Part 6 (1/2)

But the Jewish scribes had wonderful memories. A teacher would read a long pa.s.sage from the Psalms to his pupil, and very soon the lad would be able to repeat the whole correctly, the consonant words just refres.h.i.+ng his memory.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIRST LINE OF THE BIBLE IN HEBREW]

This would not always be as difficult as you might suppose. For instance, you can read this easily enough:

'TH LRD S M SHPHRD SHLL NT WNT.'

Indeed, to this day the Hebrew of the sacred Books in the Jewish Synagogues is all written without vowel-points.

At this time it was that the Jews became really the 'People of the Book,' and that a special society was formed to guard and copy the Bible.

How wonderfully this work was done! Never have the words of any other book been so lovingly cared for.

We have called the Bible the oldest Book in the world; we have seen that it tells about nations and people who were almost forgotten before the days of Abraham. It seems strange, therefore, that the most ancient copy of the Old Testament Scriptures, written in Hebrew and in the possession of the Jews to-day, carries us back only to the time of our Saxon kings.[3]

This is because the Jews' custom is reverently to destroy every copy of the Books of the Old Testament--that is, of their Bible--as soon as it becomes worn with use, or blurred with the kisses of its readers.

'This is a living Book,' they say; 'it should look new. G.o.d's Word can never grow old.'

So, year by year, they make new copies directly the old are worn out, and this they have done for long ages. And so careful have they been in making the copies, that although all was written by hand, there has practically been no alteration in the words for more than two thousand years. G.o.d had indeed well chosen the guardians of His Book.

Let us try to picture to ourselves a young scribe of those old, old days, with his dark hair and big, serious eyes, and dressed in his white robe.

He has been very patient and industrious for many months past, working early and late; now, at last, he is to be allowed to copy one of the sacred books.

'My son,' his old teacher has said, 'take heed how thou doest thy work; drop not nor add one letter, lest thou becomest the destruction of the world.'

'Oh, may the Lord keep my attention fixed, may He hold my hand that it shake not!'

So, with a prayer on his lips, the young scribe begins his work.

And it is through such patient, careful work as his that the older part of our Bible has come down to us from the half-forgotten ages of the past.

[1] Cyrus became King of Persia 546 B.C., conquered Babylon 538, died 528 B.C.

[2] Cuneiform writing made by order of Cyrus.

[3] The Codex Babylonicus, the earliest known Jewish ma.n.u.script, dates from the year A.D. 916.

CHAPTER VI

THE ATTACK ON THE SCRIPTURES

[Ill.u.s.tration: (drop cap B) A Greek Warrior]

But troubled times came again to Jerusalem. The great empires of Babylon and a.s.syria had pa.s.sed away for ever, exactly as the prophets of Israel had foretold; but new powers had arisen in the world, and the great nations fought together so constantly that all the smaller countries, and with them the Kingdom of Judah, changed hands very often.