Rashi wholly ignored what modern criticism calls the Introduction to the Scriptures, that is to say, the study of the Bible and the books of which it is composed from the point of view of their origin, their value, and the changes they have undergone. But rarely, here and there in his commentaries, does one find any references to the formation of the canon. 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.