(1) The Historical Writings of the Old Testa ment are thirteen in number. The Biblical histo ries are exactly like modern histories, in that they are compilations, made from earlier historical sources long after the date represented by those sources and intended to instruct the people of the compiler's day. They differ from modern histories in that instead of sketching the rise and progress of a people they illustrate an idea. They are reviews of religious progress, histories of Di vine Providence. To effect this there is large use of the historic story, which Moulton calls the "epical style" of narrative. The story of Joseph is such a prose epic; the narrative of Elijah is another ; the story of Balaam mingles prose, epic and verse. Thcy do morc than store the mind; they touch the imagination and the emotions. One of the finest examples of Hebrew history is the book of First Samuel. One who fol lows closely its treatment of the period of Saul's reign will notice that the historical facts as such .are rapidly passed over, the personal de scriptions are mere sketches, stress is laid on crises and the way in which Jehovah met them by rais ing up the right man at the proper time and on his care of these agents. Thus the whole book becomes a sermon on God's providential care for Israel. At the same time it is a model of terse, instructive narrative.
Closely allied to this type of history is the partly imaginative narrative represented by the books of Ruth or Esther or Jonah. In these the historical or prophetic purpose is attained more strikingly by the skillful use of the novelist's art. 1 he prologue of the Book of Job illustrates this. The story is so skillfully told that we are as certain of Job's innocence as of his unexampled calamities.
(2) Old Testament Poetry is peculiar. We may feel its charm without understanding the sccret of it. Only the Hebrew student can catch some of its minor devices, such as assonance, alliteration and the alphabetical acrostic. The English reader may, however, catch the most distinctive element of form, that symmetrical arrangement of clauses in a verse called parallelism. Compare Job xxxix: 19-25 or Job xxviii, passagcs which owe their rhythmic effect to this cause. The various poetical forms were well understood by the Hebrews. The Song of Deborah (Judges v) or the Song of Nloses (Exod. xv) are notable examples of the ode. The book of Lamentations, when properly rendered, illustrates the elegiac rhythm, a long line followed by a short one. This and other pecul iarities are obscured by the method of printing followed in the English Bible. The Psalter is a great storehouse of lyrics, elegies, odes and cor responding literary forms.
(3) The Wisdom or Philosophical writings of the Hebrews are represented by Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. Their variety is such as to indicate that the Hebrews loved to dwell on the problems of life and developed a rich literature of reflection, which made free use of literary devices. The simple proverb, the proverb cluster (Prov. xxv :2-7), the connected composition or essay on some theme (Eccles. ; iv:8) ; the dramatic dialogue as in the Book of Job; the dramatic monologue (Proverbs viii)—all are used with great skill and to good effect.
The most distinctive class of writings in the Old Testament are those which we call Prophetic. No other national literature contains their equiva lent. They owe their preservation primarily to their contents rather than their form. They are sermons. The prophetic writings embody a va riety of literary forms, for the prophets were men of extraordinary versatility, who pressed their messages home with consummate skill. Notice the graphic manner in which Joel describes the deva.station of his land and the onset of the locust army on the Day of Jehovah, the magnificent ora tion or rhapsody of Isaiah on Jehovah's Rod and Reign (xi :4), the stirring ode of judgment in Habakkuk iii. These writings owe not a little of their impressiveness to the fact that, while they preserve the vigor and directness of an address, they arc actually carefully cditcd abstracts of the utterances of a prophet during a considerable pe riod of time. Comp. Jer. xxv :3-13, where the "book" represents about ten chapters.
5. The Special Value of Biblical Liter ature. Its superiority over contemporary ancient literature can hardly be disputed. This is not be cause it is rich in literary forms, not because it is distinctively religious in its tone. hut because of its lack of trivialness. the high plane of the mo tives which inspired it, thc unselfish spirit which breathes throughout it, and the noble ideals to which it gives expression. It therefore becomes by human as well as divine right the literature of culture, of inspiration and of life.
6. Ube Extra=Canonical and Rabbinic Literature. The extra-canonical literature WilS copious. Most of the works available for us are those which were admitted into the Greek Old t estament and have come down to us as "Apoc rypha." They include such histories as First and Second Maccabees, such stories as Judith, Tobit and First Esdras, such wisdom writings as Eeclesiasticus and the Wisdom of Solomon, such varied productions as the Psalter of the Pharisees or the book of Enoch or of Baruch. Some of these were written in Greek, but they are truly Hebraistic and belong to an account of Hebrew literature. With one or two exceptions they are distinctly below the literary level of the biblical books.
By the second century A.D. the lines had been closely drawn between Judaism and Christianity. Each followed a distinct development. Judaism dropped out of touch with the world and gave itself, through its great scholars, to a gathering up in exact form of the established paraphrasings of the Hebrew of the Old Testament into the spoken Aramaic, thus producing the Targums, and of the decisions of the older Rabbis on sub jects of religious importance, thus developing the chapters of the lifishna. The Talmud is not easily described. One might call it a vast storehouse of tradition, interpretation, stories, discussions. medi tations—a collection containing much rubbish along with considerable material of value. It is a cyclopedia in all but arrangement ; it is a litera ture only in measurement. It marks the close of the literary activity of the ancient Hebrews.
F. K. S.