Hebrew Life and Times Part 17

THE RELIGIOUS TEACHING OF THE WISE MEN

There came a time, perhaps a century or two after Nehemiah, when the wise men were the chief moral and religious leaders of the Jewish nation. The people had lost faith in the prophets, for there were no more prophets like Amos or Isaiah. And these practical teachers with their warm sympathy and kind hearts had many true words to speak about the G.o.d of wisdom and of love. The book of Job in the Bible, one of the greatest books of history, was written by one of these wise men.

It is a story of a man who found G.o.d although both his own misfortunes and also the false ideas of his friends had made him think that G.o.d was his enemy. He found G.o.d at last because he was brave enough to think for himself.

So these teachers gave their pupils the best kind of education. They too, like the prophets and all the leaders about whom we have studied, helped to prepare their pupils for the life of loving brotherhood with G.o.d as their common Father, which was the goal toward which all this history we have studied was slowly but surely moving.

STUDY TOPICS

1. Browse through the book of Proverbs, especially chapters 10 and following, looking for teachings on the following subjects; enter the references opposite (_a_), (_b_), etc., below.

(_a_) Diligence in work.

(_b_) Temperance in use of wine.

(_c_) Honesty in business.

(_d_) Compa.s.sion toward the poor.

(_e_) Self-control in anger.

2. Read Ecclesiastes 11, for a taste of another "wisdom" book.

3. Find if you can a Bible with the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments, and read a chapter or two in Ecclesiasticus, or the wisdom of the Son of Sira.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Part of these pages taken from the author's earlier book, The Story of Our Bible. Copyright, 1914, 1915, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

Used by permission.

CHAPTER XXVIII

BOOK LEARNING AMONG THE JEWS

If we could have visited the home of some sincerely religious Jew about the time when the law of Deuteronomy was adopted by King Josiah and the people we might have seen the beginning of a new kind of education--the regular study of books, and especially of the Bible.

They had for their Bible at that time the law of Deuteronomy, which they had accepted as G.o.d's will for all Jews. And if this was G.o.d's will for them, it was plain that it must be taught to everybody, beginning with the children.

TEACHING THE LAW AT HOME

Let us imagine ourselves, then, visiting the house of some good Jewish friend in Jerusalem under Josiah. As we enter the door we notice letters roughly carved or painted on the wooden door. "You ask what are those words," replies our host to our question. "They are from our law. They are for the children to see, as they go in and out the door.

This is the way the inscription reads:

="'Hear, O Israel: Jehovah thy G.o.d is one and thou shalt love Jehovah thy G.o.d, with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.'=

"The priest wrote them for us and both I myself and the children have been learning to read them," says our friend. "And every Sabbath we study them, and I teach the children to repeat after me as much of the rest of Jehovah's law as I can remember. Sometimes the children ask me questions. They say, 'What mean these laws and these statutes which you say Jehovah our G.o.d commanded?' Then I answer, 'We were Pharaoh's slaves in the land of Egypt. And Jehovah brought us up out of Egypt ... to give us this land. And Jehovah commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear Jehovah our G.o.d for our good.'"

=Religion through education.=--It is easy to understand that with this training in childhood it became more and more easy from this time on to persuade the Jewish people not to wors.h.i.+p idols and to see why they gradually changed more and more rapidly into the most devout and earnest people in the world. The children were taught in their homes.

THE NEW KIND OF TEACHERS, THE SCRIBES

After Josiah's time many additions were made to this law of Jehovah.

At first it consisted of only a part of our book of Deuteronomy. But the learned priests and prophets, especially after the destruction of Jerusalem, made a careful study of all the writings of preceding generations, and they found many collections of laws and histories of Jehovah's dealings with his people which seemed to them inspired of Jehovah and worthy to be reverenced and obeyed. They tried the experiment of combining some of these with the law of Deuteronomy. So it came to pa.s.s that two or three centuries later the Jews had as their sacred book the whole of what is now the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible.

