announcements to the effect that the papal
authorities, with the approval of. the Pope, wiU pubUsh
a revision of the official text.
While the wording of the Latin text is thus uncertain
and may conceivably be altered as the outcome of revi
sion, there is no uncertainty concerning the books which
are included. The decree provided a Hst. I have indi
cated above how, with some variations in the order of the
books, it is the Hst of Augustine.
That Hst, however, is easily misunderstood. To be
aware of the actual contents one must remember that,
in the Vulgate, Jeremiah may include Baruch, and the
Books of Esther and Daniel are those books as they
appear in the Septuagint, thus retaining the additions to
Esther (10:4 — 16: 24), Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon,

i68 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
which the reader wiU recaU from the Septuagint list m
chapter ix (p. 105). Accordingly the official Vulgate,
the authoritative CathoUc Bible, contains most, though
not aU, of the Septuagint as it was current among the
early Christians, and in this Vulgate we have the Bible
translated into Latin, as it finaUy stands. In some
editions, even since the Council of Trent, there have
been printed as an appendix the Prayer of Manassas,
in Esdras, and IV Esdras, but that has not given
offidal authorization to these books.
It wiU easily be seen that the period of Bible develop
ment to which this rather long chapter has chiefly been
given, from the last quarter of the first century to the
beginning of the fifth, is one of the most important in the
history of the Bible growth. One might almost say
that the modern Bible is the child of those three and a
quarter centuries. At the beginning of that period only
the Hebrew Law and Prophets were a definite and closed
coUection of sacred books; at the end of the period the
limits of the entire Hebrew Scriptures had been fixed,
and the contents of the sacred books of Christianity had
been practicaUy determined for more than a thousand
years. Only the upheaval of the Reformation in the
sixteenth century could break the collection and give
it new limits, and then only for the Protestant branch
of the Christian world. The study of that upheaval
belongs to the discussion of modern versions.

CHAPTER XII
OTHER EARLY VERSIONS
The translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into
Greek and the carrying of the entire Bible over into
Latin have had most to do with the growth of the Bible
in the Western world. An understanding of the course
of events connected with those translations, as we have
considered them, is indispensable for understanding the
Bible of European and American Christianity, but an
intelHgent view of the history of the Bible as a whole
must include something of other early versions as well.
Even though those other versions have had Httle or no
effect on the particular form of the Bible which we use,
our thought of the Bible growth altogether would be
one-sided and unfair to the book we love unless it in
cludes some outline of the versions which have been
influential in other parts of the world, though not in
our own. We ought therefore to consider briefly some
early translations which arose in Westem Asia, in East
ern Europe, and in Egypt, aU of which have had a potent
place in the influence of the Bible as a whole. Taking
the most important of these in the chronological order
of their origin, we may notice the Syriac version, the
Egyptian, the Gothic, the Armenian, the Ethiopic, the
Arabic, and the Slavonic versions. Each of these is
worthy of far more attention than the space here at
command wiU permit. 169

I70 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Among those who were at Jerusalem on the Day
of Pentecost (Acts 2:5-11) were "dweUers in Meso
potamia," who, with the others in that significant Hst,
are described as "devout men." Naturally they were
interested in the unusual message which came to their
ears, and it would have been strange if, when they vis
ited again their native land, they had not carried some
story of what they had heard.
Whether the story of the gospel so early fotmd a
considerable place along the shores of the upper Tigris
and the upper Euphrates rivers and the lands between
we are unable to say. It is not difficult, however, to
see how this may have been the actual course of events.
Whether it was or not, there is no doubt that early in
the Christian movement, perhaps before the end of the
first century, certainly in the second century. Christian
missionaries had planted churches in the Mesopotamian
country, and the records of the work of Jesus and Paid
and others associated with them were needed there for
the inspiration and guidance of the ingathered disciples.
The dominating forces in those parts during the
early Christian days, as had been the case through pre
vious centuries, were Semitic — Semitic peoples, Semitic
speech, and Semitic Hfe. The particular type of Sem
itic speech employed there during the formative period
of Christianity was that which we call the Syriac, kin
dred to Hebrew and Aramaic and Arabic. Into this
Syriac language then the Scriptures were translated
as soon as the Christian movement had developed far
enough to make a demand for the Bible in the speech of
the new converts. This is the story of all missionary
endeavor.

OTHER EARLY VERSIONS 171
How early such translations occurred we cannot teU.
Whether it was the work of many hands or of few, or of
one, we are unable to say. The beginnings of the Bible
in Syriac are lost in the obscurity of the primitive times
out of which the early Syriac Christian movement came.
Before the close of the second century, however, the
clouds Hft enough for us to know that the Bible was
already there in the language of the people, and the
Syriac Scriptures had begun. Tatian, by the making of his
famous Diatessaron, the earliest harmony of the Gospels,
about the year 172, may have contributed largely to the
security of the Gospels, if not the letters of Paul, in the
Syrian speech, but there seems Httle doubt that portions
of the New Testament, as well as the Old, had ere that
found an enduring place in the Syrian tongue as well as
in the Syrian heart.
Beyond these beginnings of the Bible in Syriac,
probably one of the most important aspects of that
Bible for our study is the books which this version con
tained. Our study of other versions has prepared us
for recognizing that the contents of the version now in
hand need not be at aU the same as the contents of our
own Bible, or even the contents of the other versions we
have examined. The possibihties are further increased
as soon as we remember that the Syriac translation may
very weU have been influenced by Semitic thought and
Semitic traditions.
And so it was. The Syriac Old Testament foUowed
closely the Hebrew rather than the Septuagint, and
Syriac Christians have read an Old Testament quite
Uke our own. But the situation concerning the New
Testament has been very different. The Gospels, as

172 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
already suggested, have been in Syriac from early days,
and so have letters of Paul. The order of arrangement
of his letters, however, has been quite changed from
that to which we are accustomed. Galatians has stood
first, whether because it was probably written from
Antioch in Syria, so close to the center of Mesopotamian
Christianity, or because it was known to those Chris
tians to be the earhest of Paul's letter, who can teU?
Then foUowed Corinthians and Romans and Hebrews,
thus indicating that Semitic Christianity ascribed He
brews to the great apostle, or perhaps indicating also
how its Semitic tendency of thought appealed to the
Syrian mind.
The most striking aspect of the Syriac New Testa
ment, however, is the omission of books which we have
taken for granted as a part of the Christian Scriptures.
As late as the middle of the fourth century, three cen
turies after the days of Paul, the S3T:iac translation of
the New Testament did not include any of the seven
general epistles or the Apocalypse. It was limited to
the Gospels and the letters of Paul. Later, James,
I Peter, and I John were added; but II Peter, II and III
John, and the Apocalypse have never belonged to the
Syriac New Testament, properly speaking, though they
have been added in modern times. Why the Syriac was
thus limited, and what the meaning was both for the
early days of Bible history and for the development of
S3Triac Christianity — these make too long a story even
to be outhned here. The mere facts, however, are im
portant enough to be given a place in our thought and
thus to become a stimulus to further consideration as
opportunity may arise.

OTHER EARLY VERSIONS 173
It may not have been quite correct to give the im
pression that the Syriac translation of the Bible was the
next after that of the Latin. Indeed, as one recalls aU
that has been sketched above, he wiU see that we are
in doubt as to whether the Latin was earUer than the
Syriac, since the earUest evidence concerning each points
to the second century as the period of its origin. It has
been the importance of the Latin then, rather than
assurance of priority of origin, that has warranted its
fuUer treatment and its apparent priority in date. Sim
ilar considerations place the Egyptian version, or rather
versions, following the Syriac, since the Bible in the lan
guages of Egypt also goes back to the early times and is
shrouded in uncertainty of origin. How far back those
indistinct beginnings date we can merely infer. We
can readUy understand that they may have been in the
first century, but the data for assurance are lacking. In
the second century, however, or at any rate in the third,
Christianity was estabhshed in Egypt, and the first
steps at least of a translation of the Scriptures into the
language of the people had taken place.
Egypt always of course has been separate and dis
tinct, in Ufe and thought and largely in civil adminis
tration, from the districts of Northern Africa to the
west, where we have found the Latin Bible developing.
Accordingly Egypt went her own way in accepting the
message of the gospel and a translation of that message
into the speech of the people along the banks of the Nile.
Though Greek influence had been potent there from the
days of Greek glory as a nation, though Israel had found
large share in Eg3^tian Hfe and had permitted that
experience to be controUed by Greek culture so far as to

174 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
accept a Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures, and
though Roman power had swept the country in the days
of the Caesars and had brought the land into subjection
to Itahan wiU, Egypt retained a people that clung to its
native speech and who needed the Scriptures in Egyp
tian dress. In fact, there were dialects within the
boundaries of the influence of Egyptian life and speech,
and we find, as an outcome, a translation of the Bible ,
into the language of Northern Eg}^t, the Bohairic, the
language of Southern Egypt, the Sahidic, and into a
sUghtly different version for the people who Hved in the
central portions of the country and on its confines.
Thus we speak of Egyptian versions rather than of an
Eg}^tian version. Only fragments of each of these
remain, but they are sufficient to tell of their early ex
istence and usefulness. The Old Testament, as we
should anticipate outside of Palestine and Semitic influ
ence and particularly so near to the action of the
forces which produced the Old Testament in Greek,
was substantiaUy the Septuagint rather than the
Hebrew. Within a century then, or at most a century and a
half, from the days of the apostles the Bible had been
translated into the speech of the people of Northern
Africa, of Italy, of Syria, and of Egypt. The inherent
missionary character of Christianity was manifesting
itself not only in the furnishing of evangeUsts for the
people but also in the preparation of the Scripture ver
sions which the needs of the peoples required; and with
such a beginning it is only to be expected that simUar
enterprise will be found to have revealed itseU in other
directions — and so it did.

