The Bible as Literature (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Bible as Literature We further discover that it contains many differ ent types of literature. Genesis is a collection of pre-historic narratives; Exodus, Leviticus, Num bers, and Deuteronomy a collection of ancient laws, civil and ecclesiastical, embedded in history; Kings and Chronicles a series of historical records; Ruth an idyl of the common people; Esther an historical romance of court life; Job an epic of the inner life; 1 the Psalms a Hebrew Hymnal for Church and home worship; Proverbs a col lection of wise sayings of many authors; the Song of Songs a drama of love strong under temptation; Ecclesiastes a poem, illustrating the two voices which are ever appearing in conflicting inter pretations of human life, the interpretation of cynicism, and that of faith and hope; and finally the books of the prophets, - volumes of sermons, chiefly on national affairs, by the great preach ers of this peculiar people. And we also dis cover that in all these various ages and writers and forms of literature there is a common spirit and to a certain extent a common message. These books are bound together not merely by binders' thread, but by an intellectual and spiritual unity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.