The incentives to collect the earlier writings of the priests and prophets were also exceedingly strong, for the experiences and institutions of their past, together with their hopes for the future, were the two main forces that now held together the Jewish race.  Fortunately, the more intelligent leaders realized, even before 586 B.C., that the final catastrophe was practically certain, and therefore prepared for it in advance.  The decade between the first and second captivities also gave them an opportunity to collect the more important writings of their earlier prophetic and priestly teachers, while the Judean state was still intact and while these earlier writings could be readily consulted.  II.  The Literary Activity of the Babylonian Period.  The literary work of this period took three distinct forms:  (1) The collection, compilation, and editing of earlier historical writings.  It was probably during this period that the narratives of Judges, of Samuel, and Kings, which carried the history down into the exile itself, received their final revision. (2) Earlier writings were revised or supplemented so as to adapt them to the new and different conditions.  Thus the sermons of the pre-exilic prophets, as for example those of Amos and Isaiah, were then revised and supplemented at many points.  These earlier prophets had predicted doom and destruction for their nation; but now that their predictions had been realized what was needed was a message of comfort and promise.  The fulfilment of their earlier predictions had established their authority in the minds of the people.  The purpose of the later editors was evidently to put in the mouth of these earlier prophets what they probably would have said had they been present to speak at the later day to their discouraged and disconsolate countrymen.  Studied in the light of these two fundamentally different points of view, the glaring inconsistencies which appear in the prophetic books are fully explained and the consistency of the earlier prophets vindicated.

The third form of literary activity is represented by the writings of Ezekiel.  With the authority of a prophet, he dealt directly with the problem of his day, and the greater part of his book consists of the records of his prophetic addresses or of epistles which he sent to his scattered fellow-countrymen, even as Jeremiah wrote from Judah a letter to the distant exiles in Babylon.  His new constitution for the restored Jewish state was also based on earlier customs and laws, but was adapted to the new needs of the changed situation.  He was not the only one to undertake this task.  Other priests gathered earlier groups of oral laws and put in written form the customs and traditions of the pre-exilic temple.  At the same time they modified these earlier customs so as to correct the evils which past experience had revealed.