Then come two series of histories, each in five volumes, each beginning with the foundation of the monarchy in the reign of Saul, each setting forth the glories of the reigns of David and Solomon, each telling how the kingdom was divided. The first series, introduced by the book of Ruth, and including the two books of Samuel and the two books of Kings, follows the fortunes of both the northern and the southern kingdoms, until the northern ends with the fall of Samaria, and the southern ends with the fall of Jerusalem. The second series, to which the book of Esther is added, includes the two books of Chronicles, with Ezra and Nehemiah. It is concerned with the southern kingdom only, whose fortunes it follows into the exile of Babylon, and then to the return and restoration, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

After these histories, there are five books of poetry: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (in part poetical) and the Song of Solomon. And then, five books of what used to be called prophecy, but is now called preaching. Four of these sermon-books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, are of considerable length; but the fifth, which was anciently called the Book of the Twelve, is made up of that number of little books.

Thus Joshua and Judges are the only interruption in the Old Testament sequence of fives: five books of the Pentateuch, five in the first historical series, and five in the second, five books of poetry and five of prophecy. The Hebrews liked these numerical aids to memory, and were especially fond of the number five, which is represented by the hand.

1

The New Testament, also, is five-fold: first, the four lives of Christ; then, the Acts of the Apostles; then a series of fourteen letters, all of them, except Hebrews, written by St. Paul; then a series of seven letters, bearing the names of other apostles; the whole concluding with the Revelation.

Each of these collections, Jewish and Christian, contains books concerning which there was much doubt and discussion. Ecclesiastes, which in several places denies the immortality of the soul; the Song of Solomon, composed of lovers' verses; the book of Esther, which nowhere mentions even the name of God; were thought by many Jews to be unworthy of a place in the Old Testament. Many Christians were of a like mind, for various reasons, concerning the inclusion in the New Testament of the Second Epistle of Peter, the Second and Third Epistles of John, the Epistle of James and the Revelation.

At the same time there were other books which many good people desired to read in the Bible, but to which admission was finally refused. Fourteen of these, which were set aside in the completion of the Old Testament, appear in the Apocrypha, which is printed in some editions of the Bible. Notable among them are the First Book of the Maccabees, the history of a successful revolt of the Jews against the Greeks; Ecclesiasticus, a book of wise sayings; and an addition to the book of Daniel from which is taken the hymn called Benedicite, which is still sung in churches. Just outside of the New Testament are the Epistle of Barnabas, the Gospel of the Hebrews, and the Shepherd

of Hermas. The Old Testament list was completed by the time of the Synod of Jamnia in 90 A. D.; the New Testament list was completed by the time of the Council of Carthage in 397; but the canon of scripture, as it is called, was registered rather than regulated by these assemblies. The books of the Bible owe their place in the collection to popular approval. These are the writings which were most liked by the most people.

II

1. Early in the Acts of the Apostles, mention is made of two kinds of Jews who had become members of the Christian society. There were Hebrew Jews, who had been born and brought up in Jerusalem, or at least in the Holy Land; and there were Grecian Jews, who had been born in other countries. These Grecian Jews spoke Greek. Even the Hebrew Jews did not speak the classic Hebrew of the Old Testament, but a form of it called Aramaic; the books which they read were most of them written in Greek. It was therefore desirable to have the Bible translated out of the old language into the new. This was done in Alexandria, where there were many Grecian Jews. A legend of the translation says that a king of Egypt sent to Judea for seventy-two translators, six from each tribe, and that they completed the work in seventy-two days. An echo of this legend remains in the name of the Greek version, the Septuagint. The fact is, however, that the translation, which began with the Pentateuch in the third century before Christ, proceeded

so slowly that the last books, Ecclesiastes and Daniel, did not appear in Greek till the second century after Christ. The Septuagint was well known, so far as it was then completed, by the writers of the New Testa

ment.

2. The New Testament writings, added to the Septuagint, made a Bible, Jewish and Christian, which met the needs of several centuries. The Christians spoke Greek. When St. Paul wrote to the disciples even in Rome he wrote in Greek. It came to pass, however, gradually, with the growth of the Roman Empire, that Greek was superseded by Latin, and there was need of a Latin translation of the Bible. This was made at the end of the third century by St. Jerome. He began it in Rome, but finished it in Bethlehem. His first intention was to revise a translation which had already been made from the Greek, but this he put aside and made his version directly from the original languages. The wide popularity of this translation gave it its name, the Vulgate. It was universally used throughout the Middle Ages, and is still the Bible of the Latin Church.

3. One of the effects of the Reformation in the sixteenth century was to emphasize the importance of nationality. A part of this movement was the ecclesiastical separation of England from Rome. An incident of this separation was the translation of the Bible into English.

The purpose of the early translators of the Bible into English was to improve the religion of the people, and especially to show them that the superstitions,

complicated ceremonies and clerical tyrannies of the Middle Ages had no foundation in the Scriptures. This they tried to do not only by translating the Bible into plain English but by accompanying the text with notes, in which these superstitions, and invasions of simplicity and liberty, were roundly denounced. Thus these English versions were controversial documents, and were naturally resented and opposed by ecclesiastical authorities who had a conservative mind. It was for this reason that Bibles were publicly burned by bishops, and that William Tyndale, the chief translator of the Bible into English, was put to death.

As the Reformation progressed, however, it was seen that the spirit of nationalism in religion would be strengthened by the reading of the Bible in the language of the nation. A translation by Miles Coverdale was permitted in England. Presently a combination of the work of Tyndale and the work of Coverdale, called the Great Bible, was set forth by authority. In this Bible the translation of Tyndale included the New Testament and the historical books of the Old Testament; Coverdale translated the books of poetry and of prophecy. These two men made the Bible which we read. It was revised in 1611 by scholars appointed by King James, and this revision was revised in 1881 and 1885 by scholars whose cooperation was invited by the Church of England. The revisers brought to their tasks the improved scholarship of their day, and made many corrections; they re-studied the Bible in the original languages; but the resulting translation is still substantially the Bible of Tyndale and Coverdale.