A
CLASS-BOOK
OF
BIBLICAL HISTORY
AND
GEOGRAPHY:
Transcriber’s Notes
The cover image was provided by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Punctuation has been standardized.
Most abbreviations have been expanded in tool-tips for screen-readers and may be seen by hovering the mouse over the abbreviation.
This book was written in a period when many words had not become standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged unless indicated with a Transcriber’s Note.
Footnotes are identified in the text with a superscript number and have been accumulated in a table at the end of the text.
Transcriber’s Notes are used when making corrections to the text or to provide additional information for the modern reader. These notes have been accumulated in a table at the end of the book and are identified in the text by a dotted underline and may be seen in a tool-tip by hovering the mouse over the underline.
Several maps at the end of this book were displayed over two pages. In reproducing these as illustrations, a small strip was lost due to the binding.
PREFACE.
This work is a Class-Book of the Old and the New Testaments treated as consecutive history. It includes the Jewish history of the centuries between the close of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New.
It presents those important elements of Biblical history which distinguish it from all other histories and which illustrate the plan and the purpose of the Bible as one Book. Whatever modern scholarship has accomplished to aid in the understanding of the original languages of Scripture in important points has been made use of, and whatever monumental or topographic discoveries would contribute to a better understanding of the geography or archæology of the text-statements have been introduced where the history required it.
The history of the centuries between the close of the Old Testament canon and the beginning of the Christian era includes that of its Jewish literature. This history greatly helps us to appreciate that singular tenacity with which the earliest Christian church held to the Mosaic ritual.
In the treatment of this history we have allowed no space for mere opinions or speculations. The work is purely historical, and its text is illustrated only by that which is pertinent and well authenticated, in either geographic or archæological discovery.
The entire subject matter is divided into Periods and chapters and subdivided into sections and paragraphs, the latter presented in such a form as generally to sugge