handle one of the most famous bodies of ancient literature, which, in its turn, has given rise to innumerable Jewish and non-Jewish works, and has many points of value and interest which cannot be adequately discussed here. It must suffice, therefore, to deal rather broadly with the subject, and to refer for fuller details to the special encyclopedias, viz.: Hamburger’s Real-Encyc. für Bibel und Talmud, and the very elaborate articles in the Jewish Encyclopedia.
2. Narrative Midrash.—Of the three different kinds of historical writing—the genetic or scientific, the purely narrative and the pragmatic—it is the last which has prevailed among religious historians. It is extremely difficult to avoid the subjective element in dealing with matters of fact, and the religious treatment of history is influenced, however unconsciously, by the mental environment of the writers. In giving greater prominence to events of religious importance and to their bearing upon the spiritual needs of contemporaries they view and interpret the past in a particular light, and will see in the past those growths which only in their own time have become mature. A latent significance is found, a particular connexion is traced, and a continuity is established, the true nature of which must be tested by critical students. Now, it is subjective history which we find in the earliest references to Midrash. The Midrash of the prophet Iddo (2 Chron. xiii. 22) like the Visions and the Histories of Iddo and Shemaiah (ix. 29, xii. 15) which are quoted for the lives of Solomon, Abijah and Jeroboam, are evidently quite distinct from the sources cited in the parallel portions of the earlier compilation, and the entire spirit of the narratives is different. Similarly, there is a conspicuous difference of treatment of the life of Joash in 2 Kings xi. seq., compared with 2 Chron. xxiii. seq., which refers to some Midrash of the Book of the Kings (xxiv. 27). Although it is uncertain whether this comprehensive Midrash also included the “books of the Kings” (xvi. 11, xxvii. 7, &c.), and the Midrash of Iddo and other related works, it is clear that the Book of Chronicles (q.v.) marks a very noteworthy advance upon the records in the (canonical) Book of Kings (q.v.). It is now recognized that the compiler of the former has used many novel narratives of a particular edifying and didactic stamp, and scholars are practically unanimous that these are subsequent to the age of the Israelite monarchy and present a picture of historical and religious conditions which (to judge from earlier sources) is untrustworthy. At the same time various details (as comparison with the Book of Kings shows) are relatively old and, on a priori grounds, it is extremely unlikely that the unhistorical elements are necessarily due to deliberate imagination or perversion rather than to the development of earlier traditions. The religious significance of the past is dominant, and the past is idealized from a later standpoint; and whether the narratives in Chronicles are expressly styled Midrash or not, they are the fruit of an age which sought to inculcate explicitly those lessons which, it conceived, were implied in the events of the past. The value of the book lay not in history for its own sake, but in its direct application to present needs. But the tendency to reshape history for the edification of later generations was no novelty when Chronicles was first compiled (about 4th cent. B.C.). Pragmatic historiography is exemplified in the earliest continuous sources (viz. of the “Deuteronomic” writers, i.e. allied to Deut., especially the secondary portions); and there are many relatively early narratives in which the details have been modified, and the heroes of the past are the mouthpiece for the thought of a later writer or of his age. Numerous instructive examples of the active tendency to develop tradition may be observed in the relationship between Genesis and the “Book of Jubilees,” or in the embellishments of Old Testament history in the Antiquities of Josephus, or in the widening gaps in the diverse traditions of the famous figures of the Old Testament (Adam, Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Ezra, &c.), as they appear in non-canonical writings. In such cases as these one can readily perceive the different forms which the same material elements have assumed, and one may distinguish the unreliable accretions which are clearly later and secondary. Accordingly, when there are narratives which cannot be tested in this manner, should they show all the internal marks of didactic expansion and date from an age much later than the times with which they deal, their immediate value will not necessarily lie in the details which appear to be of historical interest, but in their contribution to later forms of tradition and phases of thought. So far then, Midrash tends to include moralizing history, whether we call it narrative or romance, attached to names and events, and it is obviously exemplified whenever there are unmistakable signs of untrustworthy amplification and of some explicit religious or ethical aim colouring the narrative. This, however, is only one of the aspects which have to be taken into consideration when one advances to the Rabbinical Midrash.
For Old Testament “Midrash” see further K. Budde, Zeitschr. f. alt-test. Wissenschaft, xii. 37, seq., and commentaries on Chronicles (q.v.). The elaborate study by the Jewish scholar Zunz (Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge, ch. viii.) is also valuable for bridging the gulf between the canonical and the non-canonical traditions and for its just attitude to the criticism of historical traditions. The rigid line between fact or fiction in religious literature, which readers often wish to draw, cannot be consistently justified, and in studying old Oriental religious narratives it is necessary to realize that the teaching was regarded as more essential than the method of presenting it. “Midrash” which may be quite useless for historical investigation may be appreciated for the light it throws upon forms of thought. Historical criticism does not touch the reality of the ideas, and since they may be as worthy of study as the apparent facts they clothe, they thus indirectly contribute to the history of their period. In any case, while the true historical kernel of the Midrashic narrative (e.g. dealing with Adam, Moses or Isaiah) will always be a matter of dispute, the teaching to which it is applied stands on an independent footing as also does the application of that teaching to other ages.
3. Continuity of Literature and Material.—Amid obscure vicissitudes in the 7th to 5th centuries, B.C., the Canonical books of the Old Testament gradually began to assume their present shape (see Palestine: History). The internal peculiarities show that the compilations are the much edited remains of a larger body of literature, and it may reasonably be supposed that the older sources did not at once perish. There is literary critical evidence for late insertions by exilic or later compilers;[1] the compiler of Chronicles apparently refers to accessible works; and there is a close material relationship between the Old Testament and later literature. All this suggests that Old Hebrew writings, apart from those preserved in the Canon, persisted to a relatively late period. No a priori distinction can be made and no precise chronological line can be drawn between the books of the Canon (Canticles, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ezekiel and Proverbs had been at one time or another subjects of debate among the Rabbis) and the Apocrypha (Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Maccabees and Tobit, were “allowed”); and the intimate relation between them appears in the character of the “Wisdom Literature” (e.g. Proverbs, and the Wisdom of Solomon), in the treatment of the stories of Esther and Daniel (the history of Susanna), and also in the twofold recensions Ezra and 1 Esdras. Historical or narrative Midrash is exemplified in the “canonical” books Daniel, Esther, Jonah and Ruth, and in the “apocryphal” stories of Daniel (viz. Susanna, where the point lies in the name Daniel “God is judge”), Esther, Judith, Tobit (and the Ahiqar cycle of stories), the story of Zerubbabel (1 Esd. iii. seq., the sequel of which belongs to the canonical Ezra), and the martyrdom of Eleazer (2 Macc. vi. seq., compare 4 Macc.). This is not the place to notice the course of Jewish literary activity in Palestine or Alexandria, whether along the more rigid lines of Pharisaic legalism (the development of the canonical “priestly” law), or the popular and less scholastic phases, which recall the earlier apocalyptical tendencies of the Old Testament and were cultivated alike by early Jewish and Christian writers. But after the fall of Jerusalem, partly through the need for systematizing the traditional post-biblical law, and partly through disputes with the Christians, orthodox Rabbinism received the stamp which has since characterized it. The traditional or oral law was codified in the Mishna (see Talmud, § 1 seq.), the Canon was
- ↑ E.g. Judg. i. (see G. F. Moore, Ency. Bib. “Historical Lit.,” col. 2085, middle), 2 Sam. ix.–xx., &c.
