his quotation in our book of Deuteronomy. There is no space here for exhibiting the evidence fully. Suffice it to say that all students of the subject are practically agreed that our Book of Deuteronomy, or part of it, was the Roll which Hilkiah found, and which stirred the whole of Jerusalem that day to its depths.

As has been seen, we know nothing about its previous history. All sorts of conjectures have been made, including even the unworthy suggestion that Hilkiah and his friends might have written it themselves and palmed it off on the people as an ancient document! The opinion of our best scholars is that it was a sacred book which had been lost or suppressed probably in the wicked reign of Manasseh or Amon-that it was one of the several editions of the Mosaic story written by some great prophet or prophets from material which they had access to, mainly the Judah and Israel Bibles.

We know it as a book written with passionate prophetic earnestness to rouse the godless nation to enthusiasm for Jehovah. Evidently it made a tremendous impression. The king and his chief helpers made it their banner of reform. Jeremiah the prophet went through the land teaching its precepts. (Jer. xi. 1–8.) His own writings show deep traces of its influence. He

brew scholars tell us that a comparative study of the style of the two books shows that Jeremiah had "steeped himself" in Deuteronomy. No other book ever before was such a power in Israel. It was the first appearance of what we may well call a "People's Bible." Other collections of laws and history were in the keeping of prophets and priests. But never before was such a book as this, a book for the people, published to the people, telling in noblest form the thoughts of their great Lawgiver, preaching and teaching and beseeching the nation to return to the Lord their God.

IV

We have still one more "Lost

The Book Bible" to tell of.

of the Priests.

Little more than a century after the finding of Deuteronomy, probably in the days of Ezekiel and the Exile, first appeared the "Bible of the Priests," from which our Pentateuch gets the main part of its laws. The Priests were the chief depositaries of laws, part of them oral, handed on at the various sanctuaries from generation to generation, much of them probably written, since the priests were

familiar with writing. The book is very decided on the theory that the name Jehovah was not known before Moses. It always calls God ELOHIM, in Genesis. It records the declaration in Exod. vi. 2, "By my name Jehovah was I not known unto them." We owe to it the majestic Creation story in Gen. i. It seems to have touched very slightly the history of the Patriarchs. It gives special prominence to worship and ceremonial telling minutely of Circumcision, the Sabbath, the Priesthood and the Festivals. It has a very large collection of laws mainly ceremonial. The concluding parts of Exodus, the beginning of Numbers, and practically the whole of Leviticus comes from it. It is a very systematic work, very particular about chronology and genealogies. And it is a book with splendid lofty ideals. But it looks as if it would be a dull book to read by itself as compared with the stirring pages of Deuteronomy and the Jahvist.

From what we have said of that part of its contents which has come down to us, it will be evident why scholars have designated it the "Book of the Priests," indicated in brief notation by the letter P.

CHAPTER IV

THE RECOVERY OF THE LOST "BIBLES"

HERE it will naturally be asked, If these elementary "bibles" have vanished with the other "lost literature," how can we know anything about them?

The answer is that it is possible in a large measure to reconstruct them by examination of our present Bible in which they are incorporated. For ancient Semitic historians did not use their material as modern historians do. The modern historian studies all his authorities, digests the material in his mind, and then writes his history in his own words and style, so that we could seldom discover from his book what materials he used. But the ancient Semitic writers pieced together their sources, extracting from each such sections as suited their purpose, lifting them bodily word for word into their work and connecting them where necessary by notes of their own. So that if the documents thus incorporated have any marked characteristics of subject or language

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or style, it may be possible to distinguish them from one another, and sometimes to reconstruct the original sources word for word.

§ 2. In the next chapter I shall give a New Testament illustration. Here I want to show an Old Testament writer at work. He is writing the Second Book of Chronicles, and has around him, as he repeatedly tells us, the old lost books of Gad and Iddo, and Shemaiah, etc. But, fortunately for our purpose, he has also a book that we know, the First Bock of Kings. With it he is using probably some of the others, perhaps only one, which seems likely from some of its references to be the lost Book of Shemaiah. Now watch how he uses them

I KINGS XIV. 25-28.

AND IT CAME TO PASS IN THE FIFTH YEAR OF KING REHOBOAM, THAT SHISHAK KING OF EGYPT CAME

2 CHRON. XII. 2-II.

AND IT CAME TO PASS IN THE FIFTH YEAR OF KING REHOBOAM THAT SHISHAK, KING OF EGYPT CAME UP AGAINST JERU

SALEM, because they had trespassed

UP AGAINST JERUSALEM. against Jehovah, with twelve hundred

chariots and three score thousand horsemen, and the people were without number that came with him from Egypt; the Lubiim, the Sukiim and the Ethiopians. And he took the fenced cities of Judah and came to Jerusalem. Now Shemaiah the prophet came to.