So the Prophecies of Isaiah, written at several times, he has collected into one body.  And the like he did for those of Jeremiah, and the rest of the Prophets, down to the days of the second Temple.  The book of Jonah is the history of Jonah written by another hand.  The book of Daniel is a collection of papers written at several times.  The six last chapters contain Prophecies written at several times by Daniel himself:  the six first are a collection of historical papers written by others.  The fourth chapter is a decree of Nebuchadnezzar.  The first chapter was written after Daniel’s death:  for the author saith, that Daniel continued to the first year of Cyrus; that is, to his first year over the Persians and Medes, and third year over Babylon.  And, for the same reason, the fifth and sixth chapters were also written after his death.  For they end with these words:  So this Daniel_ prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the_ Persian.  Yet these words might be added by the collector of the papers, whom I take to be Ezra.

The Psalms composed by Moses, David, and others, seem to have been also collected by Ezra into one volume.  I reckon him the collector, because in this collection I meet with Psalms as late as the Babylonian captivity, but with none later.

After these things Antiochus Epiphanes spoiled the Temple, commanded the Jews to forsake the Law upon pain of death, and caused the sacred books to be burnt wherever they could be found:  and in these troubles the book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel was entirely lost.  But upon recovering from this oppression, Judas Maccabaeus gathered together all those writings that were to be met with, 2 Maccab. ii. 14. and in reducing them into order, part of the Prophecies of Isaiah, or some other Prophet, have been added to the end of the Prophecies of Zechariah; and the book of Ezra has been separated from the book of Chronicles, and set together in two different orders; in one order in the book of Ezra, received into the Canon, and in another order in the first book of Esdras.

After the Roman captivity, the Jews for preserving their traditions, put them in writing in their Talmud, and for preserving their scriptures, agreed upon an Edition, and pointed it, and counted the letters of every sort in every book:  and by preserving only this Edition, the antienter various lections, except what can be discovered by means of the Septuagint Version, are now lost; and such marginal notes, or other corruptions, as by the errors of the transcribers, before this Edition was made, had crept into the text, are now scarce to be corrected.