17. At the same time, in Meg. 31 b the formulation of the curses by Moses in Lev. xxvi.
is said to have been ηρωβγη ψπµ (from God directly), while that in Deut. xxviii. was
ψµχ( ψπµ (from Moses himself).
18. A more terribly repulsive instance of this can scarcely be conceived than in Debar R.
11, of which the worst parts are reproduced in Yalkut 304 a, b, c.
19. Comp. generally Hamburger's Real. Encycl. vols. i. and ii. See also Delitzsch's work
already quoted, and Fürst, Kanon d. Alten Test. nach Talmud u. Midrasch.
The Hagiographa or 'Kethubhim' also bear in the Talmud the general designation of
'Chokhmah,' wisdom. It has been asserted that, as the Prophetic Books, so the
Hagiographa, were distinguished into 'anterior' (Psalms, Proverbs, Job) and 'posterior,' or
else into 'great' and 'small.' But the statement rests on quite insufficient evidence.20
Certain, however, it is , that the Hagiographa, as we possess them, formed part of the
Canon in the time of Jesus the son of Sirach - that is, even of the latest computation of his
authorship,21 about the year 130 b.c.22 Even so, it would not be easy to vindicate, on
historical grounds, the so-called Maccabean authorship of the Book of Daniel, which
would fix its date about 105 b.c. For, if other considerations did not interfere, few
students of Jewish history would be disposed to assert that a book, which dated from 104
b.c., could have found a place in the Jewish Canon. 23 But, as explained in vol. i. p. 26, we
would assign a much earlier date to the Book of Sirach. The whole question in its bearing
on the New Testament is so important, that one or two further remarks may be allowed.
Leaving aside most serious critical objections, and the unquestionable fact, that no
amount of ingenuity can conciliate the Maccabean application of Dan. ix. 24-27 with the
chronology of that period,24 while the Messianic interpretation fits in with it,25 other, and
seemingly insuperable difficulties are in the way of the theory impugned. It implies, that
the Book of Daniel was not an Apocryphal, but a Pseudepigraphic work; that of all such
works it alone has come down to us in its Hebrew or Chaldee original; that a
Pseudepigraphic work, nearly contemporary with the oldest portion of the Book of
Enoch, should not only be so different from it, but that it should find admission into the
Canon, while Enoch was excluded; that a Pseudepigraphon younger that Jesus the Son of
Sirach should have been on the Khethubhim; and, finally, that it should have passed the
repeated revision of different Rabbinic 'Colleges' - and that at times of considerable
theological activity - without the suspicion being even raised that its authorship dated
from so late a period as a century an a half before Christ. And we have evidence that
since the Babylonish exile, at least four revisions of the Canon took place within periods
sufficiently distant from each other.
20. Fürst, u. s. pp. 57-59, quotes Ber. 57 b and Sot. 7 b, Ab de R. Nathan 40. But no one
who reads either Ber. 57 b, or Ab. de R. Nathan 40, would feel inclined to draw from
passages so strange and repulsive any serious inference, while Sot. 7 b is far too vague to
serve as a basis. In general, this is one of the many instances in which Fürst , as, indeed,
many modern Jewish writers, propounds as matters of undoubted fact, what, on critical
examination, is seen to rest on no certain historical basis - sometimes on no basis at all.
21. Which in another place we have shown to be erroneous.