THE ORIGIN AND PERMANENT VALUE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

BY

CHARLES FOSTER KENT, PH.D.

WOOLSEY PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE IN YALE UNIVERSITY




"Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free"



PREFACE

During the past generation the Old Testament has commanded equally with
the New the enthusiastic and devoted study of the great body of biblical
scholars throughout the world. Two out of every three graduate students
in our universities who specialize in the general field of biblical
literature choose the Old as the special centre of their work. At the
same time the tendency of the rank and file of the Christian church
within the past decade has undoubtedly been to neglect the older
Testament. Preachers as a rule select less than a fourth of their texts
from it; the prevailing courses of Bible study devote proportionately
less time to it; and teachers and scholars in the great majority of
cases turn to the Old Testament with much less enthusiasm than they
do to the New. Why are these two great currents setting in opposite
directions, and what are the causes of the present popular neglect of