SCRIPTURE HISTORY AND BIBLE ILLUSTRATION. LITERARY HISTORY OF THE BIBLE. EZRA, the scribe, who lived about a hundred years before Malachi, is allowed by the universal consent of antiquity to have been the restorer, collector, and publisher of the canon of the Old Testament Scriptures. In the reign of Josiah, the book of the law written by Moses was found in the Temple by Hilkiah; from which original, by order of that pious king, copies were immediately written out, and search made for all the other parts of the Scriptures; and by these means numerous copies of the whole were dispersed among the people, who carried them with them, when they were removed from their own country, at the time of the Babylonish Captivity. After their return, Ezra collected as many copies of the sacred writings as he could obtain, and as they had suffered much from the ignorance and carelessness of transcribers, he out of them all prepared a correct edition, disposed the several books in their proper order, and divided them into three parts. First, The Law; second, The Prophets; third, The Chetubim or Hagiographa-i. e. The Holy Writings. Josephus, in reference to this division, says, " We have only twentytwo books which we believe to be of divine authority, of which five are the books of Moses. From the death of Moses to the reign of Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, King of Persia, the Prophets, who succeeded Moses, have written in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and moral precepts for the conduct of life." In this division, first, The Law consists of 1. Genesis; 2. Exodus; 3. Leviticus; 4. Numbers; 5. Deuteronomy. Second, The Writings of the Prophets are 1. Joshua; 2. Judges, with Ruth; 3. Samuel; 4. Kings; 5. Isaiah; 6. Jeremiah, with his Lamentations; 7. Ezekiel; 8. Daniel; 9. The twelve Minor Prophets; 10. Job; 11. Ezra; 12. Nehemiah; 13. Esther. Third, The Hagiographa consists of 1. The Psalms; 2. The Proverbs; 3. Ecclesiastes; 4. The Song of Solomon. This division was made in order that the number of the sacred books might correspond with the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. At present the Jews reckon twenty-four books in their sacred canon. The five books of the law, in the original, are divided into fifty-four sections. It is supposed by many of the Jews that this division was appointed by Moses, but it is much more probable that it originated with Ezra. One of these sections was read in the ancient Jewish Synagogues every Sabbath day. The number was fifty-four, because in their intercalated years, a month being then added, there were fifty-four Sabbaths. In other years, the number was reduced to fifty-two, by twice joining together two short sections. Till the time of the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, the law only was publicly read; but the reading of it being then prohibited, they substituted fifty-four sections out of the prophets, the reading of which was ever afterwards continued; so that, when the reading of the law was restored by the Maccabees, the section which was read every Sabbath out of the law served for the first lesson, and the section out of the prophets for the second. The sections were divided into verses, called Pesukim. It is most probable that this division was invented by Ezra for the convenience of the Targumists, or Chaldee interpreters; for, after the return of the Jews from the Babylonish Captivity, the Chaldee language being used by them instead of the Hebrew, it was customary to read the law first in the original Hebrew, and then interpret it to the people in the Chaldee language. The word targum signifies the translation of a book from one language into another. The principal targums are those of Onkelos on the law, and Jonathan on the prophets. The division of the Scriptures into chapters, with the exception of the Psalms, which were always so divided, is of comparatively recent date. It is attributed by some to Stephen Langton, Archbishop |