History

Holman Bible Dictionary

Views of History Most human societies have pondered the meaning of events and the goal or direction of history. This has produced widely-differing viewpoints:

1. The chaotic view claims the human story has no purpose, pattern, or significance. No one controls history, and no one knows when, if, or how it will end.

2. The circular or cyclical view focuses on history repeating its patterns in cycles of various lengths or in a spherical pattern with some movement but as basically repetitious. Observation of natural seasons and life cycles advances such a theory, as seen in the Baal religion that tempted Israel. The Greeks described history as a “wheel of unending recurrences,” thus a periodic repetition that saw growth and decay again and again. Not surprisingly, the cyclical view provided little ground for the hope that life has ultimate meaning. The absence of a progressive historical view is illustrated by the often cited example from Homer's Iliad. The Greek warrior Achilles stood over the body of his victim Hector. His victory was darkened by his sorrowful acknowledgment to Hector's grieving father that he could be nothing but a warrior. Achilles was trapped within personal history he could not change and was condemned to repeat. In contrast, biblical characters can change; evil persons may turn to God; good people may turn away.

3. The Bible's linear view of history gives history a beginning and an end as well as a purpose or direction. The Bible is uniquely tied to history. Christianity links Christian experience with God to certain historical occurrences. Scripture notes God's blessing for the ordering of the seasons ( Genesis 8:20-22 ) and recognizes that apart from God the cycle may lead to a hopeless understanding of life ( Ecclesiastes 1:4 ). Old Testament saints recited their confession by recounting what God had done ( Deuteronomy 26:5-9 ). New Testament saints tell the good news of God's actions through Jesus: that Christ died, that He was buried, and that He rose. Paul said that without Christ's resurrection the Christian faith was without meaning (1Corinthians 15:3-4, 1 Corinthians 15:14 ). While the Greeks often disparaged this world of constant change and sought to discover the divine by contemplating changeless eternal truths, the Hebrews held that God reveals Himself in history. Interestingly, many modern approaches which may reject the Christian message are nevertheless indebted to the faith for the linear notion of history.

4. A mechanistic view of history attempts to tell mankind's story while seeing humans as a product of nature and completely subject to outside influences. According to this view, the environment determines our history, making our freedom no more than an illusion.

5. A progressive or developmental view of history consists of many varieties with a common belief that to understand the past one must trace the “history” of institutions and movements from their emergence at a simple stage to the culminating, complex stage. Understanding a topic “historically” is often explicitly identified with imposing a developmental scheme. This developmental approach was applied in biological science in early evolutionary theory and in the social theory of Hegel and Marx. The common element is development toward a final climax through the tension of opposing ideas (Hegel) or after a series of conflicting classes or epochs (Marx).

History in the Biblical Story The biblical narrative reveals the major characteristics of a biblical approach to history. The Bible tells history as a series of God's acts in which He interacts with people to reveal Himself and His saving will for them.

1. Creation and Fall Asserting that God is the Creator of the earth suggests that He is ultimately responsible for all of history and nature. God's power to speak the world into existence implies that the world is not divine or eternal. Creation reminds us that God is in control of nature and its history.

Creation also implies that God is free. He does not need creation but desired it and loves His creation. Because of the loving nature of God, His people have confidence that a future awaits mankind. In God's sovereign freedom He grants humans restricted freedom. This reality is crucial because the biblical narrative suggests that people mysteriously have a role in shaping history. Neither the Creator nor the environment has so determined history that human decisions and human actions make no difference. Rather, God remains in sovereign control of history even as He lets free human actions determine the course of individuals and nations. The Bible does not try to solve this mysterious interworking of God's sovereignty and human freedom. Biblical writers confess God's control and their own meaningful freedom to act.

The Fall is the story of humans' first prideful misuse of freedom ( Genesis 1-3 ). Human freedom and sin are crucial to history's telling, for the Fall means that human freedom will often be used in ways which oppose the Creator's will. History thus becomes not only the story of human events but the story of response and interaction between God and sinful humans. Both actors are important on the stage of history.

