1.B 00. The Writhings

III. THE WRITINGS

We have now arrived at the third part of the Old Testament, the part which was known as the Writings or the Hagiograplia. In the case of the "Writings the story is much less simple and much less straightforward. The Writings do not form a homogeneous whole like the Law or die Prophets. They are rather what has been called "a miscellany of independent books". They did not enter the canon of Scripture as a whole as the Law and the Prophets did, but one by one they came to be regarded as sacred Scripture, rather by popular acceptance than by official decision. For long they were not so much Scripture as " religious literature". They were not intended to be used, and they were not as a whole used, for public liturgical reading at the worship and service of the Synagogue; they were rather meant for homiletic exposition. They formed what Ryle calls "an informal appendix to die Law and the Prophets", Their secondary quality can be seen in that to die end of the day the Old Testament was commonly referred to as The Law and the Prophets. In the preface to Daniel Jerome writes: "All Sacred Scripture is divided by them (that is, the Jews) into three parts, into the Law, the Prophets and the Hagiographa." That is true, but it none the less remains true that Scripture was commonly called the Law and the Prophets. "We need go no further than the New Testament for abundant evidence of this. " Think not," said Jesus, "that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets" (Matthew 5:17). The Golden Rule that we should do to others as we would have them do to us is the essence and summation of the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 7:12). The Law and the Prophets existed until John; thereafter it is the time of the Kingdom (Luke 16:16). It was from Moses and all the Prophets that Jesus expounded the Scriptures (Luke 24:27). In the Synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia it is the Law and the Prophets which are read (Acts 13:15). In every Synagogue on every Sabbath day Moses is read (Acts 15:21). It was from the Prophet Isaiah that Jesus read in the Synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:17). It was the Law and the Prophets which were read at the public worship of the Synagogue, and it is as the Law and the Prophets that the Old Testament is commonly described. Obviously the Writings, the Hagiographa, do not stand on this same level. In the same passage as we have already quoted, Jerome goes on to say that there are five books of the Law, eight of the Prophets, and eleven of the Writings. The eleven books of the Writings do not fall into any natural and inevitable sections, and they were divided in different ways. They were divided into three books of poetry Psalms, Proverbs, and Job; five rolls, the Megilloth, which were, as we shall see, specially connected with five great national occasions The Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther; one book of prophecy Daniel; two books of history Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles. Sometimes, as the prophets were, they were divided into the Former Writings, the Rishonim Ruth, Psalms, Job, and Proverbs; the Latter Writings, the Acharonim Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles; and the five Megilloth. Sometimes they were divided into The Major Writings Psalms, Job, and Proverbs; the Minor Writings The Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations; the Latter Writings Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles. They are a highly varied miscellany falling into highly varied sections. Our task is to trace how these eleven books became part of the sacred literature of Israel, and part of the Old Testament. We may begin with certain general facts. In the ancient world a book had to be popular and had to be read before it could even survive. We are thinking of an age when books were not printed, but when each copy had to be made by hand; and, if a book was not popular enough to be read, it simply ceased to be copied, and vanished out of existence. These Writings must, therefore, in the first place have been popular works, known and read widely by the ordinary people.

Second, it became a first principle of the Jewish view of sacred books that a book to be Scripture had to be written in Hebrew, or at least in Aramaic, and, if it dealt with mstofy, the history must be the history of the great classical period of the Hebrew story.