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.
We come then to the Law. Here, as for most parts of the Old
Testament, we have no express information as to the author and date
of composition, and to get even approximately at the truth we are
shut up to the use of such data as can be derived from an analysis
of the contents, taken in conjunction with what we may happen to
know from other sources as to the course of Israel's history. But
the habit has been to assume that the historical period to be
considered in this connection ends with the Babylonian exile as
certainly as it begins with the exodus from Egypt. At first sight
this assumption seems to be justified by the history of the
canon; it was the Law that first became canonical through the
influence of Ezra and Nehemiah; the Prophets became so
considerably later, and the Hagiographa last of all.
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