37, 38, viii. 2), but also from Deuteronomy.
VII.III.2. This revision is, as we expect to find, alien to the
materials it found to work on, so that it does violence to them.
They have been altered in particular by a very one-sided selection,
which is determined by certain religious views. In these views an
interest in the prophets mingles with the interest in worship. It
is not meant that the selection is due entirely to the last
reviser, though it is thoroughly according to his taste; others
had probably worked before him in this direction. But for us it
is neither possible nor important to distinguish the different
steps in the process of sifting through which the traditions of
the time of the kings had to pass.
The culminating point of the whole book is the building of the
temple; almost all that is told about Solomon has reference to
it. This at once indicates to us the point of view; it is one
which dominates all Judaistic history: the history is that of
the temple rather than of the kingdom. The fortunes of the
sanctuary and its treasures, the institution and arrangements of
the kings with reference to worship--we are kept _au courant_ about
these, but about hardly anything else.
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