OTHER EARLY VERSIONS 175
The next wide field of missionary activity was in
Southeastern Europe, that portion of the European world
which we caU the Balkans. Here was born about the
year 310, of Christian parents, the eminent Christian
and linguist whom we know as Ulfilas. His parents
had been brought from Asia Minor as captives by
Gothic invaders, and he himself suffered at the hands
of persecutors, being driven toward the shores of the
Black Sea, where, in Moesia, he is said to have made
a translation of the Bible for those who had taken his
parents from their native land and had carried the
persecution to himseff. Indeed, the Goths at that time
being without a written language, Ulfilas not only made
the translation but prepared the alphabet in which to
express the thought, using largely the Greek characters
of his native tongue. Such at least is the tradition, and
it is the easiest explanation of the existence of the Bible
in Gothic. As Ulfilas died about the year 382, the ver
sion, or at least as much of it as he prepared, is earher
than that date. Only fragments are extant, and these
furnish the basis of the study of the Gothic language
and Hterature. NaturaUy a man of the inheritance of
Ulfilas followed closely, in his translation, the Bible as
he found it in Greek; but, strange as it may seem, there
is a definite tradition that he did not include the Books of
Kings, since he felt that a warlike people such as the
Gothic nations did not need books which were chiefly
concerned with war and easily incited to war, as the
Books of Kings are at once seen to do.
Between Mesopotamia on the east and the land of
the Goths on the west lies the ancient land of Armenia,
whose people inhabit the shores of the Black Sea. To

176 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
these Armenians it was natural that the gospel should be
taken within no long period of time after the early mis
sionaries had carried it to the better-known lands within,
or near, the empire of the Caesars. And the preaching
of the gospel to the people here, as in other countries,
was inevitably foUowed by a translation of the Bible
into the Armenian tongue. As early as about the year
400 perhaps such a translation was begim, and it became
a part of the Armenian Christian heritage. In the
plain near the ancient mountain of Ararat, it is thought,
the version for these Armenian people was prepared.
And one of the most interesting features of the transla
tion, in the direction of the study we are pursuing, is the
very unusual order of the New Testament books. Fol
lowing the Gospels and the Acts come the general
episties. This is not so imexpected; but when the
Apocalypse is the next book, foUowed by the letters of
Paul and attached to these is a letter of the Corinthians
to Paul, after which appear Hebrews, Timothy, etc.,
with various manuscripts giving the several books in
stUl other arrangements than the one just mentioned, we
recognize at once the freedom with which the New Tes
tament writings have been treated in the course of the
growth through which the Bible has passed. Our inter
est is easily heightened as we take into account, stiU
farther in that line of freedom, how the Armenian Old
Testament, though a not distant neighbor to the S3Tiac,
which held to the Hebrew limits of the Scriptures,
leaves behind the influence of the Syriac and includes
the writings of the Septuagint instead — in fact, reaches
out beyond the Septuagint limits and gives place to
several of the Jewish apocalyptic books. Thus in this

OTHER EARLY VERSIONS 177
somewhat out-of-the-way version of the Bible we dis
cover a very exceptional irregularity of bibUcal growth.
Not long after the gospel was carried northeast to
the people of Armenia it was taken, in the same mis
sionary spirit, far soutii to the headwaters of the Nile,
and the land of Abyssinia, the home of the andent
Ethiopians, received the message. With the gospel,
here as elsewhere, went the translating of the Bible into
the speech of the people to whom the good news had
been taken. How early this occurred in Ethiopia, as in
other fields that we have considered, there is no possi
bihty of stating with confidence. Perhaps there was an
Ethiopic version as early as the year 600 and, it may be,
considerably earher. In addition to the fact of such
an early translation we may weU be concerned to find
that the Ethiopians, like the Armenians, read even a
larger coUection than that of the Septuagint, so that
their Old Testament included the Book of Enoch and
the Book of JubUees, IV Ezra, and writings ascribed to
Baruch, in addition to those which the Septuagint and
Vulgate contained. Their New Testament also had its
individual character; supplementary to the usual books
it included a collection of writings called the Canon Law,
a mark of the broad lines of interest which possessed
these Christians in the distant parts of the African
world. Perhaps this unusual collection accepted by the Ar
menians at the north and another exceptional collection
held by the Ethiopians far to the south have more sig
nificance than the mere facts themselves imply. How
did it come about that such irregular coUections devel
oped on the confines of the Christian reahn? Why

178 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
should the growth of the Bible disclose such curiosities
of development in the most distant parts of Christian
activity ? Was it because these fields of Hfe and thought
were remote from the center of ecclesiastical influence
and authority? Was there a freedom in the distant
lands then, just as the missionary countries today are
those which sometimes startle the Christians at home by
the imusual methods which they employ and the Hber-
ties which they take with the established ideas and cus
toms of the lands which have carried the Bible to them ?
Possibly so at least. The facts at any rate stimulate
attention and furnish material for further thought con
cerning the meaning of Bible growth.
Now we observe the spread of Christianity into the
lands of Islam and note how once more missionary enter
prise includes a new version of the Christian Scriptures.
This leads to the consideration of the Arabic versions
into which the Bible had been carried. Since Moham
med Hved in the sixth century and the Moslem countries
did not become missionary territory untU later, the
Arabic Bible belongs to the eighth century, or farther
along. In the matter of its contents perhaps the most
significant factor is the absence of the Apocalypse from
among the books of the New Testament, this absence
suggesting, either that Moslem Christianity grew out of
Arabic, which never accepted the Apocalypse, as wotUd
have been natural, or that the thought of Islam has
never been appealed to by the visions of the apocalyptic
portion of the New Testament. In any case, the fact
is indicative of how the Apocalypse was a book cherished
in the West rather than in the East of the world of early
Christianity.

OTHER EARLY VERSIONS 179
One more translation of the Scriptures must have
attention as we look even briefly at the earlier versions
into which the Bible has passed. This is the Slavonic.
It is attributed to two men who were brothers, Cyril and
Methodius, sons of a Greek nobleman of Thessalonica,
where they had opportunity to understand Slavic speech
as weU as their native Greek. They Hved in the ninth
century, so that before the year 900 the Bible, as well
as the gospel message, had been carried to the Slavic
peoples. As the Slavs, still in their primitive life, lacked
a written language, Cyril, the tradition says, created an
alphabet with which to write the translation he and
Methodius had made, and their labors and their interest
were more than rewarded. They not only furnished the
Bible in permanent form for one of the great races and
laid the foundations for Eastern Christianity, but also
provided the linguistic materials for the widely spread
and most significant Slavic Hteratures. As would be
natural at the time when the translation was made and
m the environment in which its authors Hved, the version
shows dependence on the Vulgate, though some of the
books of the Old Testament offer evidence that they
were prepared with reference to the Hebrew and a knowl
edge of its value. Very Hkely CyrU and Methodius did
not cover the entire Bible, some portions being trans
lated by later hands.
Thus we sketch the growth of the Bible far along in
the Middle Ages, giving some attention to those versions
which possess any considerable importance— in fact, up
to the period which paved the way for the Reformation.
From the beginning of the Hebrew Old Testament,
in the time of Moses, or earher, down to the origin of the

i8o HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Septuagint, the growth of the Bible was likened, appro
priately enough, to the gathering of the streams out of
which are formed a great river. Then the comparison
to a river began to lose its appropriateness and its force.
In place of the assembhng of streams of thought the
Scriptures began to display such branching as is charac
teristic of the growth of a tree rather than of a stream of
water, and that growth by branching has repeatedly
manifested itseU in the versions we have noticed; and
it would have been equaUy evident in lesser translations
which would require attention if the survey we are fol
lowing were to include aU detaUs of versions that ap
peared rather than merely to indicate the main outlines
of development as evidence of the natural growth
through which the Bible has passed. At the close of the
Middle Ages then the Bible stands before us Hke a mighty
oak, its roots reaching down into the eternal soils of
primitive life, its main trunk of divine thought strong in
the Hebrew and Greek fibers of the original Old Testa
ment and the New, its great branches of the Septuagint,
the ViUgate, and the Syriac spreading out over the world,
and, forth from this mighty trunk and these towering
branches, its lesser branches that we have looked upon,
and those smaUer ones that our eyes have missed, giving
shade and comfort to a world of human life.

CHAPTER XIII
MODERN VERSIONS
Modern history and the modern world have their
beginning in the Renaissance, that period of new interest
in classical learning, in the facts of Hfe, and in man him
seff which dates from the fourteenth century and had
its natural fruit in the Reformation of the sixteenth.
Through the long earUer centuries of the Middle Ageg
Greek was almost forgotten, and the splendid Uterature
which had been written in it was unknown in its original
form. Hebrew was not thought of outside of its own
Jewish family and scattered friends here and there.
Latin was the general language of the Roman world and
its counterpart the Holy Roman Empire, but it was not
to a large extent the speech of the people. They used
their own national, or racial, tongues. Otherwise there
would not have been occasion for the Bible transla
tions which we considered in chapter xU and the less
significant ones which we have passed without even
mention. While the new interest in learning and science came
to have immense influence on rehgion and Christianity,
that was not the purpose of those, like Petrarch, who
were responsible for the new era of Hfe. These leaders
toward a new day were concerned in learning, in classical
thought and Uterature, in man, and in the world of na
ture, for the sake of the worth of these objects of study
themselves. The works of Aristotle, and Hkewise the
i8i

l82 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
stars of the sky, would repay in their own study the
effort which was required.
Such an attitude of mind, however, must inevitably
have its effect on the sources of rehgious thought and,
in the end, on the rehgious Hfe itseff. Some time was
needed, but the effect was sure to come. In spite of the
long mental drowsiness of the Middle Ages the shock of
contact with classical Hfe and power must produce an
awakening, the more rude perhaps because of the vast
period of dulness and inactivity. Christianity coidd
not Hve indefinitely apart from learning when learning
was overcoming the world; and Christianity with learn
ing, like the world itseff, must become new.
This new world of Christianity came to birth in the
Reformation. Its counterpart in the field of Hterature
was a new Bible. With this last aspect of the new world
we are chiefly concerned.
There is no birth without conception and the pre
natal time of embryonic growth and enrichment. This
is as true in the things of the spirit as in the life of the
flesh; it is as true in the Hterature of Christianity as it is
in the Christian Hfe and growth. We are not surprised
then to discover that the Bible of the Reformation was
the Bible of grace and strength; and it is equaUy to be
expected that the Reformation Scriptures have their con
ception in the generations of new learning out of which
the Reformation was born.
Thus it was. As early as the fourteenth century the
new Hfe of Bible revision began to make itseff distinctly
felt. In fact, the first signs of vitahty may be traced
farther back, just as there were promptings of the Re
naissance before Petrarch and his foUowers of the years

