The Old Testament.

I. Manuscripts.—The larger part of the Old Testament orginally, of course, was written in Hebrew. It was perpetuated by being copied by scribes. Errors crept in, sometimes by the carelessness of the scribes, sometimes by misunderstanding words when they were writing from dictation, sometimes by the incorporation into the test of remarks made upon the margin, etc. The Massoretic text was the result of an effort to purify the text of corruptions. The work of the Massoretes has stood the test of time. It was their text which was made use of by the revisers in the revision of 1884. The Massoretic manuscripts are divided into those regarded as:

1. Holy.—These are the synagogue rolls, in the transcription of which the greatest pains have been taken to guard against errors. They contain only the Pentateuch, with the addition sometimes of the five Megilloth (Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther), and sometimes of sections from the prophets.

2. Private or Common.—These are written upon rolls, paper, and also appear in book form with the Massoretic punctuation marks. When complete they are called Greater Massora; when abridged, Less Massora. The oldest of these manuscripts, the Prophet Codex, is assigned to A.D. 916; the most ancient covering the whole Hebrew Bible, to A.D. 1009. The oldest manuscripts are the most accurate.

II. Versions.—The Hebrew ceased to be a spoken language. Jews emigrated to different parts of the world. Hence there came to be a necessity for translations or versions, the most prominent of which are as follows:—

1. The Septuagint.—This is often designated by the Roman numerals LXX. It was a translation into the Greek for the benefit of the large number of Jews who inhabited Alexandria. Tradition related at considerable length by Josephus (Antiquities, 12 : 2), ascribes the work to seventy (more exactly seventy-two), who began the task at the request of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and finished it in exactly seventy-two days; whence the name Septuagint. It was the version in general use in Christ's day.

2. The Samaritan.—A translation of only the Pentateuch, into the Samaritan dialect. It is not earlier than the second century B.C. Its author is unknown, but by tradition it is ascribed to the Samaritan high priest, Nathanael. An ancient copy of this is the pride of the few Samaritans who remain at Nablus (Shechem).

3. The Syriac.—Called also the Peshito, meaning correct or simple, because it contains no mystical or allegorical paraphrases, but confines itself to the text. It is a translation made into the vernacular of the people of Syria and Palestine, so that the Christians of those countries could have the Scriptures in their tongue. It probably was made in the second century A.D.

4. The Targums (translations or interpretations).—The residence of the Jews in Babylonia made them familiar with a new language and caused them to lose their own, largely by want of use. (Nehemiah, 8:8.) The Targums are a free rendering into Chaldaic Hebrew of the Hebrew text with expositions of its meaning.

5. The Vulgate (common).—This received its name from its being the common or current text of the Scriptures. It is the work of Jerome, the most learned Christian scholar of his day (A.D. 331–420). This is still the "authorized version of the church of Rome."

6. Other Versions.—Besides the foregoing there are other versions of less interest and importance, made respectively for the African Church, the Goths, the Armenians, etc.

The New Testament

I. Manuscripts.—The New Testament was orginally written in Greek. The autographs of the different books very early disappeared. They were written upon papyrus, which is quite perishable, and with ink made from gum and water, mixed sometimes with a little copperas. Papyrus was succeeded by parchment or vellum in the fourth century, and this again gave place to paper in the eleventh. Owing to the scarcity of writing material, often the old skins were re-used by washing off or erasing the writing, and in that way many a biblical manuscript was destroyed. By the use of chemicals, however, in many cases the original writing has been recovered. Such manuscripts are called palimpsests. Of these the most famous is the Codex Ephraemi, written in the fifth century, and erased and re-written in the twelfth. There are about one thousand known manuscripts of the New Testament, only about thirty of which include all the books. They are divided into two classes.

1. The Uncials.—These are written throughout in capitals, without any division into words or sentences, and with very few marks of punctuation.

The most important of the uncial manuscripts are: (a) The Sinaitic of the fourth century, discovered by Tischendorf in 1859 in the convent of St. Catharine at Mt. Sinai; (b) The Alexandrian, probably of the fifth century, presented by Cyril Lucar, Patriarch of Constantinople, to Charles I., and now in possession of the British Museum; (c) The Vatican, in the Vatican library at Rome, assigned to the fourth century, and supposed to have been written in Egypt.

2. The Cursives.—So called from being written in a running hand. These appear to have come into existence in the tenth century. The letters are run all together, as in the case of the uncials, often with no capitals except in the case of initial letters. Of these manuscripts there are a great number, and some of them are of considerable value.

It is possible to tell with considerable accuracy the age to which any manuscript belongs by the material upon which it is written, the character of its writings, and by the use or absence of punctuation marks.

3. Their Order.—In the most ancient manuscripts the order of the books of the New Testament is usually put as follows, though there is some variation as to the epistles: The four Gospels, the Pauline Epistles, the Book of Acts, the Catholic Epistles, Revelation.

II. Divisions.—As we have seen, to aid in reading the Scriptures, punctuation marks were first adopted. Then came division into:—

1. Chapters.—First the Gospels were divided in this way in A.D. 220 by Ammonius of Alexandria, so that a comparison of similar sections might be facilitated. This was followed by a like partition of the remainder of the books of the New Testament, the work not being fully completed until about A.D. 500. The whole Bible was not thus divided until the thirteenth century, the work being accomplished by Cardinal Hugo de St. Caro (St. Cher), who died in A.D. 1263.

2. Verses.—Our present system of verse division was introduced by Robert Stephens in his Greek Testament published in A.D. 1551, and in the complete Bible issued by him in A.D. 1555. The faulty character of this division is very clearly shown in the Revision.

