Author: Charles Foster Kent

Charles Foster Kent taught biblical literature at Yale and wrote on the history and literature of ancient Israel. The Making of a Nation presents a sequence of studies on Israel’s beginnings and the Old Testament narratives through which that history was interpreted. The work was written with Jeremiah Whipple Jenks, whose co-author credit is essential to its bibliographic identity. Early editions also used the fuller title Twelve Studies on the Making of a Nation: The Beginnings of Israel’s History and placed the volume within The Bible’s Message to Modern Life series. Kent’s scholarship aimed to connect historical and literary study of biblical texts with questions faced by modern readers and teachers. His other books examined Israel’s lawgivers, prophets, sages, and national development. The Making of a Nation reflects that educational purpose through organized readings, discussion topics, and reference material, combining a historical outline with a structured course of study rather than presenting a continuous modern narrative.