Excerpt from The Ethics of the Old Testament
There are at least two ways of treating such a subject as the Ethics of the Old Testament. One might take each of the branches or topics into which it is divisible in their order and trace the ideas concerning them held or taught at one time or another by the Hebrews. The several topics could thus be given perfect distinctness and the progress of thought with reference to them could be made convincingly apparent. There would, however, be this disadvantage, that the ideas discussed would in the process detach themselves, not only from one another, but from their exponents, and thus lose more or less in reality and interest for the average reader. In this book I have sought to prevent such a result by adopting the method of discussing the whole subject, with its various branches, in a succession of stages and especially as illustrated in the conduct or teaching of representative Hebrews. Anyone who wishes a comprehensive view of a particular topic, can obtain it by simply piecing together my findings thereon in the successive chapters.
I leave it to the reader, also, to define for himself the ethical significance of the Old Testament as a whole in the light of these findings, suggesting only that while it can evidently no longer be regarded as "peculiar" for "the completeness and consistency of its morality," and therefore infallible, its surpassing importance as a record of the moral development of the Hebrews and a means of stimulation to, and instruction in, right conduct must always be recognized.
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