THE BIBLE IN ITS MAKING

The most Wonderful Book in the World

BY

MILDRED DUFF AND NOEL HOPE

COMPANION VOLUME TO

'Where Moses went to School,'
'When Moses learnt to Rule,'
'Esther the Queen,'
'Daniel the Prophet,' and
'Hezekiah the King.'

ILLUSTRATED BY NOEL HOPE

With Sketches of the Original Monuments and Stone Pictures

MARSHALL BROTHERS, LTD.,
PUBLISHERS,
LONDON, EDINBURGH & NEW YORK

1912

Uniform with this Volume

PRICE ONE SHILLING

Where Moses went to School
Where Moses learnt to Rule
Esther the Queen
Daniel the Prophet
Hezekiah the King

All fully Illustrated

MARSHALL BROTHERS, LTD.,
PUBLISHERS,
LONDON, EDINBURGH & NEW YORK

FOREWORD

One great universal law runs through the realm of nature. Our Saviour gave it in a sentence: 'First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.'

It is with the desire to show that the same law rules in another of God's creations—The Bible—that this little volume has been prepared.

The Bible has as literally 'grown' as has an oak tree; and probably there is no more likeness between the Bible as we know it to-day and its earliest beginning, than we find between the mighty tree, and the acorn from which it sprang.

The subject is so vast that we have not attempted anything beyond the briefest outline. Our purpose has been merely to give some idea of the origin of the Bible books, up to the measure of our present light upon the subject, and also to show the purpose for which they were written.

But if our readers, by seeing something of the wonder and glory of the Holy Scriptures, are able to catch a glimpse of the Creator's mind behind the whole, our work will not have been in vain.

MILDRED DUFF.

CONTENTS

THE BIBLE IN ITS MAKING

CHAPTER I

A LIVING BOOK

here is only one Book that never grows old.

For thousands of years men have been writing books. Most books are forgotten soon after they are written; a few of the best and wisest are remembered for a time.

But all at last grow old; new discoveries are made; new ideas arise; the old books are out of date; their usefulness is at an end. Students are the only people who still care to read them.

The nations to which the authors of these first books belonged have passed away, the languages in which they were written are 'dead'—that is, they have ceased to be used in daily life in any part of the world.

Broken bits and torn fragments of some of the early books may be seen in the glass cases of museums. Learned men pore over the fragments, and try to piece them together, to find out their meaning once again; but no one else cares much whether they mean anything or not. For the books are dead. They cannot touch the heart of any human being; they have nothing to do with the busy world of living men and women any more.

Now, our Bible was first written in these ancient languages: is it, therefore, to be classed among the 'dead' books of the world?

No, indeed. The fact alone that the Word of God can be read to-day in 412 living languages proves clearly that it is no dead book; and when we remember that last year 5,000,000 new copies of the Bible were sent into the busy working world for men and women by one Society alone, we see how truly 'alive' it must be.

Nations may pass, languages die, the whole world may change, yet the Bible will live on. Why