OF THE ‘BIBLE,' AND THE OLD TESTAMENT' IN PARTICULAR.
§ 1. Designations of Old Testament Scripture.
THE first question that presents itself in this inquiry is, the usual name of the collective revelation of God of which the Old Testament does but form a part. The common designation of the whole of sacred Scripture is The Bible,' a name derived from ecclesiastical Latin, and meaning The Book.' Plumptre says, Mediaeval Latin mistook the neuter plural [Biblia] for a feminine singular,' which appears to have been first used in the thirteenth century. The first portion of this, with which we are now concerned, regularly called The Old Testament,' we find in the interval between the close of the Hebrew Canon and the Birth of Christ described by The Law, and the Prophets, and the rest of the Books' (Prologue to Ecclesiasticus or Book of Jesus son of Sirach).
In the inspired Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament it is spoken of as follows:—
1. The Scriptures' (Matt. 22:29). The singular is applied only to single passages: cf. 2 Peter 1:20. Observe that the embodiment in writing of the Word of God is alluded to by this name. We moderns use it in a printed form, and are apt to forget the origin of a title so familiar to us.
2. The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms '(Luke 24:44).
3. 'Holy Scriptures' (Rom. 1:2).
4. ' Sacred Letters' (2 Tim. 3:15).
In the early Church of the East we meet with it under the names of—
`The Old Covenant' (cf. 2 Cor. 23:4).
Books of the Old Covenant.'
`Ancient Scripture.'
The Old Testament (or Instrument).'
§2. Of What the Old Testament Consists.
The Old Testament is the collection of books, written almost entirely in Hebrew, which have come down to us from the ancient Jews and the first Christians, stamped with Jewish reception and New Testament Citation. Hebrew, by us the most cherished of what since the time of Eichhorn has been called the Semitic family of languages, may be called the mother-tongue of the Israelites, which they derived from the Patriarchs. Abram, if we may judge by comparative philology combined with the words of a Prophet, would seem when he entered the land to have adopted the language of Canaan' (Isa. 19:18),which would thus become the Hebrew language. He would have the less difficulty in doing so if, as seems probable, it were a Semitic dialect. There is no indication of Abram's having employed an interpreter in Canaan, as his descendants at a later period were obliged to do in Egypt (Gen. 42:23). Renan gives as examples of Canaanite names of men or towns, being pure Hebrew, Abimelech, Adoni-bezek, Kirjath-sepher, Kirjathjearim.
Munk includes Melchisedek in his list. The Hebrews do not seem even to have translated names, but sometimes changed them: see Num. 32:38. Such oft-recurring words as God in the form El, of Baal, king, priest, sacrifice, pillar, are Canaanitish or Phoenician. The usual language of Laban, possibly akin to the mother-tongue of Abram himself, who was however a native of Babylonia, was not Hebrew, but Aramaic. This appears from Gen. 31:47. Renan makes Hebrew the language also of the old stock, but only by treating this passage as unhistorical. The Chaldee,' which has come down to us as the original Text of Ezra 4:8 to 6:18, and 7:12-26, Dan. 2:4 to 7:28, and Jer. 10:11, by mistake called Syriac' in the A. V. of Dan. 2:4, was the language the Jews of the Captivity brought with them from Babylon; it is another of the Aramaic dialects, and must not be confounded with the language of the Chaldeans spoken of in Dan. 1:4. This Chaldee seems to have been a principal ingredient in the vernacular of Palestine in the time of our Lord, though in the New Testament called The Hebrew dialect,' because spoken by Hebrew, as distinct from Hellenist or Greek-speaking Jews. The holy nation,' then, began and, in a sense, ended with a language not that of the long period during which it rightly took its place before the rest of the nations as the people of God. We shall resume the consideration of the history of the Hebrew language in a separate chapter.
The number of the Old Testament Books, which, we may here say, conduct us over a period of 1200 years at the least, is given by Josephus—representing Palestinian ideas—as twenty-two, being the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet; by the Talmud—representing rather the opinions of Babylonian Jews—as twenty-four: cf. amongst others, Leeser's Translation (Jewish) of the Old Testament. Some information will be given afterward as to the old Jewish authorities. In the number twenty-four, Ruth and Lamentations were reckoned as separate Books. The Christian Fathers ' that give lists of the Books generally reckon twenty-two. The number thirty-nine in the English Bible is due to the obvious fact that the Books of Ruth, 2 Samuel, 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, Nehemiah, Lamentations, and each of the Minor Prophets are counted separately.
§ 3. The Division and Order of the Old Testament Books.
The order in which the Books appear in modern Bibles is based upon that of the Septuagint as far as the Canticles; but the arrangement of the Prophets—Daniel with Lamentations excepted—is that of the common Hebrew Bible.