MODERN VERSIONS 183
succeeding 1300. Perhaps it would be more correct,
however, to call those first movements only the weakened
extension of the early interest in Bible translation which
we have already studied, recognizing that the modern
versions have a real beginning with the promptings re
ceived from the stimulus of the revival of learning.
However the matter be stated, it is in the fourteenth
and following centuries that we discover an interest in
Bible translation and in the use of these vernacular ver
sions such as had never before displayed itseff either in
degree or in the extent of the countries to which it
reached. It is worth our while briefly to consider some
of these movements.
The most important of these movements for English
readers, and one of the most significant for all lovers of
the Bible, is that interwoven into the Hfe and service of
John WicUf,' who died in 1384. The story of his eager
ness to carry the gospel to the common people of England
is weU known. In this endeavor he soon found that the
labors of himself and his "poor priests" could not be
effective unless the Scriptures, along with the oral mes
sage, should be given to the people for whom the workers
were concerned. The next step was to make transla
tions of parts of the Bible from the Latin into the
Enghsh of the time. Therefore the New Testament was
translated largely, ff not altogether, by WicHf hrniseff,
and Nicholas Hereford and others completed the Old
Testament. This was naturally the Old Testament
of the Vulgate. Indeed WicHf and his co-workers had
no thought other than to render the Latin Vulgate into
the speech of the Enghsh people, the interest m Hebrew
'Spelled also WycUffe, and m other ways.

i84 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
and Greek being a point of view yet to develop in modern
Christianity. It is worth while to note also that the
Epistle to the Laodiceans, which we have found in
cluded in some of the earher versions or coUections, stfll
cherished in spite of Jerome and Augustine, was included
among the books which Wiclif was concerned to render
into Enghsh, though it was soon omitted by those who
continued his work.
In France, pre-eminent in the Renaissance move
ment, desire for a translation of the Bible into the lan
guage, or rather the dialects, of the people, showed itseff
before the fourteenth century, for there are evidences
that the entire Bible, the Vulgate of course, had been
carried over into French speech not long after the year
1 200, thus providing for the need of the people as early
as the thirteenth century. In the fourteenth other ver
sions followed, furnishing those who were desirous of the
Scriptures a means for the satisfaction of their hunger.
These potent activities extended their influence across
the Alps, and Italian versions of the fourteenth century,
or earlier, bearing marks of relationship to the French
translations but put into the speech of the Itahan people,
met the immediate needs and paved the way for later
and better versions.
Spain and Portugal also experienced the effect of
widespread interest in the popular use of the Scriptures.
In one respect, indeed, they were weU favored. Sit
uated near the Strait of Gibraltar, where Moslem and
Jewish influence from Northern Africa had made them
selves felt, the people of these two countries more easily
than some others were responsive to the common desire
for the Bible in everyday speech. So strong had the

MODERN VERSIONS 185
inclination in this way been in the earUer days that, as
far back as 1233, in Spaiu, the use of the Bible in the
common language of the people had been prohibited.
In spite of these hindrances, however, versions appeared
and were current in the fourteenth century, some of them
mamfesting in marked degree the influence of Jewish
rabbis who had become concerned to bring the Scrip
tures, from the Jewish point of view, mto the hands of
the people.
On the other side of France, to the north and east,
the situation in HoUand and Germany is no less attrac
tive. As early as the year 1300, it is thought, a version
was prepared for those who used the Flemish tongue in
the low countries. In Germany dear evidence of stiU
earUer Versions has been found. A pecuUarity of some
of these translations is that the Latin and the German
of the time are placed in parallel columns, thus furnish
ing the benefit of both versions for aU who were able to
use both languages. Even across into Scandinavia in
terest in popular reading of the Bible arose, and there
are traces of a Swedish translation of parts of the Scrip
tures before the fourteenth century had closed.
In other parts of Europe, before the year 1400, and
thus belonging to the fourteenth century, there are traces
of portions of the Bible carried into the popular speech.
Mention of the popular interest which displayed itseff
in Bohemia particularly, culminating in the unique serv
ice and the martyrdom of John Hus, in 141 5, may weU
be made. AU of these translations, except where Jewish influ
ence has been noted, were prepared, naturaUy, from the
Vulgate; and this teUs at once the contents of the Bible

i86 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
which was translated, either in whole or, as probably
often occurred, in part, the Gospels and the Psalms
being the portions receiving first attention, just as has
been the case in modem missionary activities.
The foundations for modern versions of the Bible
having been so deeply and so broadly laid in the
fourteenth century, we need not be surprised that the
fifteenth manifests a different type of activity. Trans
lations being already in existence, those who were con
cerned with their use and improvement found revision
easier than retranslation. There is the possibiUty too
that the abounding energy which produced the four
teenth-century versions did not exist, at least did not
exist in the same form, during the next generations. In
any case, go in what direction we wiU for an explanation,
the fifteenth century was not frmtftd in efforts to bring
the Bible into the language of people who theretofore
had been without it in their own tongue. It did weU,
in fact, to cherish and maintain the versions bequeathed
by its predecessor.
The fifteenth century was notable in another way.
It was the period out of which came the invention of
printing and the multipUcation of copies of the Bible, as
weU as of other books, to a degree not dreamed of hith
erto; and the Bible, of course, was one of the volumes
earUest to gain from the new art. Before the year 1500
several of the versions made and shghtly circulated in
manuscript in the fourteenth century were much more
widely and easUy available because the printer had re
leased the Scriptures from the limitations of the pen.
The sixteenth was the centmy of the Reformation
and of upheaval in translations of the Bible. The

MODERN VERSIONS 187
leaven of learning had been working, and the bread of
Ufe m new form must appear. It appeared m England
and on the Continent; the peoples of varied speech re
ceived the old message in new words, in language famihar
to their ears and welcome to their hearts. In the coming
of this new Bible, as in the coming of the entire move
ment of the Reformation, Luther and Germany were
the leaders, and the progress there is entitied to first
attention. We date the Reformation from October, 1517, when
Luther nailed his ninety-five theses on the chapel door
at Wittenberg. Important events foUowed fast. Out
of these Luther learned quickly that the new message
he was taking to the people must be supported by
printed copies of the Scriptures to which he was appeal
ing. This meant new translations of portions of the
Bible in the fresh and vigorous German of which he was
a master. Such translation of parts of the Psalms, the
Decalogue, the Lord 's Prayer, and portions of the Gos
pels and epistles were brought to their natural fruitage
with the appearance of a new version of the entire New
Testament in September, 1522. Even before that Lu
ther had conceived of a new version of the entire Bible,
and his dream was brought to realization with the print
ing of the whole Bible in 1534.
Luther's translation was made on the basis of the
Hebrew for the Old Testament and the Greek for the
New. This attitude toward the Bible writmgs had not
before been taken, at least with any thoroughness, since
the time of Jerome; and even he, as we have observed,
deferred m some degree to the feehng of his friends, who
had come to cherish the larger coUection of sacred books

i88 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
as received from the Septuagint. Luther, as might be
expected from his vigorous and unyielding temper, was
more determined and consistent. Though he did not
discard the Old Testament books not found in the He
brew, he brought non-Hebrew writings into a separate
coUection, and they were printed as a middle portion of
the Bible between the Old Testament and the New, with
the titie
Apocrypha, that is books which are not held equal to the
sacred Scriptures, and nevertheless are useful and good to read.
In taking this position Luther had imdoubtedly been
influenced by a work of Andreas Bodenstein von Carl-
stadt, pubhshed in 1520, in which he had reviewed the
discussions of Jerome and Augustine and had inclined
to the idea of Jerome, carrying that idea even farther
than Jerome had done.
The translation of Luther is notable in two respects.
It had furnished a new arrangement of the books of the
Bible, with a depreciation of the worth of the Old Testa
ment writings not found in Hebrew, and it had carried
the thought of the Bible over into such remarkable Ger
man diction as to make that version almost the only
German Bible for generations and to give a new uni
formity and fixity to German speech.
The Luther version of the Bible is significant for its
influence outside of, as weU as within, Germany. The
people of HoUand were kindred in both race and lan
guage and were near at hand. The work of Luther and
his colaborers appealed to them with force and zest,
and a Dutch Bible, in the language of the people of the
day, appeared at the same period as Luther's version in

MODERN VERSIONS 189
Germany, beginning in 1522 and being completed in
1532. The labor was hastily performed, the need of
revision was soon felt, and the Bible, witli such changes
included, was issued m 1536. Into Denmark and Swe
den also the enterprise of Luther was carried, and the
Bible appeared in new dress. In Denmark the New
Testament was pubUshed in 1524, and the entire Bible
was completed as early as 1550. Sweden felt the new
impetus almost as soon for the New Testament and more
quickly for the Old, a Swedish version of the New Tes
tament strongly controlled by the language of Luther
issuing in 1526, and of the Old Testament as early as 1541.
Even in more remote Hungary, though not so directly
an outgrowth of the version of Luther and retarded in
time, a sixteenth-century translation, highly important
for the Protestant movement, came to Ught. It was
the work of Kaspar Karolyi, issuing in 1589-90, and
was so valuable that it is stiU used among the Hun
garian people. In Russia also, as early as 1581, a new
version appeared, related in origin, however, to the early
Slavic. And in Poland even sooner, in 1561, there was
pubhshed a new version of the entire Bible, various
translations of portions of the Scriptures having been
issued during the previous years since 1500.
To the west, in France, the course of events was
different. France and Germany have never pursued
kindred hnes of development nor found similar avenues
of progress congenial. This diversity of development
was true in the use of the Bible. The effect of the new
learning manifested itself in its own way for the French
people. In the translation of the Bible it began with
the very important work of Le FSvre d'Etaples, who.

