given under "Suggestions to Teachers of Little Folks." Under "Sentence Sermons" there is one each week for other pupils. These terse sentences give the teaching of the lesson in a striking way, easily remembered. Every pupil should keep a note-book of some sort. The easiest to keep is one which has a page for each lesson, the title written at the top, below it the chapter and verse references, and below that the sentence sermon memorized for that lesson. Decorated initials can be used and the book made most attractive. Still more helpful are the books in which the pupils write the lesson stories in their own words, or write complete biographies of our seven great characters; see the suggestion given each week in "The Guide." Have pasted on the first page of each book an outline map of the Old Testament World, or, better still, one that the pupil himself has drawn. In the Biographies of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joshua there should be also a map of Palestine; in the Biography of Joseph one of Egypt; in the Biography of Moses, one of Egypt and one of the Peninsula of Sinai. To impart knowledge is not the teacher's task so much as to guide the pupil in acquiring knowledge. THE BOOKS IN THE COURSE-THE HEXATEUCH A Division of the Old Testament. The Bible is the chosen literature of the chosen writers of the chosen nation. It is the great religious classic of the world. It is the inspired record of God's dealings with man. The Old Testament is a collection of thirty-nine books. In 2 Cor. 3.14, Paul refers to the Jewish scriptures as "the old covenant," Revised Version, or "the old testament,' Authorized Version. Our word Covenant comes from the Greek translation and our word testament from the Latin translation. This reference of Paul's gave rise toward the close of the second century A. D. to our terms Old and New Testaments. The Jewish divisions of the Old Testament are: (1) the Law, (2) the Prophets, and (3) the Writings. Our divisions are (1) History, (2) Poetry, (3) the Greater Prophets, and (4) the Lesser Prophets. The first five Historical Books are known as the Pentateuch, from the Greek meaning "The Fivefold Volume." The first six books are known as the Hexateuch, from the Greek meaning "The Sixfold Volume." The Pentateuch was originally written upon a single roll, and it is to this portion of the Old Testament that the Jews give their title of Law. As law, Deuteronomy is a fitting conclusion. The Jews in their synagogues celebrate what is known as "The Rejoicing of the Law," when they complete the annual cycle of public readings from the Pentateuch. After the recital of the last section of Deuteronomy, they immediately follow it by the reading of the first chapter of Genesis. As history we must follow Deuteronomy with Joshua, for the latter book is needed to make it complete. Contents. The Hexateuch is history written for the sake of religious instruction. We may think of its motto as Immanuel, God with us. It contains the early history and legislation of the Hebrews. The history covers the life of the Chosen People from the promise of the land made to the Patriarchs till the fulfilment of that promise; the legislation is the laws given for their guid ance. Genesis begins with God, treats of origins, of primitive and of patriarchal times; it gives true ideas of the universe, man, and God. Exodus tells of the making of the Nation, carrying forward the history from the migration of Jacob's family into Egypt, through the bondage of his descendants and their deliverance under Moses, their life in the wilderness, and the giving of the Law on Sinai. Leviticus deals with the legislation which made of the Israelites a "peculiar people," a "holy nation." Numbers is both legal and historical; it continues the history from Mount Sinai to Moab opposite Jericho. Deuteronomy consists of a review of past history and of legal enactments. Joshua brings the Israelites across the Jordan, and narrates their conquests and settlement in the Promised Land. The Outline. I. The Ancestors of the Chosen People. 1. Primitive History. Genesis, chapters I-II. 2. Patriarchal History. Genesis, chapters 12-50. II. The Deliverance of the Chosen People. 1. The Growth of a Clan into a People. Exodus 1.1-7. 2. Their Oppression in Egypt and Escape. Exodus 1.8-15.21. III. The Period of Probation for the Chosen People. 1. From the Red Sea to Sinai. Exodus 15.22-18.27; Numbers 33.1-15. 2. At Sinai. Exodus 19.1-40.38; Numbers I.1-10.28. 3. From Sinai to Moab. Numbers 10.29-22.1; 33.16-49; Deuteronomy 1.13.II. 4. In Moab. Numbers 22.2-27.23; 33.50-34.49; Deuteronomy; Joshua 1.13.17. IV. The Instruction of the Chosen People. 1. The Decalogue and Religious and Civil Laws. Exodus 20-23. 2. Directions concerning the Ark, the Tabernacle and its Furnishings, the Priesthood and the Sacrifices. Exodus 25-31. 