In connection with _Canticles_ a theory put forward some time since has been revived in an emended form, and with a fuller discussion of the evidence.[22] This view is that "the book is a collection of songs, connected with a Syrian custom, called the 'King's Week.' During the first week after marriage the bride and bridegroom play at being king and queen, and are addressed as such by a mock court, in a series of songs similar to those of _Canticles_. Thus _Canticles_ would contain a specimen of the cycle of songs used at a seven days' village feast in honor of a peasant bride and bridegroom, the latter being addressed as 'Solomon,' the type of a splendid and powerful king."[23] [22] Mainly by Budde, in the _New World_, 1894. [23] _Biblical Introduction_, Bennett and Adeney, p. 169. VII.--THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL AND ITS RELIGION. Many works have appeared expounding these subjects in the light of modern criticism.[24] Here again recent work has largely been a development on lines already laid down.[25] Much attention has been given to the hints furnished by the Pentateuch as to the early history of Israel, and these have been compared with recent discoveries from the monuments. Many scholars[26] maintain that the Twelve Tribes of later history represent groups of ancient nomadic clans who wandered in Western Asia long before the time of Moses; that only a section of these groups went down into Egypt and escaped with Moses, and that these invaded Canaan at one period, while other kindred clans reinforced them at a later time. Israel and the Twelve Tribes, as we know them, arose in Palestine after the conquest, by the subdivision and regrouping of the invading clans, and their combination with the Canaanites. [24] For instance, in English or translated into English, Histories of Israel by Cornill, Kittel, and Wellhausen, Prof. J. F. McCurdy's _History, Prophecy, and the Monuments_, etc. O. T. Theologies by Piepenbring, Duff, etc.; and in German Smend's Textbook of the History of O. T. Religion, and the latest edition of Marti's revision of Kayser's O. T. Theology; G. A. Smith's _Historical Geography of the Holy Land_. [25] Cf. above, p. 19. [26] _E. g._, Steuernagel in his Immigration of the Israelites into Palestine.