I. It is an opinion very extensively held that the great mass of
the books of the Old Testament not only relate to the pre-exilic
period, but date from it. According to this view, they are
remnants of the literature of ancient Israel which the Jews rescued
as a heritage from the past, and on which they continued to
subsist in the decay of independent intellectual life. In
dogmatic theology Judaism is a mere empty chasm over which one
springs from the Old Testament to the New; and even where this
estimate is modified, the belief still prevails in a general way
that the Judaism which received the books of Scripture into the
canon had, as a rule, nothing to do with their production. But the
exceptions to this principle which are conceded as regards the
second and third divisions of the Hebrew canon cannot be called so
very slight. Of the Hagiograpba, by far the larger portion is
demonstrably post-exilic, and no part demonstrably older than
the exile. Daniel comes as far down as the Maccabaean wars, and
Esther is perhaps even later. Of the prophetical literature a very
appreciable fraction is later than the fall of the Hebrew kingdom;
and the associated historical books (the "earlier prophets" of the
Hebrew canon) date, in the form in which we now possess them, from
a period subsequent to the death of Jeconiah, who must have
survived the year 560 B.C. for some time. Making all allowance
for the older sources utilised, and to a large extent transcribed
word for word, in Judges, Samuel, and Kings, we find that apart
from the Pentateuch the preexilic portion of the Old Testament
amounts in bulk to little more than the half of the entire volume.
All the rest belongs to the later period, and it includes not
merely the feeble after-growths of a failing vegetation, but also
productions of the vigour and originality of Isa. xl.lxvi. and
Ps.Ixxiii.