, 1880-05-23
THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE: 49, ,ssos1xTEEN pAcFs

catastrophe might utterly oblitcrate It. Whethe
| ~ were EZRA, 70 whom tho unanirnity. of tratli
,I n1n points, Or his contemporaries In the SO
movement, VIC do not know. Iii 1he writinn Iu.
were not collected ut oncc, but gradually throug
snna s1nera, c0ntnr!es and in three separate coec
The first endeavor seems to have been to se
! cure lae remn1n8 ut the Mosaic writings tn,
most vonerabie and sacred literary heritage q
| me nauon These were collected almost fm1nc
ulAtely upon tne return, and, becoming the re-
liglous and political constitution Of the nep
portance SO much greater than that OF tt1e res
OF its literature US almost to place them ia {
category OF their own. The remnant Of Eph-
| rain, who; somewhat later, with motives not i'm.
mixed offered aid to the returned colony, ant
were alienatcd for all tino by the refusal, &C.
| cept alone as sacred the Mosaic writings In the
The Mosaic writings, as those first collected
| stand the beginning Of all our Bibles as they
do in the original. Their final editing and nr.
| crary shape in which We now have thom-is the
work Ut this period. Only the chapters aud
verses IN our English Bibles arc, Of late origin
| and these in some cases, are subsequent to tho
| Protestant Reformation. The name we give these
| writings Pantateuch, and that Of their diyis-
ions. Genesis. Exodus, etc, eithor come directly
| translation made In tho second century before
our era. as tradition informs us, for nne OF the
brary, somewhat as Prof Muller is now striving m
to do for Oxford u collection Of translationss
from the chief religious books Of the world.
Tora, ono OF the many Bedouin words preserved
by the lsrnelites from their nomadc days. It
meuns some landmark, be It tree, rock, a
ruin, BY which the traveller trt,ces bis way
| through a tracxless wild; hence i'll the ethical
| sense the Landmark set to guide men on the way
Of lifo,-unfortunateiy translated in the Greek
| name, - The Law
No sooner was this collection completed than
there seems to have come the popular impulse
to gather and preserve the writings of tho men
whose memories were held Sacred by them from
the former time, and to put in some permanent
and compcndtous form the history of the Divide
Kingdom with its departed glories The result
Of this was u second collection called Medium,
name whose force IL obscurcd to lis through the
unfortunate translation Of the Greek, the
Prophets.
A prophet as we shall see hereafter, was, and
stu IS IN shemlttc conception, any holy man
who comes with Divine message We should
orssInnl M ia as % Writings % Of the Saints. III 'ne
Erom the Preexilis time they received into this
collection the writings Of Joel, Amos, Hosea,
1saiuh, Micah. Zephan1ah, Nahum, HabakEuk,
Obadiah, also Jeremiah, whose activities us
writer and orator extend into exile times. We
acceptance OF Ezekiel, VINO belongs wholly to
tho exile, and whose rhetoric clearly betrnys his
Bnbylonan surrounding; the reason Of the ac-
man, through whom the prophetic spirit had
come down from the former time, the other the
messenger to the now statc. is none the less
plntn. 1t is not clear why Jonah should have
beeu included.
This collection was probably not completed
until number of years after the exile, as it in
who calls himself the messenger OF Jehovah,-
Malachi,-n designation and not proper name,
and which is usually referred to period some
the Book OF Daniel is not found in this original
prophetic collection. According to oil Jewish
canonical Tradition. it is much later book, uad
ft1 M fA r md ,rF
writings which was not inaugurated until after
the prophetic collection had been closed. Dan
ct cts in our % English Scripture, from from the the Greck SICK
translation, which, fear, the scholars Of King
James tirne we're somewhat more conversant
ment of booksin this collection tat least in tho
form we have it preserved tons is partly chron-
but ff aias an By sfs thu
though none Of them are as carly as
some OF the so-called minor prophets.
ton and inquire into tho arrangcment Of
the twelve minor writings, we find Hosea
Immediately following Ezekiel, and III turn fol-
lowed by Joel and Amos. merely on tho principle
OF comparative bulk. Haggai, Zechariah. and
Malachi were placed at tho end, for reasons
purely chronologicnl,. after the rest Of the col
lection had been made up. We cannot now see
any clear consistent reason for the position Of
Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and
2ephania which fta9d together In the middle
synchronous with the making up Of this coilcc-
tdon there was being gathered tho material for
the ancestral history from the close Of the
exile The collectors. whoever they may be,
possessed ready to their hand tho writings
named from the period they cover, Joshua and
Judges which we have already seen were com
piled In the preceding age from tho Royal ar
chives- These they made uso Of their existing
form. They seem to have addressed themselves
the Cup which remained from the last
Of Judges. until the exile. In doing this
they evidently made usa> of all the
material available to them, not only the archives
and chronicles which had been saved from the
Assyrian inyasions, but even the very traditions
people. The result IS work whose style and
conseontion bctruy the offspring Of single effort,
put which Tor later reasons OF convenience has |
been separated into four parts, First aud Second
Samuel and First and Second Kings,-these !
names, which often, by the way, vary, being |
meant as III the case OF Joshua and Judges, to |
book Chroni<:lt.s which is niiaccnf in onr En