rdependence of literature.
Moses, authorized by God, turns to all that is best in the older
Babylonian, Egyptian and Indic literature, and uses it to regenerate
and uplift the Hebrew race, so that we see the things contained in the
Bible remained the same truths that God had been teaching from the
beginning of time. The older Egyptian and Babylonian literature became
lost to the world for thousands of years until in the nineteenth
century modern research in the Pyramids and elsewhere, brought it to
light; but the Hebrew literature was passed down to the Christian era,
and thence to our own times, intact. It excels in beauty,
comprehensiveness, and a true religious spirit, any other writing prior
to the advent of Christ. Its poetry, which ranges from the most extreme
simplicity and clearness, to the loftiest majesty of expression,
depicts the pastoral life of the Patriarchs, the marvellous history of
the Hebrew nation, the beautiful scenery in which they lived and moved,
the stately ceremonial of their liturgy, and the promise of a Messiah.
Its chief strength and charm is that it personifies inanimate objects,
as in the sixty-fourth Psalm, where David says:

"The beautiful places of the wilderness shall grow fat; and the hills
shall be girded about with joy. The rams of the flock are clothed, and
the vales shall abound with corn they shall shout, yea they shall sing
a hymn."

And again in the seventeenth Psalm, he says:

"He bowed the Heavens and came down ... and He flew upon the wings of
the winds ... He made darkness His covert, His pavilion round about
Him: dark waters in the clouds of the air."

In time the Hebrew language began to be influenced by others, although,
as a people, they rank with the Greeks and Spaniards as being very
little moulded by any outside influence on their literature. From the
time of Abraham to the age of Moses the old stock was changed by the
intermarriage of some of their race with the Egyptians and Arabians.
During this period their literature was influenced by Zoroaster, and by
the Platonist and Pythagorean schools. This is especially noticeable in
the work of Philo of Alexandria, who was born a few years B.C.

Josephus, who first saw the light in A.D. 37; and Numenius, who lived
in the second century, were Jews, who as such remained, while adopting
Greek philosophy. The learned writings of the Rabbis became known as
Rabbinical literature. It is written in a language that has its ro