I90 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
within the years 1523 to 1530, brought out a new version
of the Vulgate, thus indicating a conservative attitude
toward the ancient coUection of Scriptiure writings at the
same time that the need of a new translation was recog
nized. The Protestant leaven was at work, however, in
France as weU as among the Germanic and kindred
peoples, and in 1535 OHvetan pubUshed a version from
the Protestant point of view. It was particularly val
uable in the case of the Old Testament, both in its faith
fulness to the Hebrew and in the Hterary quaUties of
the French, so that it has become a basis for later
versions. In Italy too the force of the new Scripture ideas was
felt. Florence, the foster-mother of liberty in spite of
papal power, furnished the labors of BrucioH, who as
early as 1528 began the work of translation, and the
New Testament was published at Venice in 1530. The
Psalms foUowed the next year, and the new version of
the Bible was completed in 1532, the Old Testament
finding dependence on the Hebrew and the New on the
Greek. WhUe we think of Germany as the first home of the
Reformation and give honor to Luther as the first to
bring the Bible from the Hebrew and Greek to the peo
ple in a modern form of speech which has retained its
hold to the present day, a corresponding movement
among the EngUsh-speaking people was not far behind,
and the Bible in Enghsh as a translation from the origi
nal tongues of the Scriptures did not tarry long. The
leaven of Europe was working as surely in Britain as
among the Teutonic nations. For the EngUsh-speaking

MODERN VERSIONS 191
world of today this British activity has its own pecuHar
interest, power, and charm.
British activity in the remaking of the form of the
Bible, as is weU known, dates from the labors of WiUiam
Tindale,' who was born sometime before 1490 and paid
the price of his devotion to the Bible by martyrdom
in 1536. The path which he trod, therefore, was less
smooth even than that over which Luther had to pass.
The obstacles before the reformers in England were far
greater than those in Germany, the EngUsh people,
or rather the EngUsh rulers and ruling classes, moving
more slowly than the Germans, with whom Luther and
his friends had immediately to deal.
In their devotion to the original languages of the
Scriptures, Luther and Tindale were alike, and both
gave attention first to the New Testament. Luther's
labors came to fruitage a little earlier, in 1522, as we have
seen, Tindale 's translation of the New Testament from
the Greek, the first New Testament in English brought
over directly from the Greek, being printed in 1525,
coming then from presses in Germany, because his na
tive land would not tolerate his epoch-making service.
The remaining eleven years of his Hfe he spent chiefly,
ff not altogether, on the Continent, much of the time
at Hamburg and Antwerp, working constantly on the
translation of the Old Testament and the revision of the
New, and having the satisfaction of seeing both appear
from the press before he was trapped by his ignoble
enemies and sacrificed on the altar of bhnd tradition.
His work, however, could not be undone, and he has the
enduring glory of bringing the New Testament directiy
' Also spelled Tyndale, and m other ways.

192 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
from the Greek fountains over to the lasting use of the
EngUsh-speaking world.
By one of the curious u-onies of history, the same
year, 1535, in which Tindale was arrested and impris
oned, saw the printing of the so-called Bible of Cover-
dale, who suffered no such penalties as had come to
Tindale, the shffting of the scenes of prejudice having
combined more to his favor. For us the chief interest
perhaps of this Bible is the treatment which Coverdale
gave the books of the Old Testament which were not
found to exist in Hebrew. Here he foUowed the exam
ple of Luther, or, if it was not the attitude of Luther
which controUed him, at least he did the same thing,
collecting these books together between the Old Testa
ment and the New. He was careful also to give his
reasons for so doing. He spoke of these writings as
"the books and treatises which among the fathers of old
are not reckoned to be of like authority with the other
books of the Bible, neither are they found in the canon
of the Hebrew." He thought it weU, however, to re
tain Baruch "among the prophets next unto Jeremiah,
because he was his scribe and in his time." Later edi
tions of the EngUsh Bible, however, have placed Baruch
among those not found in the Hebrew.
Thus we have come to the time in the history of the
Bible, both on the Continent of Europe and in Great
Britain, when there was not only a decision to give
superior authority to the books of the Old Testament
found in the Hebrew but also a definite movement to
separate the non-Hebrew books from the others and
print them by themselves between the Old Testament
and the New, and to give them the general titie Apoc-

MODERN VERSIONS 193
r)^ha. The word itself is suggestive and has a con
siderable history of its own. That history would be
attractive to review, but it is not essential and must be
passed over, merely noting that the term means con
cealed, or hidden, and that it came to designate books
which were regarded and treated differently from
others; in the case of the Bible, those writings which
were regarded unfavorably when considering the ques
tion whether a writing should be included among the fully
sacred books. In this connection it is worthy of notice
that at Zurich, Switzerland, in 1529-30, a Bible was
printed in which the Apocrypha was placed at the close,
after the New Testament. This of course was due to the
influence of the work of Luther, except that those who
were responsible for this particular edition of the Bible
went to the extreme and put the secondary books in the
most subordinate position they could discover while
retaining them at all. As this position was manifestly
unhistorical, it could not maintain itself and was not
continued. The years following 1535 saw one English Protestant
Bible after another appear and claim attention. There
was the so-called Matthews Bible in 1537, the Tavenner
in 1539, the Great Bible as the result of various workers
in the same year, the Geneva Bible in 1560, and the
Bishops in 1568. Each possesses its own individual
interest and in any detailed history of the EngUsh Bible
would require appropriate description. For us, in the
present study, the chief significance of these several
shghtly variant translations is to observe how closely
they followed each other, feel the bibhcal unrest which
this situation betokens for the EngUsh Christians of

194 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
that period, and remember that the Geneva version,
the most important of the Hst, was made by EngUsh
exiles in Switzerland and came to have wide acceptance
and potent influence among the people in Britain itself,
as weU as no mean place in determining the language
which stiU later EngUsh versions have used.
During this period the Church of England took im
portant action bearing on the acceptance of bibhcal
writings, action which serves well to disclose the Enghsh
thought of the time concerning the books of the Bible
and to show how the labors which resulted in the above-
mentioned versions were tending toward a crystallization
of views concerning the manner in which the several
books should be esteemed. This action was the formu
lation and adoption of the Thirty-nine Articles of re
ligion of the Enghsh church. In their Latin form they
were recognized in 1562. To make them more accessible,
yet without change of their binding character, they
were recognized in Enghsh form by the convocation of
1 57 1. Of the thirty-nine different articles, the sixth
deals with the names of the books of the Bible and the
way in which they are to be accepted. In treating " of
the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for salvation"
there is given a Hst "of the names and number of the
canonical books," which includes the ordinary books of
the Old Testament, after which the article continues:
And the other books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth
read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet
doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine; such are these
foUowing: The Third Book of Esdras, The Fourth Book of
Esdras, The Book of Tobias, The Book of Judith, The Rest
of the Book of Esther, The Book of Wisdom, Jesus the Son of

MODERN VERSIONS 195
Sirach, Baruch the Prophet, The Song of the Three Children,
The Story of Susanna, Of Bel and the Dragon, The Prayer of
Manasses, The First Book of Maccabees, The Second Book of
Maccabees. Thus the view of Jerome and the tendency of the Prot
estant thought of the sixteenth century was given offi
cial recognition by the controlUng ecclesiastical authority
of the Enghsh people of the period. The books which
were beginning to be called the Apocrypha were retained
as part of the Bible but separated by themselves and
assigned to a subordinate place of esteem.
One more Enghsh version of the sixteenth century
commands our careful consideration. Like the Genevan,
it was produced by English-speaking people while in
exUe. As Protestants had been forced to leave England
during the reign of Mary, 1553-58, and before their
return made the Genevan Bible, so in the reign of
EHzabeth, 1 558-1603, CathoUcs fled to foreign lands,
especially to France, in order to escape the Elizabethan
persecutions, and while thus deprived of their homes
prepared the CathoUc version which ordinarUy bears
the name of the Douay Bible.
To understand the importance of the Douay version
it is necessary to recaU the action of the Council of Trent,
in 1546, which has already been mentioned (p. 166).
The decree then adopted by the CouncU made the Vul
gate the supreme form of the Roman Cathohc Bible.
The action was the natural outcome, as may now be
readily seen, of the decision of Luther and Coverdale
and others of the Protestant leaders to separate the non-
Hebrew writings of the Old Testament from the Hebrew
and place them in a subordinate status, as Luther had

196 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
done in 1534 and Coverdale a year later. The Cathohc
church, long an advocate of the authority of the church
and its usages, long accustomed to exalt the authority
of the early church leaders Hke Augustine and Jerome,
particularly those, hke Augustine, who had elevated
tradition into the place of truth, reacted naturaUy
against the assumptions of Luther, Tindale, Coverdale,
and their foUowers, and declared that the same books
which had been used through the centuries should con
tinue to be used and, from 1546 on, should be stamped
with a definite and inevitable right to be heard, read, and
obeyed. For EngUsh-speaking CathoHcs then the Vulgate
must be the ultimate authority as the Bible, and any
translation into EngUsh must grow out of that Vulgate
edition. The Douay Bible accordingly is an Enghsh
version of the Latin Vulgate, including all that the Vul
gate includes, arranging the books of the Old Testament
in the Vulgate order, and altogether reproducing the
official CathoUc Latin Vulgate in EngUsh as faithfuUy as
the translators were able to perform this sacred service.
The work of the translators was completed as early
as 1582. Only part of the money necessary to print the
entire Bible was available. Preference was naturaUy
given to the New Testament, and this appeared that
year, being printed at Rheims, France. The full title
is significant: The New Testament of Jesus Christ, translated faithfuUy
into English out of the authentical Latin, according to the best
corrected copies of the same, diUgently conferred with the Greek
and other editions in divers languages: with Arguments of books
and chapters, annotations, and other necessary helps, for the

