d his spiritual capacities and powers of apprehension increased.
This growth enabled him to secure, from generation to generation and
from century to century, during the Old Testament dispensation, an
ever-broadening and deepening conception of the nature and character of
God and of his will. The Old {86} Testament books, says Kent, are "the
harmonious and many-sided record of ten centuries of strenuous human
endeavor to know and to do the will of God, and of his full and
gracious response to that effort."[14]

2. Formerly the beginning of the Old Testament canon was traced to
Moses. He was thought not only to have written the books of the
Pentateuch but to have given to them official sanction as canonical
books. To these books were gradually added the other sacred writings
of the Old Testament on the authority of the divinely chosen successors
of Moses, like Joshua, Samuel, and the prophets. The close of the
canon was ascribed to Ezra, who, according to later views, had to share
the honor with the men of the Great Synagogue. Modern criticism
assigns new dates to some of the Old Testament books; it believes that
the exile was a period of great spiritual and intellectual activity,
and a number of books are placed subsequent to Ezra and Nehemiah, which
in itself would imply a denial of the view that the canon was finally
closed in the days of Ezra. The modern critical view is that the Old
Testament books were canonized--whatever the dates of their
writing--gradually and at a comparatively late period. The
canonization of the Law is placed at about B.C. 400, that of the
Prophets between B.C. 250 and B.C. 180, while the third {87} division
of the Jewish canon, the Writings, is believed to have acquired
canonical authority during the second and first centuries B.C.

3. Formerly the order of the Old Testament books determined largely
the view of the development of Hebrew religion. Just as in the New
Testament the Gospels occupy first place, the Epistles being
expositions of the principles laid down in the Gospels, so it was
thought that the Law of the Pentateuch, coming from the hands of Moses,
served as the basis of the religious development of the Hebrews during
subsequent centuries. The prophets were looked upon chiefly as
expounders and interpreters of this Law. Modern criticism has
introduced a change of viewpoint. It does not deny the pre-exilic
existence of all law, or of sacrifice, or of a ceremonial, or