2. Covenant with Israel The spread of sin despite God's punishment and grace explains why God chose one people—Abraham's family. God diligently worked with this stubborn family. His selection was not out of favoritism. He intended and still intends to bless the whole world through His chosen people ( Genesis 12:3;  Acts 3:25-26 ). Thus the reader of biblical history comes to accept that the universal and eternal significance of God's work emerges from His work with an individual people or person. Biblical history focuses tightly upon this particular people, giving a selective view of their history. Israel's story is set in universal history, with all the features of general history such as economics and politics, but it is told from a theological point of view. The Bible concentrates on the relationship of God and people. This relationship takes the form of a series of covenants—with Noah ( Genesis 9:9-17 ), Abraham ( Genesis 15:1;  Genesis 17:1 ), and all Israel through Moses ( Exodus 19-24; renewed in 34). History thus becomes the unfolding of God's covenant promises and the covenant faithfulness or unfaithfulness of the people. See  Exodus 19-24 .

3. The Exodus Redemption The covenant with Israel that Moses mediated was founded on God's act in history in which He miraculously saved a slave people from the tyranny of the world's most powerful nation by leading them in the Exodus across the sea and into the wilderness out of Egypt ( Exodus 1:1-15:21 ). This set the pattern for the Bible's understanding of history. History centered on the relationship between people and God, a relationship begun by God's acts of grace—in creation and in redemption. God's acts of redemption show He wants the best for His human creatures and is willing to act on their behalf. History can be seen to have purpose and meaning because God has shown His intention to provide that meaning and purpose. God's acts of salvation thus pattern human moral action as response to the expectations of a saving, caring God.

The story of Israel derives from God's activity. History is the medium through which God chooses to reveal Himself. This distinctive historical dimension of Christianity needs to be stressed, especially when addressing more skeptical hearers. God reveals Himself by what He says as well as what He does. God's work is not left to mere human discernment but is entrusted to inspired prophetic interpretation. The inspired oral or written interpretation of history ensures the revelatory quality of God's enacted history.

God's primary actions in Israel's history reveal the essential character of Biblical history. The call of the Hebrew fathers remind us that God will sovereignly call whomever He wants. The freedom granted by the Exodus shows that God has compassion on suffering. The central lesson of all the Old Testament is conveyed here: God is a historically-intervening, saving God. The giving of the law and establishment of the covenant reminds the reader that people are called to respond to God's deliverance in obedience ( Exodus 20:2-18;  Leviticus 18:1-5 ). The blessing of the land and Davidic government teach that God's blessing requires faithfulness over time. The decline and destruction of the nations teach again that God is sovereign, using other nations to punish Israel's sin. God is not tied to His people's national history. This experience of judgment promotes anticipation, forcing the biblical historian to look both ways—to look “back and forth.” From within this great judgment God's people look back to the past, the glory days of David, the saving Exodus under Moses' supervision, and then look forward. With these images they are ready to understand God's future.

4. The Incarnation also represents God's dramatic, invasive activity in history. His supreme Revelation ( Hebrews 1:1-4 ) became a historical Man ( John 1:14;  Galatians 4:4;  Hebrews 2:18 ,  Hebrews 4:15 ). God's becoming human affirmed His commitment to history as the place for His revelation. Jesus stands at the center of biblical history. His ministry inaugurates God's kingdom; His return will signal its consummation. Jesus' miracles and exorcisms are the delivering works of God which show that history is the place of spiritual warfare. The kingdom of God is breaking in through the person of Jesus ( Matthew 12:28 ). The cross shows God's determination regarding history; the love displayed when Jesus bears our sins must be played out on the field of history. Mysteriously, God can sovereignly work His redemption even by using sinful men, such as those who crucified Jesus. Jesus' victory over sin, death, and evil on the cross, and the confirming resurrection, reveal that history will end, and it will end well.