MODERN VERSIONS 197
better understandmg of the text, and speciaUy for the discovery
of the Corruptions of divers late translations, and for clearing
the Controversies in reUgion, of these das^s.
Thus the translators not only furnished an Enghsh ver
sion suitable for the use of English CathoHcs but also
warned the readers of the Protestant version how the
versions placed in their hands could not be trusted.
That there was some basis for this warning wiU appear
as we go on to consider what EngUsh Protestants did
within a generation to improve the Bible in the hands of
Enghsh readers.
Before we take that further step one or two more
aspects of the Douay Bible and its meaning should be
noticed. The New Testament having appeared in 1582,
lack of funds prevented the pubhcation of the Old Tes
tament until 1609-10, when it was issued in two vol
umes at Douay, France, from which place and from the
CathoUc college located there the name of the version
is derived. The complete publication of this version
accordingly carries us along into the beginning of the
seventeenth century.
The point we have thus reached in a brief sketch of
the origin of the Catholic Bible in Enghsh, when the
facts considered are related to those of the growth of the
Bible as a whole, and particularly to those connected with
the Protestant versions, is an opportune moment to
dear up the oft-recurring question of the relation between
the Enghsh Cathohc Bible and the Protestant Bibles.
Probably, after what has already been said, Httle more,
if anything, is needed. The reader has discovered that
the differences between the Bible of the Protestants and
the Bible of the CathoUcs are the outcome of centuries

198 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
of Bible development, in the course of which there was
opportunity for variation of opinion as to what the Bible
should be, and actual difference of opinion disclosed
itseff. In the early days of the Christian Era the ques
tion arose as to whether the larger coUection of the Sep
tuagint, or essentially that, should be received for the
Old Testament, or whether the Hebrew only should be
approved. Augustine and the ecclesiasticaUy inclined
preferred the larger coUection, and it continued to be
used as the hberal-minded Jews had used it before.
During the more than one thousand years from Augus
tine to the Reformation Httle further thought was be
stowed on the question. When the reformers assumed
to return to the view of Jerome and to the authority of
the Hebrew Bible, the long-estabhshed and seU-assured
Cathohc church, inevitably from a historical point of
view, confirmed and proclaimed the authority of the
larger coUection, in the order and in the form and lan
guage in which it had long been used. When an EngUsh
version of the Bible was prepared for CathoUcs, at the
dose of the sixteenth century, after the decree of the
Council of Trent, it coiUd not be anything else than a
translation of the larger coUection, the official Vulgate.
Thus, as naturaUy from a historical point of view as
anything could occur, the Cathohe Bible differs from the
Protestant widely in content, in arrangement, and in
the choice of language to express the thought of the
original tongues of the Scriptures themselves.
We have now sketched the most important of the
versions of the sixteenth century. It would be quite
incorrect, however, to leave any impression that aU the
versions of that period have been noticed. Particularly

MODERN VERSIONS 199
it would be unfair to suggest that the Douay Bible was
the only Cathohc version in the language of the people
of the time. Highly important as this Bible was for its
own period and as it has been for succeeding generations
of the EngUsh-speaking world, it by no means covers the
translation of the Bible into the vernacular of the various
Cathohc peoples in the large realm of the Christian
world as a whole. Some of those that appeared in other
languages than Enghsh may be briefly mentioned.
In France the version of Le F^vre d'Etaples, already
referred to, was revised in the interest of CathoUc views
and issued at Louvain in 1550. Italy, of course, was
tardy in receiving the Scriptures in the speech of the
people, but the prohibition of the use of such versions by
Pius IV in 1564, a decree which remained in effect till
1757, reveals the fact that vernacular versions were prob
ably in use in the middle of the sixteenth century, and
the Pope's action was taken to stop the further reading of
them. In Germany several Cathohc translations ap
peared in efforts to counteract the tremejidous influence
of the version of Luther. As early as 1526, only four
years after Luther's New Testament was issued, a Cath
ohc New Testament was pubUshed, followed by another
in the next year, and by the entire Bible in 1534; and in
1537 Eck, the noted antagonist of Luther, brought out
the whole Bible in still another edition. Holland also,
for the CathoHcs as for the Protestants, followed the
example of Germany, a Dutch Cathohc New Testament
appearing in 1527, a Latin-Dutch in parallel columns
in 1539, and a complete Bible in 1548. Even in Poland
the CathoHcs felt the need of counteracting the Protes
tant movement by issuing a Cathohc version of the

200 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
Scriptures, a PoUsh version of the Bible being pub
hshed in 1 561 and a more important edition in 1599.
In the seventeenth century the most significant prog
ress in Bible translation occurred in England. This
was the outgrowth probably of two or three factors of
the Enghsh situation. For one thing, the versions of
the sixteenth century, as suggested above (p. 197), had
given no such satisfaction to English readers as the work
of Luther had furnished to the Germans. Then too
the Reformation had advanced much more slowly in
England than on the Continent, but through the activi
ties of the Puritans it was making permanent gain, and
the need of a version of the Bible responsive to that gain
was. widely felt. Still further, the new king, James I,
was flattered with the proposition that he become the
patron of such a translation of the Bible as the Enghsh
people ought to have.
This idea was presented to the king soon after he
came to the throne in 1603. He responded favorably,
and a company of learned divines was selected to under
take the work. Without going into the details of this
enterprise, which have been so often told and are easily
avaUable in the standard books, it is sufficient here to
recaU that out of the situation as it was came the King
James, or Authorized, Version of the Bible, which was
pubUshed in 161 1 and has remained imtil the present day
not only the chief Bible used in Great Britain and the
United States but also the Scriptures as they have been
carried wherever Enghsh colonization and Enghsh-
speaking missionary efforts have entered in the making
of the modem world. At last a version of the Bible had
appeared which performed for the EngUsh-speaking

MODERN VERSIONS 201
peoples that which had been done by Luther for the
Germans. The version was made, of course, from the Hebrew
of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New. The
Apocrypha was retained, but, in accord with the act
of convocation in 1571, quoted above (p. 194), it was
placed as a separate coUection between the two Testa-
taments, where it has remained in those editions of the
Protestant Enghsh Bible which have printed it at aU.
Some editions in the years immediately following, and
many more in recent times, have appeared with the
Apocrypha entirely omitted.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century the in
fluence of the English authorities was opposed to omit
ting the Apocrypha, and action prohibiting its omission
was taken in 161 5. This severe attitude, however, did
not long continue, and as early as 1629 the Authorized
Version was printed without the Apocr)^ha. The
growing disfavor of the Apocrypha came from the op
position of the Puritans and the increase of Presbyte-
rianism and showed itself in definite action when the
Westminster Confession was adopted in 1648, in which
it was declared that the books of the Apocrypha,
not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the
scripture; and therefore are of no authority in the church of
God, nor to be in any otherwise approved, or made use of, than
other human writings.
This severe decision was doubtless a reaction in some
measure against the view of the Apocr}T)ha accepted by
the Church of England in 1571 and continuously main
tained since that time. It discloses the two estimates

202 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
which were entertained in the British dominions. Grad
uaUy, in spite of the attitude of the Church of England,
the opposition to the Apocr3^ha increased, and in 1827
the British and Foreign Bible Society decided to exclude
the Apocrypha from aU its pubUcations after that date.
Having thus passed for a moment beyond the limits
of the seventeenth century in order to note the experi
ence through which the Apocr37pha passed, we may now
return to the years following 1600 and consider briefly
some other versions of that century which are important
for our survey.
One of the most sigmficant Bibles belonging to the
same period as the Authorized Version is the tianslation
which appeared in Italy as the outcome of the labors of
Diodati. It was a Protestant enterprise and appeared
in 1607, four years earUer than the King James Version.
So weU done was the work that it is stiU the ordinary
Bible in use among the Protestants of Italy. In Por
tugal also, before the close of the century, a version in the
language of the people appeared. It was the work of
John Ferreira d'Ahneida who, after serving as a Cathohc
missionary, embraced the Protestant view and devoted
himseff to the translation of a version of the Bible which
was pubUshed, with the co-operation of others, the New
Testament in 1681 and the completed Bible in the
eighteenth century (1751).
We are now in a position to see that the labor of ren
dering the Bible into the languages of the modern world
had largely been performed before the year 1700. Re
visions have been made since that time, some of them
important. Particularly for the Enghsh reader the
revision which was begun in 1870, resulting in the pubH-

MODERN VERSIONS 203
cation of the New Testament in 1881 and the Old in 1885,
with its still further revision by American scholars and
pubhcation in 190 1, is highly important. The fact that
in the plans for the version the Apocrypha was practi
caUy forgotten until 1872, when the arrangements for the
printing of the Bible by the Universities of Oxford and
Cambridge led to an agreement to pubhsh the Apocrypha
separately, is itself significant of recent opinion. For the
ordinary Protestant reader of the Bible the Apocrypha
has no place. Such is the change which has come about
in one great branch of the Christian world since the up
heaval of the Reformation.
It should be added that the Apocrypha has gained
in another way what it has lost for the common reader.
In it those who desire to learn the story of the sacred
writings of Christendom as a whole find some of the
most valuable data for their use. Recognizing the close
relationship between the Apocrypha and the Old Tes
tament and the kinship which Jewish apocalyptic Ht
erature has to both, students of Judaism and early
Christianity find in these writings a storehouse of mate
rial out of which to discover and write the history of the
rehgion of Israel and the beginning of the growth of
Christianity. Thus the Apocrypha has not been lost,
and is not Hkely to be lost, to the Hfe and furtherance
of the Christian rehgion.
The story of the versions of the Bible has by no
means been told with completeness. Nothing has been
said of the recent translations for carrying the Scrip
tures to the Indians of North America, begun as far
back as the middle of the seventeenth century by the
pioneer missionary John EHot; of the translations that

204 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
have accompanied and supported the missionary enter
prises in Asia, Africa, and the islands of the sea; or of
the very recent so-caUed modern translations intended
to place the thought of the Bible in the Enghsh, the
German, the French, and other languages of today.
Such versions in themselves, when taken aU together,
are counted by the hundreds, and it is obvious that
even the merest outline of their history would command
no smaU space in any volume which would attempt
their description.
Such a description is no part of the plan of this
book. If the desciiption were to be given, it wotUd
not add to the story of the growth of the Bible as a
whole. It would merely furnish added iUustrations of
the Bible development which has already been sketched
in its important aspects. The Bibles of the mission
aries and the Bibles of translators who in recent years
have rendered the Scriptures into modern speech have
been either the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the
Greek of the New, or parts of these, or, in the case of
Cathohc activities, the official Vulgate. None of these
translations has contributed to the growth of the Bible
other than to scatter its messages more widely through
out the world.
In outline the Bible now stands before us as a mar
velous growth. Its beginnings, like the deep-reaching
roots of all Ufe, are hidden in the primitive unfolding of
Israehtish experience. As the springs of the foimtains
from the eternal hUls are beyond our reach, so the
springs of the Scriptures are too far back in the Ufe of
the past for us to touch them with certainty. This
lack of knowledge, however, in no way hinders us from

MODERN VERSIONS 205
seeing and venerating the later growth. We accept it
as it appears, discern its enrichment and new power,
observe it come to fulness through the labors of Jesus
and the apostles, and then foUow its distribution, its
varied handhng, its differentiation, its abiding strength,
and its consummate glory in our own day. And we
have no fear that, in the days to come, it wiU lose its
worth. New knowledge of its history and its meaning,
new study to enter into its secret place, will only enrich
it and enrich the world.

