Excerpt from History of Israel, Vol. 1: 3rd Ed On being asked to write a Preface to this Translation of a portion of Professor Ewald's 'Geschichte des Volkes Israel,' my first impulse was to reply that such a work needed none - that the author is known to be one of the most intellectually powerful, as well as most learned and accurate of the Hebraists and Biblical scholars of the day; that his History of Israel, his largest, and perhaps his greatest work, is acknowledged by both friends and foes to be striking, original, and ingenious; and that, being already not merely known by name, but read and studied at our Universities, it has gained a standing among us which could not be made securer by any words of mine. In the latter opinion I was confirmed by many expressions in Dean Stanley's widely-read works; especially the following: - It is now twenty-seven years since Arnold wrote to Bunsen 'What Wolf and Niebuhr have done for Greece and Rome, seems sadly wanted for Judea.' The wish thus boldly expressed for a critical and historical investigation of the Jewish history was, in fact, already on the eve of accomplishment. At that time Ewald was only known as one of the chief Orientalists of Germany. He had not yet proved himself to be the first Biblical scholar in Europe. But year by year he was advancing towards his grand object. To his profound knowledge of the Hebrew language he added, step by step, a knowledge of each stage of the Hebrew literature. 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.