Excerpt from Joseph and Moses, the Founders of Israel, Vol. 1 of 5 Commonly we think of Amos as the first prophet, inas much as he is supposed to be the first prophet who wrote his own prophecies or prophetic testimony as to the mind and will of God. But there were reformers before the Reformation, and true prophetic writers long before Amos. It is now being recognised that while the earlier books of Scripture are broad-based on truest history, embodied in clay tablets or on papyrus plants, or handed down in the warm tradition of a nation's folk-lore, they were written to teach high spiritual lessons as to God and His dealings with our race to the' men of the day when they assumed the form they now have. How many and how great have been the discoveries in every direction and through many channels! And yet it is our conviction that nothing discovered has called in question any great basal fact, which the Bible has directly called upon us to believe. Many things which were commonly received by the people as facts, and recorded as such in Scripture, may have been found not to correspond with actual history. But these are only illustrations of highest truth in the prophetic handling of material lying to their hand. They are not the ground on which the truth rests, or the source from which it springs. The religious and spiritual teaching has better ground and higher source, even in the revelation of truth to men by God through His inspiring Spirit. Prophetic men, men from God spake and taught as they were moved by the Holy Ghost yes, even as they were being carried forward by the mighty influences of a revelation which was ever becoming fuller and clearer as the years rolled on. They were touched by the inspiration of heaven, commissioned to. 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.