CHAPTER XIV
CHRONOLOGY OF THE BIBLE WRITINGS AND
VERSIONS
The reader may like to have a chronological sum
mary of the results of this study. With some hesita
tion, because of the difficulty involved, one is offered.
Like the study itseff, the summary is intended to show
the growth of the Bible rather than to enter into nicety
of detaUs concerning the Uterary elements which are
under discussion. For the purpose thus indicated an
arrangement chiefly by centuries appears convenient and
suggestive. Even in that form, however, the dating
of various Uterary events must be regarded as merely
approximate. WhUe some of the writings of uncertain
date may belong earher than the period mentioned,
error is more likely to have occurred by placing author
ship too early.
B.C.
Before 1250 Primitive songs and other folklore, but probably
not written.
1250-1200 Approximately the period of Moses' activity.
Songs, annals, and the beginning of written legal
rules and precedents.
1 200-1000 Occupation of westem Palestine by Israel. Adap
tation of previous Uterature to the new conditions,
with perhaps some development of it by Joshua,
Samuel, and possibly others.
1000-800 Book of Jashar and other poetry, royal annals,
development of letter-writing, probably the begm-
206

CHRONOLOGY OF THE BIBLE WRITINGS 207

800-700 700-600

B.C.
1000-800 ning of written prophecy by prophetic scribes
rather than by prophets themselves, first traces of
Davidic psalmody.
Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah issued their mes
sages, which were later coUected and edited into their
present form. Here may belong Prov. 10 : i — 2 2:16.
Nahum, Zephaniah, and probably Habakkuk Uved
and wrote the prophecies which were afterward
arranged as we have them under these names.
Before 620 the brief Law as disclosed in the Tem
ple was prepared. Near the same time the minis
try of Jeremiah began.
600-500 Jeremiah completed his work, leaving a consider
able number of prophecies as prepared by his aman
uensis and later arranged and edited by others.
Here was written the great work of Ezekiel. In
this century may be placed with some certainty
the works of Joel and Obadiah, the Book of Lam
entations, with Prov. 1:1 — 9:18; 22:17 — 24:22;
25 : 1 — 29 : 27. Haggai dehvered his exhortations in
the year 520, and within the next two years the min
istry of Zechariah occurred, though a considerable
portion of the book which bears his name and its
final arrangement as a whole belong to a much
later period. Probably in the latter half of this
century is to be dated most, if not aU, of Isaiah,
chaps. 40-66. To this period may belong also the
Book of Job.
To the beginning of this century may be assigned
perhaps the Book of Jonah; and the Books of Ruth,
Ecclesiastes, and Malachi seem to date themselves
before the century closes. Here Ukewise belong
Prov. 30 and 31, and apparently some of the psalms.
The great Uterary event of this period, however, is
the completion of the Hexateuch out of manifold
sources, perhaps even more than those suggested m
the discussion of the question in chapter vii.

500-400

2o8

HOW THE BIBLE GREW

B.C.
400-300

300-200

Within this period we may date the composition
of the Song of Songs, Esther, Chronicles, Ezra-
Nehemiah, and the later portions of the Book of
Zechariah. In this century and perhaps even
earlier the translation of portions of the Hebrew
Law into Greek is likely to have occurred, though
the tradition concerning the translation places it
about 275, and so in the next century. The tradi
tion, however, is probably connected with the com
pletion, or with some outstanding element, of the
translation, the inception having occurred consid
erably earUer. Some of the psahns may belong to
this century.
Unless some of the writings assigned to earUer
periods were reaUy written or finaUy edited here,
this century was not fruitful in new works, Baruch
being the only book which appears most certainly
to have place at this time. The century as a
whole, however, was highly important, since at
about the close of it the great coUection of the
Prophets assumed essentiaUy its permanent form.
Here belongs likewise much of the translation
of the Law and very hkely some at least of
the Prophets into Greek. Probably some of
the psalms also may have originated at this
time.At the beginning of this century, or a Uttle earlier,
we should date the composition of Ecclesiasticus.
FoUowing this perhaps, or at any rate about the
year 165, the Book of Daniel was written. Some
where in the century may belong I Esdras, Judith,
Tobit (Tobias), and the Prayer of Manassas.
The development of psalmody undoubtedly con
tinued. Probably many of the Hebrew books of
the Old Testament not previously translated were
here carried over into Greek. Here, or later, may
belong the latest of the psalms.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE BIBLE WRITINGS 209
B.C.
loo-i In this last century before the Christian Era were
probably written I Maccabees, Susanna, Bel and
the Dragon, the Wisdom of Solomon, the Epistle
of Jeremiah, the Psalms of Solomon, and perhaps
the Song of the Three ChUdren, the rest of Esther
(that is, the portions not in the Hebrew), and
III Maccabees. As some of these show evidence
of having been written in Hebrew, the Greek
version of such may very Ukely have appeared not
long afterward and so, in some instances at any
rate, within the same century.
A.D.
i-ioo Here may belong II Maccabees, and probably also
IV Maccabees and II Esdras. The period is
supremely significant, however, as the time of the
writing of most, if not aU, of the books of the New
Testament, and for the closing, practicaUy if not
fimaUy, of the coUection of the Writings as the third
division of the Hebrew Scriptures about the year
90 as a result of the scribal discussions at Jamnia.
)o-2oo This century witnessed the completion of any New
Testament writings which may not have been in
final form before, saw most of the gospel narratives
except our four sifted out, brought the letters of
Paul into something Uke a coUection, and gathered
other letters and the Apocal3T)se in a similar way
in those parts of Christendom, particularly the
West, where these latter books were accepted.
Here was begun also the formation of Usts of books
which portions of the Christian world were inclined
to regard as worthy of supreme attention. The
Muratorian fragment is evidence of such Usts. In
this period began the translation of portions at
least of the Christian writings, which we now call
the New Testament, as weU as portions of the
Old Testament, into the Latin, Syriac, and Egyp
tian languages.

2IO

HOW THE BIBLE GREW

A.D.
200-300

300-500

500-1300

I3OO-I400

The creative period is now in the past. It is a
tune of discussion and of using the books already
in hand. The records of such activities do not
furnish a large amount of data for the partiodar
type of investigation we have been foUowing. It
is perhaps not too much to say that Christianity
was beginning to assume the relatively stereotyped
condition which it largely maintained during the
Middle Ages.
Aside from the great work of Jerome, which resulted
in the completion of a new Latin version of the
Bible, the Vulgate, and the missionary enterprise
which produced the Gothic and the Armenian
versions, these two centuries continued the stereo-
t3rping process. Those three achievements, how
ever, were sufficient to make the period notable.
Through this long period of 800 years there was
comparatively Uttle to claim attention from the
point of view of Bible growth. Before the year 700,
apparently, there was an Ethiopic translation, in
the foUowing century one for the Arabic-speaking
people, before the year 900 cme for the Slavonic
Christians, and within the next four centuries scat
tered translations, probably of only parts of the
Bible, for outlying regions where missionary activ
ities had taken the gospel message, particularly
Britain and the Germanic districts. These move
ments largely cover the field of action.
The fourteenth century is the beginning of the
period of new Ufe. New learning in other direc
tions led to new interest in the use of the Bible
by the people. As an outgrowth there was the
Enghsh translation of Wiclif, and versions for the
French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Dutch,
the Germans, the Bohemians, and probably others,
aU arising naturaUy at this period from the Latin
Vulgate.

CHRONOLOGY OF THE BIBLE WRITINGS 2II

A.D.
1 400-1 500 A time chiefly of revisuig the work of the preceding
century, but with some indications of new work
in Umited fields. This century is chiefly signifi
cant, however, for the invention of printing and
the consequent increase of means for distributing
the Bible to those who theretofore were imable to
possess it.
1 500-1 600 The century of the Reformation and of the making
of modern Bibles. New versions appeared for the
Germans, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Hungarians,
Russians, French, ItaUans, and EngUsh with Prot
estant origins, and counterversions for the Catho
Ucs of England, France, Italy, Germany, HoUand,
and Poland. Of prime significance were the New
Testament of Luther in 1522 and that of Tindale
in 1525, both translated from the Greek, with Old
Testament versions from the Hebrew foUowing;
the separation of the apocryphal books from the
others by Luther in 1534 and by Coverdale in
1535; the decree of the Council of Trent in 1546
making the Vulgate final authority for aU Catho
Ucs; the Church of England article m 1571, depre
dating the apocryphal books to a subordinate
status; and the appearance of the English CathoUc
New Testament at Rheims ia 1582.
After 1600 The seventeenth century carried along and brought
to relative completion what had been accomphshed
in the sixteenth. At the beginning, 1607, appeared
the great Itahan version which bears the name of
Diodati. Four years later was issued the classic
EngUsh revision which, as the Authorized Version,
has been ahnost the only EngUsh Protestant Bible
most of the time since its pubUcation. In 1648
the Westminster Assembly took the severe position
of discarding the Apocrypha altogether, and that
coUection has graduaUy gone into disuse, so that
few of the ordinary readers of the Bible have any

212 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
A.D.
After 1600 knowledge of its contents. The revision of most
importance for EngUsh readers since the Author
ized Version is that begun in England in 1870, the
New Testament being issued in 1881, the Old
in 1885, and the American edition in 1901. This
last is in many respects the best Bible for the
EngUsh student. With it should be used the
Apocrypha, which was issued by the British re
visers in 1895. The American revisers have not
pubUshed any edition of the Apocrypha. The mis
sionary versions and those issued by individual
translators since 1600 are relatively numberless.
Material showing their extent and variety should
be available in a good pubUc or reference Ubrary.