3. Further Laws, mainly Ceremonial. Leviticus 1.1-27.34; Numbers 1.1 10.10. 4. Supplementary Laws. Numbers 15; 18; 19. 5. Laws concerning Offerings and Vows, the Cities of Refuge, Inheritance of Daughters. Numbers 27-30; 35-36; Deuteronomy 4.41-43. 6. Another Code of Laws. Deuteronomy 5-26. V. The Conquests of the Chosen People. 1. On the East of the Jordan. Numbers 21.21-35; 31.1-54; Deuteronomy 2.24-3.II. 2. On the West of the Jordan. Joshua 4.1-13.6. VI. The Allotment of Canaan to the Chosen People. I. On the East of the Jordan. Numbers 32; Deuteronomy 3.12-17; Joshua 1.12-18; 12.6; 13.7-33; 22.1-34. 2. On the West of the Jordan. Joshua 14-24. Chronology. To the time before the Patriarchs no dates can be given. The time between Abraham and Joshua is about a thousand years. Creation Hammurabi Exodus Entrance Division Primitive History Patriarchal History The Making of the Nation Conquest and Settlement of Canaan Deuteronomy 1180 B.C. Joshua In Canaan Abraham lived in the age of Hammurabi, the great king of Babylonia who is called Amraphel in Gen. 14.1. Hammurabi's life is variously assigned to 2200, 2100 or 2000 B. C. See page 89. The Israelites entered Egypt about 1650 B. C. The Pharaoh of the Oppression was Rameses II, about 1292-1225 B. C. The Exodus took place about 1220 B. C., in the reign of Menephtah (1225-1215 B. C.). The date of the entrance into Canaan under Joshua's leadership may have been 1180 B. C. Authorship. To what human hands do we owe the Hexateuch? It is a question we fain would have answered. Time was when it was generally believed that every word up to the last chapter of Deuteronomy was written by Moses, and that Joshua finished the record. In our Revised Version the heading of the books of the Pentateuch, the First Book of Moses, the Second Book of Moses, and so on, are taken from the Greek translation made at Alexandria, about the second century B. C. From Joshua to Daniel, and in Ezra, they are spoken of as the "Book of the Law of Moses." Books of Moses they certainly are, but in what sense there is a difference of opinion. Let us examine the evidence in the books themselves. Some of the reasons pointed out by modern scholars for holding that the Hexateuch as we now have it is a composite work of later date than the times of Moses and Joshua are as follows: 1. There are many passages which refer to a much later time. Among them are the following: Genesis 12.6; 13.7: The Canaanite was then in the land. Obviously this seems to have been written at a time when the Canaanite was not in the land, and we know from Joshua 16.10; Judges 1.27-33; 2 Sam. 24. 7; 1 Kings 9.16, that the Canaanite was in the land till the time of Solomon. Gen. 14.14: And pursued as far as Dan. The city was called Laish until the time of the migration northward of the tribe of Dan, Josh. 19.47; Judges 18.29. Gen. 20:7; Ex. 7.1 and many other texts speak of a "prophet". In I Samuel 9.9 we are told that "he that is now called a Prophet was beforetime called a Seer." Gen. 22.14; 26.33; 35.20, and in sixteen other places: To, or unto, this day. These are seemingly remarks of persons living in a day far-distant from the time of the events recorded. Gen. 36.31: Before there reigned any king over the children of Israel. David, the first king of Israel, lived about two centuries after Moses. Lev. 26.35: As long as it lieth desolate it shall have rest, even the rest which it had not in your sabbaths when ye dwelt upon it. Here the Israelites were evidently no longer dwelling in the land, but were in captivity. Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men that were upon the face of the earth, Numbers 12.3. Must we not see in this remark the judgment of some one other than Moses himself? In Num. 13.29 and elsewhere occurs the word Negeb, the South, for the district south of Judah. This designation would be correctly used by one living in Canaan, but for Moses it would have been the North. Several times in this book of Numbers we have the phrase, "beyond Jordan" to denote the land east of that river, implying that the writer was living in Canaan. But Moses never crossed the Jordan. “While the children of Israel were in the wilderness," Numbers 15.32, would be said only by one who lived later than the time of Moses. The taking of Havothjair, mentioned in Num. 32.41 appears from Judges 10.3, 4 to have taken place long afterward. Joshua 21.13-19: in this passage thirteen cities with their suburbs are given to the children of Aaron the priest, but in the time of Joshua the descendants of Aaron included only Eleazar and Ithamar and their families. The cities were all in the neighborhood of Jerusalem, and therefore were adapted for the residence of the priests who officiated in the temple of Jerusalem long after the settlement of Canaan. These