THE OLD TESTAMENT BY F. V. N. PAINTER, D.D., LITT. D. " PROFESSOR IN ROANOKE COLLEGE AUTHOR OF "A HISTORY OF EDUCATION," "HISTORY OF 66 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN WORSHIP," ETC. PREFACE But of all As every one knows, the number of books on the Bible is very great. No other volume, not even Shakespeare, has called forth so large a body of literature. that has been written there are very few books that have been prepared with pedagogical insight to meet the wants of young students. It is in view of this need that the present work-not fruitlessly, the author hopes-has been prepared. The purpose of this book is to set forth the literary, historical, and ethical value of the Bible. It aims to present the principal facts that every intelligent person ought to know. It directs the students' attention chiefly to the Bible itself; and as a literary, historical, and ethical study, the Scriptures will be found, in the case of many readers, to be a book of unsuspected interest and value. There is, at the present time, a wide and somewhat insistent demand for Bible study in our schools. It has been shown by actual test that a large majority of the students in our colleges are lamentably ignorant of the incidents and characters of sacred history. Yet the facts and truths of the Bible are wrought into the very texture of modern civilization, and ought, therefore, as a matter of culture, to be carefully studied. The restricted purpose of the present volume as a textbook naturally determines its method. After an introductory chapter showing the relation of the Bible to modern life, the historic conditions, in which the Old iii |