If one is apt to acquire too narrow a view of Jewish legalism, the whole experience of subsequent history, through the heroic age of the Maccabees (q.v.) and onwards, only proves that the minuteness of ritual procedure could not cramp the heart. Besides, this was only one of the aspects of Jewish literary activity. The work represented in Nehemiah and Ezra, and put into action by the supporters of an exclusive Judaism, certainly won the day, and their hands have left their impress upon the historical traditions. But Yahwism, like Islam, had its sects and tendencies, and the opponents to the stricter ritualism always had followers. Whatever the predominant party might think of foreign marriages, the tradition of the half-Moabite origin of David serves, in the beautiful idyll of Ruth (q.v.), to suggest the debt which Judah and Jerusalem owed to one at least of its neighbours. Again, although some may have desired a self-contained community opposed to the heathen neighbours of Jerusalem, the story of Jonah implicitly contends against the attempt of Judaism to close its doors. The conflicting tendencies were incompatible, but Judaism retained the incompatibilities within its limits, and the two tendencies, prophetical and priestly, continue, the former finding its further development in Christianity.[60] The Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis (§ 4) does not pretend to be complete in all its details and it is independent of its application to the historical criticism of the Old Testament. No alternative hypothesis prevails, mere desultory criticism of the internal intricacies being quite inadequate. Maintaining that the position of the Pentateuch alone explains the books which follow, conservative writers concede that it is composite, has had some literary history, and has suffered some revision in the post-exilic age. Their concessions continue to become ever more significant, and all that follows from them should be carefully noticed by those who are impressed by their arguments. They identify with Deuteronomy the law-roll which explains the noteworthy reforms of Josiah (§ 16); but since it is naturally admitted that religious conditions had become quite inconsistent with Mosaism, the conservative view implies that the "long-lost" Deuteronomy must have differed profoundly from any known Mosaic writings to which earlier pious kings and prophets had presumably adhered. Similarly, the "book of the Law of Moses," brought from Babylon by Ezra (Ezra vii.; Neh. viii.), clearly contained much of which the people were ignorant, and conservative writers, who oppose the theory that a new Law was then introduced, emphasize (a) the previous existence of legislation (to prove that Ezra's book was not entirely a novelty), and (b) the gross wickedness in Judah (as illustrated by the prophets) from the time of Josiah to the strenuous efforts of the reformers on behalf of the most