CHAPTER XV
WHAT TO READ FURTHER
This volume seems to be the first attempt to sketch
the history of the growth of the Bible from its begin
ning to the present. Such an effort within a book of
convenient size for everyday use inevitably raises many
questions which it cannot answer, and suggests further
reading. There are many valuable books which, in one way
or another, bear on the subject of study that this
volume presents. A mere Hst of such works would be
confusmg rather than helpful. I offer, therefore, only
a few titles of books and articles the reading of which
is essential for filHng out the sketch which I have
drawn, if one desires to follow the study farther. They
are works which wiU be found in any good pubUc Hbrary
ff one cannot conveniently own aU of them for himself.
They are books too which direct to stiff wider reading
for any who wish.
The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text; a New
Translation. PhUadelphia: Jewish PubUcation Society of
America, 1917. Various prices.
This is the Hebrew Old Testament rendered into exceUent
and famiUar EngUsh. No other volume so weU shows the Eng
hsh reader what were the Scriptures of Jesus and Paul and what
the Jews have used since the New Testament times.
The Holy Bible Translated from the Latin Vulgate, Diligently
Compared with the Hebrew, Greek, and Other Editions in Divers
Languages. A good edition is that pubUshed by the John
Murphy Co., Baltimore, at various prices.
213

214 HOW THE BIBLE GREW
This is the Douay Bible in its official form. Everyone who
cares to understand the Bible, and especiaUy to know the Catho
lic Bible and its variations from the ordinary Protestant BiWes,
should own a copy of this version. It is essential for inteUigent
consideration of the unfortunate discussions which arise in Prot
estant and CathoUc circles.
The Holy Bible .... Translated Out of the Original Tongues
, . . . Newly edited by the American Revision Committee,
AJJ. 1901. This is the standard American edition of the
Revised Version of the Bible as pubUshed by Thomas Nelson
& Sons, of New York, with prices from less than one dol
lar up.
It is particularly valuable for its arrangement of the language
in paragraphs, its presentation of the poetry of the Bible in such
form as to reveal its poetic structure, and especiaUy for the
marginal notes and cwnments. The marginal references are also
useful. I have foUowed this version regularly in making quota
tions from the Protestant Bible.
The Apocrypha, Translated Out of the Greek and Latin Tongues,
being the version sent forth a.d. 161 i, compared with the
most ancient authorities, and revised a.d. 1894. Oxford:
University Press.
In this smaU volume we have the standard EngUsh transla
tion of the Apocrypha. It is important for access to the apocry
phal books of the Old Testament and also for comparing these
books as thus translated with the same writings as rendered in
the Douay Bible.
Bennet, WiUiam H., and Adeney, Walter F. Biblical Introduc
tion. New York: Whittaker, I2 . 00.
For a valuable work in relatively smaU compass yet covering
the entire Bible this is perhaps the best.
Driver, Samuel R. An Introduction to the Literature of the Old
Testament. loth edition. New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons. $2.75.
This is the standard work on the Uterary history of the Old
Testament. It represents as nearly as a single work can the
consensus of opinion of reverent scholarship on the subject of
the Old Testament Uterature.

WHAT TO READ FURTHER 215
Gregory, Caspar Rend. Canon and Text of the New Testament.
This also is a Scribner pubUcation, belongs to the same
series of works as that of Driver (The International Theo
logical Library), and does for the New Testament much
the same service as that of Driver for the Old. It is excep-
tionaUy valuable for its description of the way in which
early Christian writings were made, copied, cared for, and
used, and for its account of the papyrus and other materials
which were employed.
Hastings, James, Editor. A Dictionary of the Bible. $ vols.
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. $30.00.
The foUowing are the most important articles in this stand
ard work as far as growth of the Bible is concerned: Apocalyptic
Literature, Apocrypha, Apocryphal Gospels, Contmental Versions,
Old Testament Canon, New Testament Canon, Septuagint, Ver
sions, Versions (EngUsh), Vulgate. Together these cover the
entire field, though they are not so easy for the Bible-study
beginner to use.

INDEX

INDEX

Abraham  60
Abyssinia  177
Acts, Book of  123 f.
2:5-11  170
16:10  123
16:11—17:15  131
17:14—18:17  133
18:1-3  130
18 : 18-19  130
19:1—20:2  133
^ 20: 1-3  133
Acts of Andrew  157
Acts of John  157
Acts of Paul  157
Adeney, Walter F  214
Africa: Christianity in  114
Language  143
Agur  87
Ahab  72
Ahasuerus  gi
Ahijah the Shilonite  100
Alexandria  107 f.
Alexandrians, Letter to  155 f.
Almeida, John F. de  202
American history as apocalyptic  96 f.
Amos  35, 207
Andrew, Acts of  157
ApocaljTJse  135 f.
And Daniel  94 f'
Date  136
In New Testament  94
In Armenian version  1 76
Not in Syriac version  172
1:3  95
22:10  95
Apocalypse of Peter  15s f.
Apoc^yptic literature  95, 203
In Armenian version  176
Apocrypha: History  193
In Authorized Version  201 f .
In Church of England  I94f-
Meaning of word  193
Modem use  203
Revised Version  103,214
Separated by Coverdale  192
Separated by Luther  188
Aquila  130
Aquila, translator  115
Arabic versions  178, 210
Aristotle  ..181
Armenian version  i75 f., 210
Arsinous  iSS
Augustine  159 2-. 1^3 J'
Authorized Version  200 n.
Babjdonia  73
Barnabas, Epistle of  Z57 219

PAGE
Baruch, Book of  .106,167
Date  208
In Ethiopic version  177
Retained by Coverdale  192
Baalides  155
Bel and the Dragon  106, 167
Date  209
Bennett, William H  214
"Beyond the Jordan"  49 f.
Bible: Analogies of growth  180
Books accepted for  158 f.
Books in Ethiopic version  1 77 f •
Chronology  206 ff.
First printed  186
Missionary influence  177 £.
Modem versions  20a f .
In New Testament times  p
Bible-study methods  66 f.
Bodenstein von Carlstadt  188
Bohemian versions  185
" Books of the Chronicles"  28 f ., 71
British and Foreign Bible Society .... 20a
British versions  2x0
Brudoli  190
Canon law:
In Ethiopic version  X77
Carlstadt, Andreas  188
Cataphrygians  15^
Catholic church  196 fi.
Catholic epistles  134 f-
Not in Syriac version  172
Catholic versions  199
See also Douay Bible
Christians, Early  113 f-
Bible of  140 f.
Latin-speaking  142 ff .
Old Testament of  115
Chronicles  98 ff-
Date  208
Cbronides, I:
3 : 19-24  99
29:29  99
Chronicles, II:
9:29  zoo
12:15  zoo
Church of England  194
Copyists  148
Corinthians, Letters, I:
5:9, 10  124, 128
16:19  130
Corinthians, Letters, II  126 ff.
2:1-11  127
6:11-13  i2Sff.
6:14—7:1  124 f.
7:2-3  125 ff.
10:1 — 13:14  127 ff.
Corinthians' Letter to Paul  176

220

HOW THE BLBLE GREW

PAGE
Council of Trent  i66 ff.
Coverdale, Miles  192
Creation story  62 f.
C3i>rian  145
Cyril  179
C^rus  31
Damasus  146 ff.
Daniel  93
Daniel, Book of  gsff., 112
Date  97 f., 208
Jerome's view  160
Latin version  160
In New Testament  gg
II :4o f  g5
12:11, 12  96
Danish versions  189
David  35,70
Debir  27
Deborah  27 f., 69
Deuteronomy  43, 65
Compilation  501 52
Sources  48 f.
1:1  48,51,55
1:1,5  49
1:3  49
3:25  49
4 : 19, 20  45
4:41  49
7:5  41,44
10:17-18  44
11:30  50
13:4  41
18:10-11  42
27:26  45
29:25-27  40,44
31:9  46
31 : IO-II  19, 40
31:22  47
31:24  46
^31 :3c  47
Didache  157
Diodati  202
Douay Bible  113, igs ff.
Convenient edition  213 f.
Origin of name  197
See also Catholic versions
Driver, Samuel R  214
Dutch versions  ^  185, 188 f., igg
Ecclesiastes  91 f-, 207
Ecclesiasticus  106
Date  14, 208
Prologue  II ff., 108
Eck, John  igg
Egypt, Christianity in  113 f.
Egyptian versions  173 f., 2og
Elijah  72
Eliot, John  203
Elisha  72
Elohim  83
English veraons  199 ff .
Enoch, Book of  135, 177
Epistle of Jeremiah  106
Date  209
Esdras, Book of  168
Esdras, Book 1  208

Esdras, Book II  209
Esdras, Book IV  177
Esther, Book of  92, 208
Rest of  167, 209
Etaples, Le F&vre d'  189 f., 199
Ethiopic version  i77f 210
Euei^etes, King  14
Eusebius  156 ff-
Eustochium  149
Exodus: 1:1  52
3:13-14  5^
6:2-6  61
13 : 21  19
15 : 1-18  58
24:4  59
40:38  52
Ezekiel, Book of  33 f-
Date  35, 207
Ezra  20, 39, gg
Ezra, Book of:
i:i-3«  98
Ezra-Nehemiah  98 f., 208
Feast of booths  89
Flemish version  185
Florence, Italy  190
Folklore  206
French versions  184, 189 f .
Gad the Seer  gg
Galations, Letter  133, 172
General letters  172
Genesis, Date  102
Genesis: 1:1 ff  loif.
1:11-12, 26-27  62 f.
2:5-7  62 f.
4: 23-24  68
10:1 f  67
12:1  ig
17:17, ig  60
18:12  60
31:5-6  60
27 : 42-45  62
28:1-7  62
50:26  52
Geneva Bible  193 f.
German version  185, 187 ff., 199, 210
Gide<Mi  27
God, Titles of  82 ff.
Gospel according to the Hebrews  157
Gospel hymns  80 f.
Gospel of Matthias  157
Gospel of Peter  157
Gospel of Thomas  157
Gospels  122 f.
In Latin  147 {.
Gothic version  175, 210
Great Bible  193
Greeks in Egypt  103
Gregory, Caspar Ren^  215
Habakkuk  207
Haggai  35, 207
Hastmgs, James  215

