early history of the Hebrews

The historian of the Hebrews is met at the very outset by a strange difficulty. Who were the Hebrews whose history he proposes to write? We speak of a Hebrew people, of a Hebrew literature, and of a Hebrew language; and by the one we mean the people who called themselves Israelites or Jews, by the other the literary records of this Israelitish nation, and by the third a language which the Israelit...