Josephus in his first book against Apion (section viii) enumerates twenty-two books, "Which contain the record of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them, five belong to Moses, which contain his laws, and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia [5th cent. B. C.], the prophets, which were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their time in thirteen books, the remaining four books[E] contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true our history hath been written since Artaxerxes, very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there has not been an exact succession of prophets since that time." [Footnote E: Our thirty-nine books of the Old Testament were so grouped by the Hebrews as to make but twenty-two, which accorded with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. What are generally known as the minor prophets, twelve in number, are connected as one book. The Book of Ruth was coupled with Judges; Ezra with Nehemiah; Lamentations with Jeremiah; while the two books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles were counted but one each.] This testimony settles the question back to the commencement of the fifth century B. C., that is, for a period of about twenty-four hundred years the authorship of the respective books of the Old Testament has been ascribed to the men who today are regarded as their authors. The rabbis say: "The wise men have left us the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa, combined into one whole;" and then they specify the authors of the sacred books. That specification ascribes the respective books to the men now regarded as the author of them. The Talmud says: "Moses received the law at Sinai, and transmitted it to Joshua; Joshua to the Elders; the Elders to the Prophets; the Prophets to the men of the Great Synagogue," and, as we have seen, it was Ezra, Nehemiah, and the men of the Great Synagogue who made up our present collection of books known as the Old Testament. Josephus in speaking of those who wrote the scriptures says--"Every one is not permitted of his own accord to be a writer, nor is there any disagreement in what is written; they being only prophets that have written the original and earliest accounts of things as they learned them of God himself by inspiration; and others have written what hath happened in their own times, and that in a very distinct manner also."[F] [Footnote F: Josephus against Apion, Book I, Sec. 8.]