1.A 05. Just because the days of the prophets

Just because the days of the prophets were held to have ended with Haggai and Zechariah and MaladhI, the works of the great prophets were of extreme preciousness. They belonged to an age of inspiration which no longer existed. The "Thus saith the Lord" of the prophets was something that a man could never hope to hear again. In view of that fact it was only natural that the works of the great prophets should be iQTO^l^c^ected, and carefully preserved, and diligently studied. The very fact that men were conscious of living in an age of lesser inspiration gave to the great prophets a new place in life and thought. We must now go on to ask when the works of the prophets were collected and edited and issued.

Here we are in the realm of tradition and legend, but even in the case of legend and tradition it may be possible to penetrate to the truth which lies behind them. There are three main lines of such legends which we must take into account. i. 2 Maccabees begins with a letter which is certainly a work of fiction. In that letter there is a statement about Nehemiah. It says of him that he founded a library, "and gathered together the acts of the kings, and the prophets, and of David, and the epistles of the kings concerning the holy gifts and sacrifices" (2Ma 2:13). It is hard to say what, if any, truth lies behind this; but in this statement N^fipiah is credited with collecting the prophetic writings. ii Jewish belief always gave Ezra an all-important place in the formation of the Old Testament. The Talmud says of him that he would have been worthy that the Torah should have been given to Israel through his hand, if Moses had not preceded him. The legend comes to its peak in the apocryphal book known as 2 Esdras, which belongs to the latter part of the first century A.D. According to that book the Law was lost and burned in the national disasters. Ezra prayed to God that he might be enabled to write down all that God had done in history, and all that God was still to do, as it had been written in the Law. He was told to withdraw from men for forty days, taking five skilful penmen with him. He was given a cup to drink, and he spoke continuously for forty days and nights. In that time ninety-four books were produced, seventy of which were to be handed over to the wise, and twenty-four of which were to be published for all to read, and these twenty-four were the canonical books of the Old Testament (4 Esr 4:19-48). Once again this is pure legend, but it ascribe to Ezra the preservation and the promulgation of the whole Old Testament. iii. In Jewish tradition we meet with a body called The Great Synagogue. In the Sayings of the Fathers we read that, "Moses received the Torah from Sinai and delivered it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue." This Great Synagogue was said to have been a body of men convened by Ezra and numbering one hundred and twenty, and including amongst others Haggai, Zechariah, MalacH, Nehemiah, Daniel, and Mordecai. The Great Synagogue was the spiritual ruler of Israel It is said that the men of the Great Synagogue wrote Ezekiel, the Book of the Twelve Prophets, Daniel, and Esther, and that at the same time Ezra wrote the book which bears his name, and the genealogies in Chronicles up to his own time. If we say that the Great Synagogue edited and published these books rather than wrote them we will come near to the meaning of this tradition. Once again we are in the realm of legend, and it is very doubtful if the Great Synagogue ever existed at all.