Withiiut writing, history, ()roperly so called, can have no existence. Under the head Wiuting we sliall 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 earh' as their Exo- dus from Egypt— a fact which shows at least tlie possi- bility that the age of the Biblical records stands some thousand years or more prior to the earliest Greek his- torian, 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 ob- viously had no sources of consequence relating to primi- tive 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
HISTORY
have been spared. His Greek and Eoman predilections and his apologetical aims detract from the value ot lus work, while in relation to the early history of his country he can be regarded in no other light than a sort of philo- sophical 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 report- er. In historical criticism and linguistic knowledge he was very insufficiently fiu-nished. The use of both Jo- sephus and Philo is far more safe for the student of the New Testament than for the expoimder of the old. See JosEPHrs.
The Talmud and the Rabbins afford very little assist- ance for the early periods, but might probably be made to render more service in behalf of the times of the Sav- iour than has generally been allowed. The illustrations ivhich Lightfoot and Wetstein have drawn from these sources are of great value ; and Gfrorer, in his Jahrhun- dert 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 Jew- ish doctors, however, require to be employed with the greatest caution, since the Rabbins were the deposita- ries, the expounders, and the apologists of that corrupt form of the primitive faith and of the Mosaic institu- tions 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 Rabbin- ical authority, went so far as to maintain that no code 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 (Matt, xxvi, 34; INIark xiv, 30, 60, 72). On the credibility of the Rab- bins, see Ravii Diss. Phil. Theol. de eo quod Fidei meren- tur, etc., in Oelrich's Collect. Opusc. Hist. Phil. Theol. ; Wolf, Jiibl. Ilebr. ii, 1095 ; Fabricius, Bihliog. A ntiq. i, 3, 4 ; Brunsmann, Diss, de Juduica (Hafnite, 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 seri- ous and generally philosophic writers fall into vulgar er- rors 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 INIount Ida, in Crete ; that by the advice of an ora- cle they had been driven out of Egypt ; and that they set up in their temple at Jerusalem as an object of wor- ship 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, v, 1, 2). Dion Cassius (xxxvii, 17) relates similar fables. Plutarch (Qucest. Sj/mpos. iv, 5) makes the Hebrews pay divine honors to swine, as being their instructors in agriculture, and af- firms that they kept the Sabbath and the Feast of Tab- ernacles in honor of Bacchus. 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. JMiiller, in the Theolof/ische Studien und Kritiken (1843, iv, 81)3).
3. The children of the faithful Abraham seem to have had one great work of Providence intrusted to them, namely, the development, transmission, and infusion into tlie world of the religious element of civilization. Their history, accordinglv, is the history of the rise, progress, and diffusion of true reUgion, considered in its source and its developments. Such a liistory must possess large and peculiar intjrest for every student of human nature, and pre-eminently for those who love to study the unfoldings of Providence, and desire to leam that
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greatest of all arts — the art of living at once for time and for eternity.