Excerpt from The Princeton Review: April, 1865 This apparently not improbable conjecture would be entitled to additional consideration, if this triple arrangement of the canon could be traced to one who was under the guidance of inspiration. Now the unanimous voice of antiquity imputes the collection of the Old Testament canon to Ezra, and this is con firmed by such considerations of intrinsic probability as to have commanded general assent to its truth. If then he collected the canon and fixed it definitely in its present extent and com pass, it seems but a small step in addition, to assume that he is likewise the author of the existing arrangement, especially as the triple distribution of the canon is referred to in the pro logue to the book of Ecclesiasticus or Sirach, B. C. 130, which speaks of the law, the prophets, and the rest of the books, and also in the New Testament, where our Lord (luke xxiv. 44) refers to the law of Moses, and the prophets, and the psalms. Hence able scholars have judged that the Hebrew arrangement and division of the canon should be laid at the foundation of the study of the Old Testament, and valuable critical introductions have been prepared upon this plan. Now we confess, if there were evidence that Ezra arranged the Old Testament as we now find it in our Hebrew Bibles, and distributed its books into three classes as they are there, we would feel constrained to believe that some important reason lay at the basis of this arrangement, and should be disposed to claim for it the authoritative sanction of his inspiration. But the facts appear to us to be inconsistent with such a hypothesis. 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.