5. The resurrection (assuming the life and death of Jesus) is the crucial point of defense of the historical validity of Christianity ( 1 Corinthians 15:14 ). Evidence for the resurrection is significant: the empty tomb, the appearances ( 1 Corinthians 15:5-8 ), the prophecy of the Scriptures and Jesus ( Luke 24:25-27 ,Luke 24:25-27, 24:44 ), and the ongoing witness of the church. The empty tomb provides an illustration of the relationship between historical evidence and faith. All four Gospel writers confess that the discovery of the empty tomb did not produce faith in a living Jesus. ( John 20:8 presents the only partial exception.) These disciples were made full disciples only by a confrontation with the risen Jesus. The role of evidence is limited: an empty tomb does not a resurrection make. Evidence is important, however, because an occupied tomb would disprove the resurrection. So it is with most biblical evidence, accepting God's Word involves more than being convinced by the facts. The testimony of these eyewitnesses calls one to believe beyond mere evidence; they did not, however, ask one to believe against the evidence. The nature and historical reality of the resurrection is crucial for history. Because of Christ's resurrection, believers may anticipate a historical and transforming resurrection for themselves (  1 Corinthians 15:42-44 ).

History for Jesus' followers will be marked by tension. Believers live between two decisive acts of God; they live between the partial realization of God's kingdom in Jesus' first coming and the final fulfillment of the kingdom when Christ will come again. Believers will suffer because they bear witness to the King the world does not acknowledge; they live by the principles of the kingdom ( Matthew 5-7 ) the world does not acknowledge. Despite the inevitable suffering the church is sustained by the Holy Spirit. The church's history is the story of the Spirit's transforming, empowering, and equipping for mission.

6. Christ's return will signal the end of world history and the full revelation of its meaning. The prophetic vision of God's final kingdom will be realized fully. History will close as the one family of faith is inducted to a qualitatively greater future and fellowship with God.

Hints for Historical Interpretation (1) Language, historical language included, is multi-purposeful. For example, biblical language often intends to report (about history) but it also seeks to evoke faith ( John 20:21 ). Thus the biblical documents are valuable as historical reports, but their full comprehension demands faithful response. (2) Historians must acknowledge the Bible's openness to God's miraculous intervention. An experience of Christ's saving power in the present provides a point of comparison for an understanding of God's past and future saving acts. (3) The interpreter must discern the context within Israel's history to insure that he or she does not advocate a divine concession but God's full intention ( Matthew 19:4-9 ). God's greatest revelation, Jesus, is the guide to interpretation.

M Randy Hatchett

King James Dictionary

HIS'TORY, n. L. historia Gr. knowing, learned, and to inquire, to explore, to learn by inspection or inquiry.

1. An account of facts, particularly of facts respecting nations or states a narration of events in the order in which they happened,with their causes and effects. History differs from annals. Annals relate simply the facts and events of each year, in strict chronological order, without any observations of the annalist. History regards less strictly the arrangement of events under each year, and admits the observations of the writer. This distinction however is not always regarded with strictness.

History is of different kinds, or treats of different subjects as a history of government or political history history of the christian church, or ecclesiastical history history of war and conquests, or military history history of law history of commerce history of the crusades, &c. In these and similar examples, history is written narrative or relation. What is the history of nations, but a narrative of the follies, crimes and miseries of man?

1. Narration verbal relation of facts or events story. We listen with pleasure to the soldier or the seaman, giving a history of his adventures.

What histories of toil could I declare?

2. Knowledge of facts and events.

History--is necessary to divines.

3. Description an account of things that exist as natural history, which comprehends a description of the works of nature, particularly of animals, plants and minerals a history of animals, or zoology a history of plants. 4. An account of the origin, life and actions of an individual person. We say, we have a concise history of the prisoner in the testimony offered to the court.

A formal written account of an individual's life, is called biography.

