Naturally these various works represent not merely the position of criticism and exegesis twenty years ago, but also the progress made since then. As regards the Historical Books critics have chiefly been engaged in the application of modern methods and principles which are now very generally accepted. Development has taken place in three directions. First, much labor has been given to the more exact distribution of the contents of the _Hexateuch_ between the main documents used by its compilers, _e. g._, Prof. B. W. Bacon's analysis of _Exodus_. Secondly, attempts have been made to divide up these main documents into still older documents from which they have been compiled. Steuernagel, for instance, regards _Deuteronomy_ as a mosaic of paragraphs and clauses from earlier codes, and finds a criterion between different sources in the use, respectively, of the singular or the plural form of address. So far his views have not met with much acceptance.[17] Thirdly, the theory has been very widely advocated that the historical books of _Judges-I Kings_ are partly compiled from the documents used by the editors of the Hexateuch.[18] Gunkel's commentary on _Genesis_[19] is of special importance; it pleads for a fuller recognition of the indebtedness of Israel to the religions of its neighbors, and maintains that, as the stories of the Creation, the Fall, and the Flood were derived from Babylon, so the Patriarchal narratives were mostly borrowed from the Canaanites after the settlement of Israel in Palestine. The account of Joseph, however, is largely taken from Egyptian sources. [17] For other examples of the analysis of the main documents into earlier works, see Gunkel's _Genesis_, the Polychrome _Genesis_, _Joshua_, and Prof. H. G. Mitchell's _World Before Abraham_, etc., etc. [18] See the Polychrome _Judges_ and _Samuel_. [19] German. As regards the Prophetical Books, there is little of general interest to record; the composite authorship of Isaiah XL-LXVI is more widely held. When we come to the _Hagiographa_, or third or closing section of the Hebrew Canon, _Esther_ has been the subject of interesting speculations. Chiefly because Mordecai and Esther are the names of the Babylonian gods Merodach and Ishtar, it has been suggested that the book is based on a Babylonian myth which the Jews appropriated and adapted, as in earlier days, according to Gunkel, they made use of the legends of the Canaanites. The origin and history of the _Psalms_ is still made the ground of much controversy, and the tendency of criticism is to deny the existence of any Pre-exilic Psalms;[20] and to assign a large number to the Maccabean period. It is even held[21] that, in the time of the Maccabees, the Psalm was the organ of political invective, and played the part of the leading article in a modern newspaper. [20] _E. g._, Cheyne. [21] Duhm.