AN EXAMINATION OF THE REMAINING BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT ACCORDING TO THE PRECEDING METHOD.
(1) I now pass on to the remaining books of the Old Testament. (2) Concerning the two books of Chronicles I have nothing particular or important to remark, except that they were certainly written after the time of Ezra, and possibly after the restoration of the Temple by Judas Maccabaeus [Endnote 19]. (2) For in chap. ix. of the first book we find a reckoning of the families who were the first to live in Jerusalem, and in verse 17 the names of the porters, of which two recur in Nehemiah. (3) This shows that the books were certainly compiled after the rebuilding of the city. (4) As to their actual writer, their authority, utility, and doctrine, I come to no conclusion. (5) I have always been astonished that they have been included in the Bible by men who shut out from the canon the books of Wisdom, Tobit, and the others styled apocryphal. (6) I do not aim at disparaging their authority, but as they are universally received I will leave them as they are.
(7)The Psalms were collected and divided into five books in the time of the second temple, for Ps. lxxxviii. was published, according to Philo- Judaeus, while king Jehoiachin was still a prisoner in Babylon; and Ps. lxxxix. when the same king obtained his liberty: I do not think Philo would have made the statement unless either it had been the received opinion in his time, or else had been told him by trustworthy persons.
(8)The Proverbs of Solomon were, I believe, collected at the same time, or at least in the time of King Josiah; for in chap. xxv:1, it is written, "These are also proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah, king of Judah, copied out." (9) I cannot here pass over in silence the audacity of the Rabbis who wished to exclude from the sacred canon both the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, and to put them both in the Apocrypha. (10) In fact, they would actually have done so, if they had not lighted on certain passages in which the law of Moses is extolled. (11) It is, indeed, grievous to think that the settling of the sacred canon lay in the hands of such men; however, I congratulate them, in this instance, on their suffering us to seethese books in question, though I cannot refrain from doubting whether they have transmitted them in absolute good faith; but I will not now linger on this point.
(10) I pass on, then, to the prophetic books. (11) An examination of these assures me that the prophecies therein contained have been compiled from other books, and are not always set down in the exact order in which they were spoken or written by the prophets, but are only such as were collected here and there, so that they are but fragmentary.
(12) Isaiah began to prophecy in the reign of Uzziah, as the writer himself testifies in the first verse. (13) He not only prophesied at that time, but furthermore wrote the history of that king (see 2 Chron. xxvi:22) in a volume now lost. (13) That which we possess, we have shown to have been taken from the chronicles of the kings of Judah and Israel.
(14)We may add that the Rabbis assert that this prophet prophesied in the reign of Manasseh, by whom he was eventually put to death, and, although this seems to be a myth, it yet shows that they did not think that all Isaiah's prophecies are extant.
(15)The prophecies of Jeremiah, which are related historically are also taken from various chronicles; for not only are they heaped together confusedly, without any account being taken of dates, but also the same story is told in them differently in different passages. (16) For instance, in chap. xxi. we are told that the cause of Jeremiah's arrest was that he had prophesied the destruction of the city to Zedekiah who consulted him. (17) This narrative suddenly passes, in chap xxii., to the prophet's remonstrances to Jehoiakim (Zedekiah's predecessor), and the prediction he made of that king's captivity; then, in chap. xxv., come the revelations granted to the prophet previously, that is in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, and, further on still, the revelations received in the first year of the same reign. (18) The continuator of Jeremiah goes on heaping prophecy upon prophecy without any regard to dates, until at last, in chap. xxxviii. (as if the intervening chapters had been a parenthesis), he takes up the thread dropped in. chap. xxi.
(19)In fact, the conjunction with which chap. xxxviii. begins, refers to the 8th, 9th, and 10th verses of chap. xxi. Jeremiah's last arrest is then verydifferently described, and a totally separate cause is given for his daily retention in the court of the prison.
(20)We may thus clearly see that these portions of the book have been compiled from various sources, and are only from this point of view comprehensible. (21) The prophecies contained in the remaining chapters, where Jeremiah speaks in the first person, seem to be taken from a book written by Baruch, at Jeremiah's dictation. (22) These, however, only comprise (as appears from chap. xxxvi:2) the prophecies revealed to the prophet from the time of Josiah to the fourth year of Jehoiakim, at which period the book begins. (23) The contents of chap. xlv:2, on to chap. li:59, seem taken from the same volume.
