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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 edition. Excerpt: ...rejoice, for, after more than two centuries of shame and discouragement, the Jews again could securely dwell under the shadow of their temple and sing: Our feet are standing within thy gates, 0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that art builded as a city that is compact together. The subsequent development of Judaism rested upon the noble work of the great layman. Truly did Jesus the son of Sirach declare: The memorial of Nehemiah is great; Who raised up for us the walls that were fallen, And set up the gates and bars, And raised up our homes again.2 1 Ps. cxxii. 2, 3. 2 Ecclus. xlix. 13. vm PRELIMINARY REFORM MEASURES 171. The importance of the rebuilding of the walls and of the repopulation of Jerusalem cannot be overestimated, for without this preliminary work the political and religious future of the Jewish colony was almost hopeless. A fundamental reform in the character and practices of the community was still absolutely demanded before it could worthily represent either the Jewish race as a whole or the Jehovah which it formally acknowledged (compare sects. 150 to 154). With the exception of the faithful few, the sweeping charge of one of their prophets was true; the members of the little state were thoroughly depraved (Isa. lix. 1-8). Prophets were still found to denounce existing evils and to urge reform; but apparently they were obliged to shield themselves from malignant persecution behind anonymous writings. Many of the righteous were cherishing in secret the hope that Jehovah would speedily send his messenger of the covenant, who would suddenly come to the temple to purify, as with a refiner's fire and fuller's soap, the sons of Levi and the services of the sanctuary, and many were even hoping that Jehovah himself would appear to condemn...

Lawrence M. Wills here traces the literary evolution of popular Jewish narratives written during the period 200 BCE-100 CE. In many ways, these narratives were similar to Greek and Roman novels of the same era, as well as to popular novels of indigenous peoples within the Roman Empire. Yet, as a group, they demonstrated a variety of novelistic innovations: the inclusion of adventurous episodes, passages of description and of dialogue, concern with psychological motivation, and the introduction of female characters. Wills focuses on five novels: Greek Esther, Greek Daniel, Judith, Tobit, and Joseph and Aseneth. Drawing on a wide range of theoretical works, he delineates the techniques and motifs of the Jewish novel, shows how the genre both initiated and distanced itself from nonfictional prose such as historical and philosophical writing, discusses its relation to Greco-Roman romance, and describes the social conditions governing its emergence and reception. Wills also places the novels in historical context, situating them between the Hebrew Bible, on the one hand, and subsequent developments in Jewish and Christian literature on the other. Wills sees the Jewish novel as a popular form of writing that provided amusement for an expanding audience of Jewish entrepreneurs, merchants, and bureaucrats. In an important sense, he maintains, it was a product of the "novelistic impulse": the impulse to transfer oral stories to a written medium to reach a more literate audience.