Excerpt from A History of the Jewish People During the Babylonian, Persian and Greek Periods It was also the age which selected certain writings from the common literary heritage of the race and declared that they were sacred and authoritative, so that before 165 B. C. The canon of the law and of the prophets was practically closed. For the New Testament scholar these centuries possess equally great attractions, since in them the life gradually developed, and the parties arose and the ideas gained acceptance, which furnish the setting and the atmosphere of the New Testament history and teaching. To the student of Christianity they are of the greatest interest, for then many of the religious rites and usages developed, which, adopted with but slight modifications, have become the institutions of the Christian Church. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.