Manual of Historico-Critical Introduction to the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament (Volume 1) - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1869. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... publicly delivered, containing only what was essential. These they handed over to their contemporaries and to posterity in well-arranged collections or books (3). When the prophetic books were united to form one whole, the collection was so arranged as to concede the first place to those who were rightly considered " the greater prophets" (4), on account of the great richness of their prophecies -- namely, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; then, after them, united into the one book of " the twelve apostles," those writings of minor compass by the remaining prophets. And the entire collection of predictive books was placed at the side of the prophetic books of history, since the historical books represented the theocracy in the past, as the books of prophecy represented it in the future. (1) [Eleek, p. 417 f., notices the position assigned to Samuel at the head of the prophets, in Acts iii. 24, Heb. xi. 32, as Samuel is called " the teacher of all prophets" in the Jerusalem Targum, tract Chaggiga, fol. 77; and so Augustine, civit. Dei, xvii. 1, makes the prophetic period begin with Samuel. Again, he observes that in 1 Macc. ix. 27, iv. 46, xiv. 41, this prophetic period is acknowledged to be past, and the people are taught that they must wait for a newprophet.] The remark of De Wette, § 206, is quite erroneous: " The oldest prophets seem to have noted nothing down, probably because living discourse and deeds were of more value at that time, and because composition was not yet sufficiently in vogue." Against this, comp. Hengstb. Christol. i. p. 179 f. [Bleek, p. 424, says that at first the prophets represented orally anything they had to tell, without writing it themselves, or procuring it to be done for them; and thus, for centuries after Samuel, there is nothi...