To give an example
showing how he justified a classification of the Hagiographa
given by a Talmudic text and disagreeing with the present
classification: Ruth comes first, because it belongs to the
period of the Judges; Job follows, because he lived at the time
of the Queen of Sheba; then come the three books of Solomon,
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, both gnomic works, and the Song of Songs,
written in Solomon's old age; Lamentations, Daniel, Esther, Ezra
(comprising the present Nehemiah), and Chronicles are likewise
placed in chronological order. In the same passage of the Talmud
the question is put as to why the redaction of the prophecies of
Isaiah is attributed to King Hezekiah and his academy. Rashi
explained that the prophets collected their speeches only a short
time before their death, and Isaiah having died a violent death,
his works could not enjoy the benefit of his own redaction.
Still less need one expect to find in Rashi modern exegesis, that
criticism which applies to Scriptures an investigation entirely
independent of extraneous considerations, such as is brought to
bear upon purely human works. Rashi's candid soul was never
grazed by the slightest doubt of the authenticity of a Biblical
passage. We can admire the genial divinations of an Abraham Ibn
Ezra, but we also owe respect to that sincere faith of Rashi
which was incapable of suspecting the testimony of tradition and
the axioms of religion.
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