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( n.) A systematic, written account of events, particularly of those affecting a nation, institution, science, or art, and usually connected with a philosophical explanation of their causes; a true story, as distinguished from a romance; - distinguished also from annals, which relate simply the facts and events of each year, in strict chronological order; from biography, which is the record of an individual's life; and from memoir, which is history composed from personal experience, observation, and memory.

(2): ( n.) A learning or knowing by inquiry; the knowledge of facts and events, so obtained; hence, a formal statement of such information; a narrative; a description; a written record; as, the history of a patient's case; the history of a legislative bill.

(3): ( v. t.) To narrate or record.

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

in its modern sense, is hardly a term that expresses the conception of the sacred writers, who nevertheless have given us invaluable materials for its construction. The earliest records of the O.T. are rather family pedigrees ( תֹּלְדוֹת , Generations), and the Gospels and Acts are properly Memoirs and personal memoranda. (See Chronology).

1. It is evident, however, that the Hebrew people were a Commemorative Race; in other words, they were given to creating and presenting memorials of important events. Even in the patriarchal times we find monuments set up in order to commemorate events. Jacob ( Genesis 28:18) "set up a pillar" to perpetuate the memory of the divine promise; and that these monuments had a religious import and sanction appears from the statement that "he poured oil upon the top of the pillar" (see  Genesis 31:45;  Joshua 4:9;  1 Samuel 7:12;  Judges 9:6). Long-lived trees, such as oaks and terebinths, were made use of as remembrancers ( Genesis 35:4;  Joshua 24:26). Commemorative names, also, were given to persons, places, and things; and from the earliest periods it was usual to substitute a new and descriptive name for an old one, which may in its origin have been descriptive too (Exodus 2, 10; Genesis 2, 23;  Genesis 4:1). Genealogical tables appear, moreover, to have had a very early existence among the people of whom the Bible speaks, being carefully preserved first memoriter, afterwards by writing, among family treasures, and thus transmitted from age to age. These, indeed, as might be expected, appear to have been the first beginnings of history-a fact which is illustrated and confirmed by the way in which what we should term a narrative or historical sketch is spoken of in the Bible, that is, as "the book of the generation" ("of Adam," Genesis 5, 1): a mode of speaking which is applied even to the account of the creation ( Genesis 2:4), "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created." The genealogical tables in the Bible (speaking generally) are not only of a very early date, but are free from the mixtures of a theogonical and cosmogonical kind which are found in the early literature of other primitive nations, wearing the appearance of being, as far at least as they go, true and complete lists of individual and family descent ( Genesis 5:1). But perhaps the most remarkable fact connected with this subject is the employment of poetry at a very early period to perpetuate a knowledge of historical events. Even in  Genesis 4:23, in the case of Lamech, we find poetry thus employed, that is, by the great-grandson of the primitive father. Other instances may be found in Exodus 15; Judges 5;  Joshua 10:13;  2 Samuel 1:18.

2. The sources of Biblical history are chiefly the Biblical books themselves. Any attempt to fix the precise value of these sources in a critical point of view would require a volume instead of an article. Whatever hypothesis, however, may eventually be held touching the exact time when these books, or any of them, were put into their actual shape, as also touching the materials out of which they were formed, one thing appears very certain, that (to take an instance) Genesis, the earliest book (probably), contains most indubitable, as well as most interesting historical facts; for though the age, the mode of life, and the state of culture differ so widely from our own, we cannot do otherwise than feel that it is among men and women, parents and children-beings of like passions with ourselves-and not with mere creations of fancy or fraud, that we converse when we peruse the narratives which this composition has so long preserved. The conviction is much strengthened in the minds of those who, by personal acquaintance with the early profane writers, are able to compare their productions with those of the Hebrews, which were long anterior, and must, had they been of an equally earthly origin, have been at least equally deformed by fable. The simple comparison of the account given in Genesis of the creation of the world with the Cosmogonies of heathen writers, whether Hindu, Greek, or Latin, is enough to assure the impartial reader that a purer, if not a higher influence, presided over the composition of Genesis than that whence proceeded the legends or the philosophies of heathenism; nor is the conclusion in the slightest degree weakened on a closer scrutiny by any discrepancy which modern science may seem to show between its own discoveries and the statements in Genesis. The Biblical history, as found in its Biblical sources, has a decided peculiarity and a great recommendation hi the fact that we can trace in the Bible more clearly and fully than in connection with any other history, the first crude elements and the early materials out of which all history must be constructed.