III. Versions.—As in the case of the Old Testament, there have been various translations of the New Testament, those of value being the Syriac, the Egyptian or Coptic, and those in Arabic.

The English Bible.

I. Anglo-Saxon Versions.—In these we see the beginnings of our English Bible. The steps are as follows:—

Caedmon, a monk of Whitby, composed some poetical paraphrases of portions of the Bible. He died A.D. 680.

Adhelm (died A.D. 709), the first bishop of Sherborne, with Guthlac, produced an interlinear translation of the Psalms on the basis of the Roman text.

Egbert, or Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne, about A.D. 730, translated portions of the Gospels.

Bede, one of the greatest scholars of the Middle Ages, died (A.D. 735) while engaged in the translation of the Gospel of John, just as he had reached the beginning of chapter six.

King Alfred the Great (died A.D. 901) translated parts of Exodus and the Psalms, designing to make the Mosaic law the basis of laws for his own kingdom. Those laws were called "Alfred's Dooms."

Toward the close of the tenth century, Aelfric put into Saxon paraphrases of the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, parts of the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, Job (?), Judith, and Maccabees.

It was through the labors of John Wycliffe (1324–84), the "Morning Star of the Reformation," as he has been called, that the Bible was first translated into English. Nicholas de Hereford, an English ecclesiastic, did the work from Genesis to Baruch 3 : 20, but all the rest is ascribed to Wycliffe. The translation was made from the Vulgate, and was completed about 1380. A revision by Richard Purvey was made about 1388. Manuscript copies of this version were multiplied, and many "Poor Priests" went about the country preaching from it.

II. Printed Editions.—The invention of printing, by Gutenberg (A.D. 1450–55), was of great advantage to the Scriptures. The first book issued from the press was a Latin Bible. Now the Word of God is to be found in many tongues all over the globe. The whole Hebrew Bible was first printed in 1488, a second edition, which was the one used by Luther, appearing in 1494. The first copies printed in a modern language were "the first and second German Bibles by Mentelin and Eggesteyn, of Strasburg, of rather uncertain date, but certainly not later than A.D. 1466." The first quarto Bible was printed by Peter de Ferratis at Placentia in 1475. The first Bible with a distinct title-page was printed by George de Ravabenis at Venice in 1487. The "poor man's Bible," a small octavo, was issued from the press of Johann Froben of Basle in 1491. The important English editions are as follows:—

1. William Tyndale (1484–1536).—To this eminent scholar belongs the credit of having been the first to furnish a printed translation of the entire Scriptures from the original languages. He was burned at the stake October 6, 1536, but not before he had completed his great task.

2. Miles Coverdale (1488–1569) translated the Bible from the Vulgate and from the Zurich (Swiss-German) Bible, following Tyndale in the New Testament, though not implicitly. It was printed in Antwerp at the expense of Jacob van Meteren in 1535. It contained a fulsome dedication to Henry VIII., and was illustrated with several wood cuts.

3. John Rogers (1505–55) was a personal friend of Tyndale. Under the name of Thomas Matthew he published an edition of the Scriptures in 1537. It was a clever compilation from Tyndale's and Coverdale's translations, carefully edited and revised, and interspersed with notes.

4. The "Great Bible," so called from its large size, was issued in London in 1539. Its pages were fully fifteen inches in length by over nine in breadth. It was a revision of the Matthew's Bible, the work being done by Miles Coverdale, who thus revised his own work. It was the first Bible in which the words not in the original were put in a different type. The Scriptures in the book of Common Prayer and the entire Psalter are taken from this edition. A new and revised edition appeared in the following year, which was called the Cranmer Bible, because the archbishop wrote a prologue for it. This Bible was chained to the reading-desk in parish churches.

5. The Genevan Bible, a quarto issued in 1560, was translated by William Whittingham, Thomas Sampson, and Anthony Gilby, though the larger part of the work fell upon the first-named. The three exiles at Geneva from the Marian persecution. It is known also as "The Breeches Bible," because of this rendering of Genesis, 3 : 7 : "They sewed fig-leaves together, and made themselves breeches."

6. The Bishop's Bible of 1568 was a revision of the "Great Bible," and was so called because, of the fifteen scholars employed upon it, eight were bishops. Its principal interest consists in the fact that the edition of 1572 is the basis of our present Authorized Version.

7. The Douay Bible. The popularity of the Genevan Bible stirred up the Romish church to put out a translation of the Scriptures based upon the Vulgate. The New Testament appeared at Rheims, France, in 1582, and the Old Testament at Douay in 1609–10. It was scholarly, but disfigured by Latinisms. The modern editions have been improved.

8. The Authorized Version, known also as the King James' Version, although he had nothing to do with it more than appointing the commission which executed the work, not aiding it to the amount of a penny. The suggestion of a revision was made by Dr. Reynolds, a learned Puritan divine, at the Hampton Court Conference in 1604. The commission appointed to carry out the work was composed of fifty-four scholars (only forty-seven were actually engaged upon it) divided into six companies, two meeting at Westminster, Cambridge, and Oxford respectively. The revision was begun in 1607, finished in 1610, and issued in 1611.

9. The Revised Version.—The revision was undertaken through the action taken by the Convocation of Canterbury in February, 1870. The commission consisted of two companies, one for the Old and the other for the New Testament. American scholars were invited to join in the work. In the Old Testament company there were in England, twenty-seven; in America, fourteen. In the New Testament company there were in England, twenty-five; in America, thirteen. The New Testament was issued in 1881 and the Old Testament in 1885. This is, as the title indicates, a revision of the Authorized Version, and is the product of the best scholarship of the day. M. C. Hazard.
Topeka Daily Capital (Sheldon Edition).

Copyrighted, 1900, by Mary Baker G. Eddy.