When this point was reached, no one could fail to see the
discrepancy between the ideal commencement, which was now sought
to be restored as it stood in the book, and the succeeding
development. The old books of the people, which spoke in the most
innocent way of the most objectionable practices and
institutions, had to be thoroughly remodelled according to the
Mosaic form, in order to make them valuable, digestible, and
edifying, for the new generation. A continuous revision of them
was made, not only in the Chronicles, at the beginning of the
Greek domination, but, as we have seen in this chapter, even in
the Babylonian exile. The style of the latter revision differed
from that of the former. In Chronicles the past is remodelled on
the basis of the law: transgressions take place now and then, but
as exceptions from the rule. In the Books of Judges, Samuel, and
Kings, the fact of the radical difference of the old practice from
the law is not disputed. In these works also the past is in some
cases remodelled on the basis of the ideal, but as a rule it is
simply condemned. That is one difference; another has to be
added which is of far greater importance.
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