How far the literature supplied in the Bible may be only a relic of a literary cyclus called into being by the felicitous circumstances and favorable constitution of the great Shemitic family, but which has perished in the lapse of ages, it is now impossible to determine; but had the other portions of this imagined literature been of equal religious value with what the Bible offers, there is little risk in affirming that mankind would scarcely have allowed it to be lost. The Bible, however, bears traces that its were not the only books current in the time and country to which it relates; for writing, writers, and books are mentioned without the emphasis and distinction which always accompany new discoveries or peculiar local possessions, and as ordinary, well-known, and matter-of-course things. It is certain that we do not possess all the works which were known in the early periods of Israelitish history, since in  Numbers 21:14 we read of "the book of the wars of the Lord," and in  Joshua 10:13, of "the book of Jasher."

Without writing, history, properly so called, can have no existence. Under the head Writing we shall trace the early rudiments and progress of that important art: here we merely remark that an acquaintance with it was possessed by the Hebrews at least as early as their Exodus from Egypt-a fact which shows at least the possibility that the age of the Biblical records stands some thousand years or more prior to the earliest Greek historian, Herodotus.

Other sources for at least the early Biblical history are comparatively of small value. Josephus has gone over the same periods as those the Bible treats of, but obviously had no sources of consequence relating to primitive times which are not open to us, and in regard to those times does little more than add here and there a patch of a legendary or traditional hue which could well have been spared. His Greek and Roman predilections and his apologetical aims detract from the value of his work, while in relation to the early history of his country he can be regarded in no other light than a sort of philosophical interpreter; nor is it till he comes to his own age that he has the value of an independent (not even then an impartial) eye-witness or well-informed reporter. In historical criticism and linguistic knowledge he was very insufficiently furnished. The use of both Josephus and Philo is far more safe for the student of the New Testament than for the expounder of the old. (See Josephus).

The Talmud and the Rabbins afford very little assistance for the early periods, but might probably be made to render more service in behalf of the times of the Savior than has generally been allowed. The illustrations; which Lightfoot and Wetstein have drawn from these sources are of great value; and Gfrorer, in his Jahrhundert des Heils (Stuttgart, 1838), has made ample use of the materials they supply in order to draw a picture of the first century, a use which the learned author is at: no small pains to justify. The compilations of the Jewish doctors, however, require to be employed with the greatest caution, since the Rabbins were the depositories, the expounders, and the apologists of that corrupt form of the primitive faith and of the Mosaic institutions which has been called by the distinctive name of Judaism, comprising a heterogeneous mass of false and true things, the colluvies of the East as well as light from the Bible, and which, to a great extent, lies under the express condemnation of Christ himself. How easy it is to propagate fables on their authority, and to do a disservice to the Gospel records, may be learnt from the fact that older writers, in their undue trust of Rabbinical authority, went so far as to maintain that no cock was allowed to be kept in Jerusalem, because fowls. scratched unclean things out of the earth, though the authority of Scripture (which in this case they refused to admit) is most express and decided ( Matthew 26:34;  Mark 14:30;  Mark 14:60;  Mark 14:72). On the credibility. of the Rabbins, see Ravii Diss. Phil. Theol. De Eo Quod Fidei Merentur, etc., in Oelrich's Collect. Opusc. Hist. Phil. Theol.; Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. 2, 1095; Fabricius, Bibliog. Anti. 1, 3, 4; Brunsmann, Diss. De Judaica (Hafnie, 1705).