statements alone do not prove that the Hexateuch is the composite work of later editors: they can be explained as additions to the original work. Writing in the Biblical World Dr. Cobern refers to what has happened in the case of Blackstone's and Kent's "Commentaries" and Story's "Equity Jurisprudence." Much new matter has already been added to them, but they will always go by these great names. "I think any one acquainted with the facts," he says, "would be struck with the application to the Hebrew law-book of the preface of Dr. Bigelow to the thirteenth edition of Story's great work. He says: In later editions a practice had grown up of making changes in the original text and notes in one way or another, generally by bracketed interpolations, [but] in process of time the brackets had sometimes moved into wrong places or dropped out altogether, and the result was that the work of the author could not always be distinguished from that of his editor.'" 2. There are duplicate accounts of the same events which seem to indicate that the books are of composite authorship. Among those in Genesis are the two accounts of the Creation, the two accounts of the Flood which are woven into one, the genealogies, and the promises to the patriarchs. Many narratives in Exodus and Numbers seem to be composite. Accounts in Exodus and Numbers are duplicated in Deuteronomy with modifications. In the two accounts of the Creation, Gen. 1.1-2.4 (first clause) and Gen. 2.4 (last clause)-25 different words are used for the Divine name, different are the orders of events, the accounts of the creation of woman, the conceptions of the nature of God and of his relation to creation. 3. From the use of the Hebrew of two different Divine names, Elohim and Jehovah, diversity of authorship is inferred. Elohim is in form a plural noun, and construed as a plural it sometimes denotes superhuman beings (1 Sam. 28.13), sometimes heathen gods (Gen. 35.2), and sometimes the Supreme Being (Gen. 20.13). Construed as a "plural of majesty,” it usually refers to the Supreme Being, and is translated in our version God. Jehovah is the English translation of the sacred name whose consonants are Y H W H, “probably pronounced Yahweh." For the later Jews this name was too sacred to pronounce, and they substituted for it in reading the Scriptures the word Adonai. Wherever the name YHWH occurs in the Hebrew text, it is written in our Authorized Version in small capitals, LORD, or the Lord GOD, but in our Revised Version, Jehovah. 4. There is a marked difference in the style of various portions of the writings. Father Simon, a priest of the seventeenth century, thus commented on this fact: "Sometimes we find a very curt style, and sometimes a copious one." 5. There are quotations from other books which indicate that the writers of those books lived nearer to the time of the events recorded than the writer of the quotations. Instances are: the book of the Wars of the Lord, Num. 21. 14; the book of Jashar, Josh. 10.13. That the book of Jashar contained also the lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, we know from 2 Sam. 1.17, 18, hence it could not have been written nor quoted from till after their death. When and by whom, then, was the Hexateuch written? Professor Sayce has just summarized the knowledge gleaned from the Aramaic papyri found in recent years on the small island of Elephantine on the Upper Nile. One important conclusion he draws is that the Jewish colonists on that island, as far back as the middle of the seventh century B. C., were acquainted with the Levitical law. Almost the very words of Ex. 12.18 are reproduced in one of the documents. This invalidates the claim of those who are sure Leviticus was not written till after the Exile. For the discovery of the book of the Law in the time of Josiah, and its bearing upon the date of Deuteronomy, see p. 30. As to the authorship of the book of Joshua nothing is really known. Jewish writers and the early Christian Fathers ascribe it to Joshua, but the book itself does not claim that he was the author, and it has historical allusions (15.13, 63;' 19:47, etc.), which point to a time later than his death. Moses may have incorporated into his writing ancient documents; he may have been assisted by his officers, seventy elders, Joshua; writers later than Moses may have added to the documents left by Moses. Professor Flinders Petrie in his recent researches in Sinai discovered eight tablets dating from 1500 B. C., three centuries earlier than the Exodus, whose inscriptions, in a form of writing of Syrian origin, are apparently the work of common miners who could not command the skill of an Egyptian sculptor. If common Syrian laborers possessed a script, shall we not credit the Israelites with a knowledge of writing? From this discovery