INDEX

221

Hebrew, Old Testament:
Completed  130
Translated into Greek  103 ff.
See oIm Jewish Bible
Hebrews, Gospel to  157
Hebrews, Letter  134, 156
Hereford, Nicholas  183
Hermas  155
Hexateuch  ' . ' 53 f„ 71, 74
Date  56,207
Hezekiah  30, 87
Historian   ! ! ! . .'. 71
History ot the world  ¦ • 71, 73
Hosea  35^ 207
Hungarian versions  189
Hus, John  185
Iddo the Seer  100
Ignatius of Antioch  152
Indian versions  203
Inspiration  ix
Isaac, Name  60 f.
Isaiah.  30, 35, 207
Isaiah, Book of:
Date, chaps. 40-66  207
1:1  30
f:i  30
6:1  30
7:3  30
8:1  30
37:21  30
38:1, 9, 21  30
38:10-20  31
44:1—45:25  31
Islam  178
Israel: History of  75, 99
In Egypt  103 ft., no
Sacred books  ro8
Literary development  71
Literature  74
Sacred days  89
Scribes in Egypt  no
Scribes at Jamnia  139
Italian versions  184, 190, 199, 202
Jacob and Laban  62
ahveh  84
James I, King  200
James, Letter of  135
Jamnia  139
ashar. Book of  23 ff., 26 f., 56
Date  70, 206
Jehoshophat, Scribe  26
Jehovah, Name of  61, 82 fl.
Jeremiah  32 f., 43
Date  35. 207
Jeremiah, Book of:
In Greek  33, in f.
1:1, 4, II, 13  32
1:2  43
11:3-4  44
17:1, 2  44
18:1, S  32
19:3.4  44
19: 13  45

PAGE
Jeremiah, Book of:
"¦3  44
»S:i3  32
36:1-32  32
51:64  33
- 52:1-27  33
Jeroboam  100
Jerome.  125, 146 ff., 195
Jerubbaal  27
Jerusalem, Destruction of  89, 139
Jesus  118 £
Lives of  120 f.
Jewish Bible  4 ff,, 213
Order of books  8, loi
^^Title  6
Jewish scribes. See Israel; Scribes
Jews. See Israel
Joab  70
Job, Book of  88 f., 150
Joel  207
John, Acts of  157
John, Gospel of  121
8:6-8  118
19:19, 20  142
John, Letters of  135
Jonah  34, 207
Josephus  104
Joshua.  S3, 68
Joshua, Book of  25 f
j:i  52 f.
8:32  68
10: 12-13  23, 25
24:26  68
24:29-30  S3
Josiah  38f.,42
Jubilees, Book of  177
Jude, Letter of  135
Judges, Book of  27
1:1  53
1:1—2:23;  S3
1:11-12  60
4:1—5:31  27 f
7:1  27
Judith  J06, 160, 208
Justin Martyr  152
Karolyi, Kaspar  189
King James Version  200 ff.
Kings, Books of  28f., 72
Kings, Book I:
11:41  28,71
14: 29  :  28
15 : 7, 23  28
15:31  28
l6:s  28
Kings, Book II:
2:3-7  72
22:3 f  38
22:16, 17  44
22:17  40
23 : 1-2  38, 40
23:3  41
23:14  41,44
23: 24  42
23:28  28
24:18 — 25:21  33
Kiriath-sepher  27, 69

222

HOW THE BIBLE GREW

PAGE
Lamentations  91,207
Laocficeans, Letter to  I55 f -, 184
Latin versions  142 ff .
Approved by Augustine  166
Date  2og
Law: Found in Temple  43,54
In New Testament  8, 14
Reading of  20, 39
Sources of  46 ff.
Time of Josiah  42 f., 45. 5°, 54
Law and Prophets  81., 12 f.
Lemuel, King  87
Leviticus: 1:1  52
33:42  z8
27:34  52
IxHivam  199
Luke, Gosi)el of  121
Date  121 f.
1:1-4  119 f-
4:16-19  118
24:44  15
Luther, Martin  187 ff.
Maccabees, Books of  106, 209
Ma<xabees, Book IV  116
Malachi  35» 207
Manassas, Prayer of  168
Marcion  155
Marriage  91
Matthew, Gospel of , 7:12  3
Matthews Bible  193
MegiUoth  89 ff.
Men of Hezekiah  87
Methodius  179
Metiades  155
Micah  3Si207
Middle Ages  182
Minor Prophets. 5« Twelve; Book
Misaohary Bibles  204
Modem versions  210 ff.
Moody and Sankey hymns  80 f.
Moses: Annalist  58
Author  46, 47, 59, 64
Date and wridngs  206
Death  52
Poet  47 f ., 58
Song of  58
Muratori  153
Muratorian fragment  153 ff., 209
Nahum  207
Nathan the prophet  99 f.
Nehemiah, Book of  17, 20
7:73 — 8: iff  17
8 : 13, 14  18
8:14, 16  21
8:18  ig
9:7  19
g:x2  19
13:23-31  91
New Testament  118 f.
Augustine's view  163 ff.
Date  165, 209
In time of Jerome  159

PAGE
New Testaraent:
Jerome's view  i6z f.
Order of books  136, 154 f .
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers  147
Northem Africa. See Africa; Egypt
Numbers, Book of:
CompDation  59
Numbers, Book of:
1:1  '.  52
21:14  57
21:17, 18  57
21:27-30  57
29:3s  19
33:2  ;  58
36:13  55
36:15  51
Obadiah  207
Old Latin versions. See Latin versions
Old Testament  loi
In Egypt  14
Greek versions  104 ff., log, 115 f.
Jerome's view  160 f.
In New Testament  141
Relation to early Christianity  113
Relation to New Testament  113
In time of Ezra  20 f.
In time of Jesus  116 f.
Olivetan  190
Palestine  6g
Passover  8g
Paul, Acts of  157
Paul, Martyrdom  134
Paula  149
Paul's letters:
Composition  124 ff.
Date of collection  2cm
Date  133 f.
Pentateuch  55, 59
Pentecost  89
Peter, Apocalj^se  155 f .
Peter, Letters  135
Petrarch  181
Philippians, Letter  131 f.
Pius I  ISS
Pius rV  199
Poetry, Eariy  48
Poetry and law  58
Polish versions  i8g, igg f.
Portuguese versions  184 f ., 202
Prayer of Manassas  168, 208
Presbyterians  201
PriesUy scholars  73
Printing, Invention of  186
Priscilla (Prisca)  130
Prophetic secretaries  72
Prophets: Accepted as Scripture  75
Date  35 f., 208
In Egypt  no
In New Testament  g
Sources  23 ff., 56
Protestant and Catholic Bibles  197 f.
Proverbs, Book of  85 ff.
Date  207
Titles in  85 ff.

INDEX

223

PAGE
Proverbs, Book of:
1:1  85
10: 1  86
22:17  86
25:1  87
Proverbs, Those that speak in  57
Psalms, Book of  79 fi.
Date  102, 207 ff.
Five divisions  78
Latest portions  208
In Latin  147 f.
In New Testament  77
14:1-7  78 1.
40:13-17  80
53:1-6  78 f.
57:7-11  80
60:5-12  80
7o:i-s  80
72 : 20  81 f.
108 : 1-13  80
Psalms of Solomon  xo6, 2og
Ptolemy DC  14
Ptolemy PMladelphus  104
Purim  89
Puritans  301
Reformation, Effect on the Bible 168, 181 ff.
Rehoboam  100
Renaissance  184
Revelation, Book of. See Apocalypse
Revised Version  202 f .
American edition  214
Translators  84
Rolls  89 ff.
Roman Catholic Bible. See Douay
Bible; Vulgate
Romans, Letter  129 ff.
15:33  130
16:1 f  130 f.
Rome, Language of  143, 146
Rufus  130
Russian versions  1S9
Ruth, Book of  90 f., 207
Samuel  70
Samuel, Book I:
10:25  70
Samuel, Book II:
1 : 17-27  44
8:16  26
11:14  70
20 : 24-25  26
Samuel the Seer  99
Sarah  60
Scribes, Early  26
In Egypt  no
Semitic infiuence  171 f.
Septuagint  104 ff., in
Date  208
Order of books  105 f.
See also Old Testament
Shepherd of Hernias  iS5f.,iS7
Sheva, Scribe  26
Sirach, Book of. Set Ecclesiasticus
Siricius  '48
Slavonic version  179, 210

PAGE
Solomon  7°, 9»
See also Psalms cA Solomon; Wisdom
of Solomon
Song of Solomon. See Song of Songs
Song of Son^  8g f., 208
Song of the Three Children  209
Spanish versions  184 f.
Susanna  106,167, 209
Swedish versions  189
Swete, Henry Barclay.  105
Symmachus  xi6
Syriac veision  170 ff., 209
Tatian  171
Tavenner Bible  193
Teachings of the Apostles  157
Temple Law  43, 54, 207
Tertullian  14S
Theodotion  ns
Thirty-nine Articles  194
Timothy, Letters of  132
Timothy, Letters of, II:
4:19  131
Tindale, William  191
Titus, Lettei  132
Tobit  106, 160, 208
Torah  6
Trent, Council of  166 fi.
Twelve, Books  34, 106
Tyndale, William  191
Ulfilas  175
Valentinus  tS5
Vatican MSS  107
Venice, Italy  190
Vulgate  146 ff.
Authority for Catholics  196
Date  210
New text of  190
Official contents.  166 ff.
See also Douay Bible
Wars of Jehovah  57
Westcott, Brooke Foss  1S3
Westminster Confession  201
Wiclif, John  183 f., 210
Wisdom of Solomon  106,116,155 f.
Date  209
" Wise"  86
Writings  77ff.,io6
Collected  139
Date  209
In Ecclesiasticus  13
List of  7
In New Testament times  77
Wycliffe, John  i83f.,2io
Xerxes  92
Yahu  ,  84
Zechariah, Book of  34 f*
Date  35, 207 f.
Zephaniah  207
Zerubbabel  99

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