The classical authors betray the grossest ignorance almost in all cases where they treat of the origin and history of the Hebrew people; and even the most serious and generally philosophic writers fall into vulgar errors and unaccountable mistakes as soon as they speak. on the subject. What, for instance, can be worse than: the blunder or prejudice of Tacitus, under the influence of which he declared that the Jews derived their origin from Mount Ida, in Crete; that by the advice of an oracle they had been driven out of Egypt; and that they set up in their temple at Jerusalem as an object of worship the figure of an ass, since an animal of that species had directed them in the wilderness and discovered to them a fountain (Tacitus, Hist. 5, 1, 2). Dion Cassius (37, 17) relates similar fables. Plutarch (Quaest. Sympos. 4, 5) makes the Hebrews pay divine honors to swine, as being their instructors in agriculture, and affirms that they kept the Sabbath and the Feast of Tabemacles in honor of Bacchuse. A collection of these. gross misrepresentations, together with a profound and successful inquiry into their origin, and a full exposure of their falsehood, has been given by Dr. J. G. Muller, in. the Theologische Studien und Kritiken (1843, 4:893).

3. The children of the faithful Abraham seem to have had one great work of Providence entrusted to them, namely, the development, transmission, and infusion into the world of the religious element of civilization. Their history, accordingly, is the history of the rise, progress, and diffusion of true religion, considered in its source and its developments. Such a history must possess large and peculiar interest for every student of human nature, and pre-eminently for those who love to study the unfoldings of Providence, and desire to learn that greatest of all arts-the art of living at once for time and for eternity.

The subject matter contained in the Biblical history is of a wide and most extensive nature. In its greatest length and fullest meaning it comes down from the creation of the world till near the close of the 1st century of the Christian sera, thus covering a space of some 4000 years. The books presenting this long train of historical details are most diverse in age, in kind, in execution, and in worth; nor seldom is it the fact that the modern historian has to construct his narrative as much out of the implications of an epistle, the highly-colored materials of poetry, the far-reaching visions of prophecy, and the indirect and illusive information of didactic and moral precepts, as from the immediate and express statements of history strictly so denominated.

The historical materials furnished relating to the Hebrew nation may be classed under three great divisions:

1. The books which are consecrated to the antiquity of the Hebrew nation-the period that elapsed before the era of the judges. These works are the Pentateuch and the book of Joshua, which, according to Ewald (Geschichte Des Volkes Israel, 1, 72), properly constitute only one work, and which may be termed the great book of original documents.

2. The books which describe the times of the judges and the kings up to the first destruction of Jerusalem; that is, Judges, Kings, and Samuel, to which belongs the book of Ruth: "all these," says Ewald, "constitute also, according to their last formation, but one work, which may be called the Great Book of Kings."

3. The third class comprises the books included under the head of Hagiographa, which are of a much later origin, Chronicles, with Ezra and Nehemiah, forming the great book of general history reaching to the Grecian period. After these books come those which are classed together under the name of Apocrypha, whose use, we think, has been unduly neglected. Then the circle of evangelical records begins, which closed within the century that saw it open. Other books found in the Old and New Testaments, which are not properly of a historical character, connect themselves with one or other of these periods, and give important aid to students of sacred history.