Professor Petrie argues that the written documents on which our Pentateuch is based were written by Moses or by men under his direction. In the Pentateuch there are seven references to Moses as a writer: they record the fact that Moses wrote at least what is the basis of the legislation now known as Mosaic. The laws as we now have them may not have all been written at one time, and if they reflect different ages and different points of view, the title "the Law of Moses" still holds good, for they are based upon the teaching of this great lawgiver through whose spirit the Divine Spirit spoke. One of the strong books of 1911 was Miss Mary Johnston's "The Long Roll.” In this book she portrays the character of Stonewall Jackson. A southern clergyman, who served on Jackson's staff, condemned her portrait as a "caricature." Which characterization may be the more faithful to life, the southern minister's personal memory and idea of Jackson fifty years after Jackson's death, or the author's composite historical picture constructed from an immense amount of historical and autobiographical material? May not the Hexateuch as "a composite picture" of historical documents, containing Moses' own written record of the divine messages which came to his heart and of events through which he passed, and also other records, poems, narratives, addresses, legal documents, be as true as though every line had come from Moses' hand? THE BOOK OF GENESIS Title. Genesis is the Greek word Téveous, which means origin, or beginning. In Gen. 2.4 it is translated generations. The first book of the Pentateuch is called by this name of Genesis in the Septuagint Version. In Hebrew it is known as B'reshith, from the word with which it begins, meaning In the beginning. Contents. Genesis has two main divisions: Part I, chapters I-II, the prehistoric stories; Part II, chapters 12-50, the patriarchal stories. In the first part the interest centers around events; in the second, around persons. Part I gives an account of the childhood of the world. Here we read of the creation of the world and all that is therein; of man's place and task in the world, of the tragedy of tragedies, man's first disobedience; of the first murder; of man's downward progress till the Flood came to wipe out the corruption; of the preservation of Noah and his family and of the Divine Covenant made with him; of the Tower of Babel and the Confusion of Tongues. The great characters are Adam and Noah. In Part II we have life-like portraitures of the four Patriarchs, the direct ancestors of the Chosen People. We see Abraham, the Father of the Faithful, under divine guidance leaving his ancestral home in the East and going to Canaan, where he and his descendants sojourn until Jacob and his eleven sons follow Joseph into the land of Egypt. Abraham is the Friend of God and the most impressive figure in the book; Isaac is the peace-loving man, and his life is uneventful; Jacob the crafty has a career as checkered as his character, he becomes the Prince with God; Joseph is God's nobleman and his is the most romantic of all the stories. The series of genealogies given throughout the book form its framework, marking the transition from one period to another. Some of them serve a chronological purpose, and bridge over intervals of time, while others exhibit Israel's relation to various races and peoples. The Outline. I. Primeval History. Early Accounts of the World and of Man. Chapters I-II. 1. The Story of Creation, I.1-2.7. 2. The Story of Adam and his Descendants, 2.8-5.32. 3. The Story of Noah and his Sons, Chapters 6-11. II. Patriarchal History. Accounts of the Lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. Chapters 12-50. 1. The Story of Abraham, 12.1-25.18. 2. The Story of Isaac, 25.19-36. 3. The Story of Jacob and Joseph, Chapters 37-50. As Literature. Genesis is composed of poetic narratives, lively dialogues, graphic recitations, marvelous scenes, simple annals. No one can read the book through without being impressed by its variations in style. Part of it is graphically written, part of it is formal. Read the opening chapter and dwell upon its surpassing dignity and impressiveness: "There we have the language of poetry and of picture; it is a poet's sublime epic; a pæan to the Creator of the world." Contrast with this chapter the minuteness of detail in the story of the Fall and the repetitiousness of Chapter 5, and the barren catalogues of names in the genealogies. Compare the formal style of 9.1-17 with the pictorial style of 9.18-27. Yet through it all we feel the onward impelling force of a great purpose, and this gives to the unstudied recital a marvelous power. "The mind ought not to rush with heedlessness or violence upon a book like Genesis, if only for the reason that it is Genesis, and not Finis," says Joseph |