Luke 24:44 supplies a classification of the Books acknowledged by our Lord. The ‘Law’ (in Hebrew, Torah) has long by Christians been called the Pentateuch, or five-fold book, a title borrowed from Greek. The later Jews called each Book Chumash, Fifth Part, and the whole five, Chumshin.
The Prophets' (Heb. Nebiim) were divided by the Jews into the earlier' and 'latter'; the earlier comprising Joshua, Judges, and the Books of Samuel and Kings, now together generally called the Historical Books,' to which, it may be, reference is made in Zech. 7:7,12 (see the Heb.); and the latter, Isaiah to Malachi, omitting Lamentations and Daniel. Of the latter' Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel were called the greater;' and the order observed in our Hebrew Bibles Of the Books bearing their names is that of the Spanish Hebrew MSS. The Talmudic or old Rabbinical arrangement places Jeremiah first. The other Prophets are called minor.'
All the rest of the Books, except Daniel, are supposed to have constituted the 'Psalms' in this classification. It is thought that the Lord, according to a Jewish custom, referred to a series of Books by naming only the first of such series, which would at the same time explain Matt. 16:14; 27:9: see Irrationalism of Infidelity.’ The ancient Hebrew hymnal, the Book of Psalms' (Acts 1:20), in the modern Hebrew Bible does come, as in the German MSS., at the head of the 'Hagiographa,' the name by which these Books, together with Daniel, are generally known amongst critics. Mr. Smith, in objecting to this view, cannot that the 'Psalms' may here at least be taken as representing the class of Books to which they belong. The division of the Psalms into five Books, respectively ending at Psa. 41; 72; 89; 106; 150, is of Jewish authority. The Miscellaneous Books are by the Jews designated Chetubim, or Writings; and Hagiographa, which is taken from Patristic Greek, means sacred writings. Of these again, Ruth, Canticles, Lamentations, Esther and Ecclesiastes are called Megilloth, Rolls (cf. Hebrew of Psa. 40:3; Jer. 36:14).
Different reasons are assigned for the Talmudic Jews having placed the Book of Daniel amongst the Hagiographa. A Jewish explanation is that the Book begins in a different way from other prophetical Books, which is quite true: compare J. N. Darby's Synopsis of the Books of the Bible.' But of the essentially prophetical character of the Book, Matt. 24:15 should satisfy every Christian, even of the Arnold school; the testimony of Josephus (Ant. 10:11) every Jew. This Jewish annalist is indeed explicit as to the doctrine that the succession of prophets ceased with the reign of Artaxerxes, or roughly, 450 years B. C.; hence, if the Book of Daniel had been composed in the Maccabean period, as neologians contend, it is certain that the Palestinian Jews would have assigned it no place at all in the Canon; but this will be better understood when we unfold that part of our subject.
The chronological order of the Books must be ascertained, if desirable or possible, from the Books themselves. Sometimes an incidental expression reveals the period to which the Book belongs: e. g. in Josh. 11:21. As to the order of the separate prophecies of Jeremiah in particular, the reader should observe the different arrangement of chap. 15:15, 51:64, found in the Septuagint from that in, which they are presented in the Hebrew, and should read the remarks 'Synopsis,' of Mr. Darby in his Synopsis' (Jeremiah) . Transpositions are also observable in the LXX of Proverbs.
Occasionally the reader may think he detects in the Hebrew a transposition of a passage from one part of a Book to another: spiritual consideration in such cases will decide for a simple acquiescence in what we have received.
§ 4. The Titles of the Several Books.
The titles of the Mosaic Books in the English Bible are taken from the Septuagint. For Exodus' in particular, cf. the Greek of Luke 9:31. The Hebrew headings are respectively:—
Beginning:
These are the names.'
`And [he] called .'
In the wilderness.'
These are the words :
We find them already in Jerome's day (Prologue to 2 Kings). But it is clear that they could not be original titles, and that they result from the disintegration to which the Torah was subjected by those concerned in the translation called the Septuagint. The convenience thus afforded to interpretation is very apparent.
The rest of the titles for the most part follow the Hebrew. In the respective headings adopted by our translators of 1 and 2 Samuel, the additions otherwise called, The First Book of the Kings' and other wise called, The Second Book,' &c., and of 1 and 2 Kings, commonly called, The Third Book of the Kings' and commonly called, The Fourth Book,' &c. are dictated by the Greek titles. The Books of Chronicles were so called first by Jerome . 'Journals' would best represent the Hebrew designation. The Greek titles mean Supplements. Ecclesiastes ' is from the Greek.
A discussion of the authorship of the several Books not marked by names would lead us into too wide a field, affording scope for conjecture, which it is desirable to avoid. Again, the consideration of the materials employed by the several writers, as of historical' Books in particular, would raise questions possessing an importance too great to admit of any adequate outline being given of them. The reader is referred to Mr. Darby's critical writings in general for help upon the document-hypothesis', as it is called, of which rationalistic writers are full.