4. Biblical history was often treated by the older writers as a part of Church History in general, since they considered the history given in the Bible as presenting different and successive phases of the Church of God (Buddei Hist. Ecclesiastes 2 vols. 1726-29; Stolberg, Gesch. Der Religio Jesu, 1, 111). Other writers have viewed this subject in a more practical light, presenting the characters found in the Bible for imitation or avoidance; among whom may be enumerated Hess (Geschichte der Israeliten vor dlen Zeiten Jesu, Zurich, 1775) and Niemeyer (Characteristik der Bibel, Halle, 1830). Among the more strictly learned writers several have had it in view to supply the gaps left in the succession of events by the Bible, out of sources found in profane writers. Here the chief authors are of English birth, namely, Prideaux, Shuckford, Russell; and for the New Testament, the learned, cautious, and fair-dealing Lardner. There is a valuable work by G. Langen: Versuch eizner Harmonie der heiligen und profan. scrib. in der Geschichte der Welt (Bayreuth, 1775-80). Other writers have pursued a strictly chronological method, such as Usher (Annales Vet. N.T. Lond. 1650) and Des Vignoles (Chronologie de l'Histoire Sainte, Berlin, 1738). Heeren (Handb. der Geschichte, p. 50) recommends, as containing many valuable inquiries on the monarchical period, the following work: J. Bernhardi Commentatio de causis quibus egfectum sit ut regnum Judae diutius persisteret quam regnum Israel (Lovanni, 1825). Heeren also declares that Bauer's Handbuch der Gesch. des Hebr. Volks (1800) is the best introduction both to the history and the antiquities of the Hebrew nation; though Gesenius,complains that he is too much given to the construction of hypotheses. The English reader will find a useful but not sufficiently critical compendium in The History of the Hebrew Commonwealth, translated from the German of John Jahn, D.D., by C. E. Stowe (N. Y. 1829, and later). A far more valuable, as well as more interesting, yet by no means faultless work is Milman's History of the Jews (London, 1829, 3 vols. 12mo; revised, Lond. and N. Y. 1870-1, 3 vols. sm. 8vo). A more recent and very valuable work, Kitto's Pictorial History of Palestine (Lond. 1841), combines with the Bible history of the Jews the results of travel and antiquarian research, and is preceded by an elaborate Introduction, which forms the only Natural History of Palestine in our language. A valuable compendium is Smith's ‘ series of "Student's Histories" (Old-Testament History and New Testament History, Lond. and N. Y. 1869, 2 vols. 12mo). Stanley's Lectures on Jewish History (London and N. Y. 1863 sq. 2 vols. 8vo) are more brilliantly written.

German theologians are strongly imbued with the feeling that the history of the Hebrews has yet to be written. Niebuhr's manner of treating Roman history has had a great influence on them, and has aroused the theological world to new efforts, which have by no means yet come to an end; nor can we add that they have hitherto led to very definite and generally approved results. The works of the learned Jews, Jost (Gesch. der Israeliten seit der Maccabaer, 9 vols; Gesch. des Judenthums und Seiner Sekten, 1857-59,3 vols.), Herzfeld (Gesch. d. Volkes Israel v. d. Vollendung des Zweiten Tempels Bis Zur Einsetzung Des Mckabaers Schimen 1854-57, 2 vols. 8vo), Gratz (Geschichte d. Juden, 11 vols. 8vo, not yet completed), as well as that of Nork (Das Leben Mosis vom A stron. Stand. betrachtet, 1838), Raphall (Post-bibl. History of the Jews, N.Y. 1855, of which vols. 1 and 2 only ever appeared), and others, must not be overlooked by the professional student; nor will he fail, to study with care the valuable introductions to the knowledge of the Old Testament put forth in Germany, with which we have nothing comparable in our language. (See Introduction). Of the more recent works we may mention Stahelin's Kritisch Untersuchungyee Ü Ber Den Pentateuch, etc. (1843), and Io Ewald's Geschichte Des Volkes Israel Bis Christus (G Ö tting. 1843 sq., 1851-3, 6 vols. 8vo), the first part of which has been translated into English (London. 1869, 2 vols. 8vo). The latter especially is learned, acute, and profound, but thoroughly pervaded by a rationalistic spirit. Kurtz's Manual of Sacred History (Philadel. 1858,12mo; from the German, Kinigsberg, 1850, 8vo), and History of the Old Covenant (Edinburgh, 1859, 3 vols. 8vo; from the German, Berlin, 1848-55, 3 vols. 8vo), are more evangelical, but less searching and original. Weber und Holtzmann's Gesc. d. Volkes Israel (Leipz. 1866, 2 vols. 8vo) is rationalistic. The latest is Hitzig's Gesch. Isr. (Lpz. 1870). For other works, see Darling, Cyclopedia, col. 1830 sq.