=The need of other teachers besides the father in the home.=--If this larger Bible was to be carefully studied by every Jew from his childhood up, there must be certain men who should give their lives to teaching it. So in time there came to be a cla.s.s of teachers known as "scribes." These men spent all their working hours reading this law of G.o.d, making copies of it and teaching it to others. Some of these men were truly great and good. For example, there was the gentle Hillel, who lived about a century before Christ and who taught the spirit of the Golden Rule, although in a form not so perfect as that of Jesus.

="Do not to your neighbor what is unpleasant to yourself.

This is the whole law. All else is exposition."=

It was a scribe like this who talked with Jesus about the "greatest commandment," and to whom Jesus said, "Thou art not far from the Kingdom of G.o.d."

THE SCHOOLS OF THE SCRIBES

These teachers conducted regular daily schools in the synagogues. More and more children were sent to them until in the time of Jesus all boys were supposed to go for at least a year or two. Girls were taught only at home. People had not yet come to realize that the minds of girls are as well worth educating as those of boys.

=The methods of teaching.=--The boys sat on the floor in a circle before the teacher. They repeated after him the Jewish alphabet and learned to recognize each letter. Their only textbooks were papyrus rolls on which were written parts of the law. They began with Leviticus and learned by heart as much of it as possible. We can imagine that the boys were glad when they finished with Leviticus and went back to Genesis to the stories of Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.

They also learned to write. Their copybooks were at first rough sc.r.a.ps of broken pottery on which with sharp nails they learned to scratch letters. Probably mischievous boys sometimes drew pictures instead of practicing the words a.s.signed to them. After they could write fairly well they were given wax tablets, or even a bit of papyrus, a quill pen, and an ink horn. Papyrus was expensive and had to be used with care.

GOOD AND BAD RESULTS OF THE TEACHING OF THE SCRIBES

So much study of these books of law and history was bound to wield a mighty influence. Those thousands of boys studying laws which for their time were the most just and humane in the world, could not but learn something about the meaning of justice and mercy. Better still, the wonderful stories in Genesis and Exodus left their sure impress on the hearts of those who studied. The boys for the most part reverenced their teachers, and many of them came to love their Book, the law. It was a boy, so taught, who when he was older, wrote that Psalm:

="Thy word is a lamp unto my feet And light unto my path.= * * * * * * * * *

=Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?

By taking heed thereto, according to thy word."=

=The danger of formality.=--The danger in this kind of education is that of blindness to the voice of G.o.d to be heard in everyday experience or in our own hearts as well as in the written Scripture.

The result of this blindness is that goodness and religion are thought of as merely the keeping of the written law. It was such blind scribes whom Jesus denounced for giving t.i.thes, or a tenth part of the mint and anise and c.u.mmin, that is, of even the most insignificant of their garden herbs and forgetting mercy and justice and faith; in other words, keeping the letter of the written law but not living out the spirit of it. It is not enough, Jesus taught, just to obey what is written. To do only that is to be an unprofitable servant. This bad kind of religion grew up in those schools where only books were studied, not the real everyday experience of living people.

JESUS WAS A WISE MAN RATHER THAN A SCRIBE

When Jesus came he was a teacher more like those more ancient wise men of the city gates. Like them he taught his listeners out of doors by the sh.o.r.es of the lake or on the hillside as well as in the synagogues. He reverenced the Bible, the Law and the Prophets, as G.o.d's word, but he listened for that word also in the sights and sounds of the streets and country lanes. He heard his Father's voice as he listened to house wives chatting with their neighbors, or to vineyard keepers hiring harvest hands.

"When He walked the fields he drew From the flowers and birds and dew Parables of G.o.d.

For within his heart of love All the soul of man did move-- G.o.d had his abode."

STUDY TOPICS

1. Look up in the Bible dictionary under "Scribes" and "Rabbi."

2. What impressions of the scribes do you get from Matthew 7. 28-29, Matthew 15. 1-9, and Mark 12. 28-34?