nsiderations touching {148}
primarily the Old Testament that must be regarded in forming an
estimate of the value of its historical records.

We must remember, for example, that the purpose of the Old Testament is
essentially and predominatingly religious. This is recognized by the
Jews, for they do not call any of the so-called historical books by
that name. The five books of the Pentateuch they designate as Law,
because in these books practically all Hebrew legislation is embodied.
Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, they include in the list of prophetic
books, because they recognize the essentially prophetic purpose of the
authors. The other books belong to the third division of the Jewish
canon, called the Writings. Concerning the books of Kings, which are
the principal historical books of the Old Testament, it has been truly
said: "Kings, by virtue of its contents, belongs as much to the
prophetical books as to the historical. It is not a continuous
chronicle; it is a book of prophetic teaching in which sometimes
history, sometimes story, is employed as the vehicle of teaching. It
enforces the principle that God is the controlling power and sin the
disturbing force in the entire history of men and nations.[20] In a
similar manner the religious purpose predominates in the other Old
Testament historical books. They do not pretend to give a complete
history even of {149} the Hebrew people. The writers embodied only
such historical material as was thought to illustrate the
self-revelation of God in the history of individuals and of the nation,
or to bear in some marked way upon the coming of the kingdom of God. A
modern secular historian is disappointed at many omissions which would
be unpardonable in a strictly historical production. Now, it is
readily seen that the religious purpose may be served, and the didactic
value of the narrative may remain, even though historical inaccuracies
in details should be discovered.

Another fact to be remembered is the possible difference in the
viewpoint of several narrators of one and the same event. In sacred,
as in secular history, the viewpoint of the author determines to a
considerable extent the character of the narrative. For example: the
delineation of the events of the Civil War will not be the same in
official documents, in a secular history, in a church history, or in a
work containing personal memoirs. Still other differences might be
seen in narratives confi