position, or permutation of letters, &c. For (4) Both the Samaritan and the Septuagint sometimes depart from the Hebrew, in labouring to remove difficulties; but they pursue different courses in order to accomplish this. For example, Gen. xxvii. 40; Exod. xxiv. 10, 11; and the genealogies in Genesis, chaps. v. and xi. (5) The Septuagint accords with the Hebrew, and differs from the Samaritan, in all those daring interpolations mentioned under the eighth class of various readings, in the former part of this section. (6) The Septuagint differs from the Hebrew and Samaritan both, in a few cases of minor importance, depending on permutation of letters, &c., or the introduction of parallel passages. or near the time when the Septuagint Version was made), the Jews and Samaritans disputed violently before the Egyptian king; and that the Samaritans, who were worsted in the dispute, were condemned to death.* But Hassencamp and others labour to show, that many of the departures in the Septuagint from the Hebrew text can more easily be accounted for by the supposition that they used a MS. written in the Samaritan character; inasmuch as the similar letters in this character might easily lead them into the mistakes which they have made in their Versions, while the Hebrew square character, which has different similar letters, would not mislead them. It is unnecessary now to relate what former critics have replied, in answer to these and all such arguments, depending on the forms of Hebrew letters. Since Hassencamp and Eichhorn defended the above position, and since Gesenius replied to them, Kopp has published his "Bilder und Shriften der Vorseit," which contains an essay on Themitish palæography, that bids fair, it is thought, to end all disputes about the ancient forms of Hebrew letters. Instead of tracing back the square letter to Ezra, and to Chaldea, as nearly all the writers before him, not excepting Gesenius himself, had done, he has shown, by matter of fact-by appeal to actually 2. Castell has displayed all these discrepancies existing monuments, that the square character in the sixth volume of Walton's Polyglott, p. 19, had no existence until many years, probably two seq. In regard to most of the cases, in which or three centuries, after the Christian era comthe Septuagint and Samaritan agree, when they menced; and that it was, like the altered forms differ from the Hebrew, it is perfectly plain that in most other alphabets, a gradual work of time, this could not have been the result of any concerted of calligraphy, or tachygraphy. He has exhibited regular plan of alteration, such as we see in the the gradual formation of it, from the earliest Samaritan and Septuagint in respect to the chro-monuments found on the bricks of Babylon, down nologies in Genesis, chaps. v. and xi. Most of the through the Phoenician, the old Hebrew and Samadiscrepancies in question are entirely of an im- ritan inscriptions stamped on the Maccabæan material nature, not at all affecting the sentiment coins, and the older and more recent Palmyrene of the sacred text. or Syriac characters, to the modern Hebrew. The reasoning employed by him, and the facts exhibited, are so convincing, that Gesenius himself, in the last edition of his Hebrew Grammar, has yielded the point, and concedes that the square character of the Hebrew is descended from the Palmyrene, that is, such characters as are found in the inscriptions upon some of the ruins at Palmyra. All argument, from this source, then, is fairly put out of the question, by the masterly performance of Kopp. As the Septuagint is well known, and universally acknowledged, to be a Version made by the Jews for their own use at Alexandria, there cannot be even a remote pro 3. Such are the facts. But a more difficult question remains. How are these facts to be accounted for? A question that leads to some considerations demanding a good degree of acquaintance with the business of criticism. Three ways have been proposed, to account for such a surprising accordance of the Septuagint and Samaritan, in so great a number of cases, against the Hebrew. (1) The Seventy translated from a Samaritan eder. So Lud. de Dieu, Selden, Hottinger, Hassencamp, Eichhorn, and others. But this is altogether improbable. The mortal hatred which existed between the Jews and Samaritans in Pales-bability that this Version was made from a copy in tine, at the time when the Version of the Seventy the hands of the Samaritans, whom they abhorred was made, extended in the same manner to the as the perverters of the Jewish religion. Jews and Samaritans in Egypt. Josephus tells us that in the time of the Ptolemies (therefore at * Antiquities, b. 13, chap. vi. (2) The Septuagint has been interpolated from the Samaritan codex, or the Samaritan from the Septuagint. Not the first; for the Jews certainly never loved the Samaritans sufficiently well, to alter their Greek Scriptures from the Samaritan codex, so as to make them, at the same time, discrepant from their Hebrew codex. Not the second; for the Samaritans would have been as averse to amending their own codex from a JewishGreek translation, as the Jews would have been to translate from the Samaritan codex. Besides, the greatest part of the discrepancies between the Samaritan and the Hebrew are of such a nature as never could have proceeded from any design; inasmuch as they make no change at all in the sense of the passages where they are found. Although, then, critics of no less name than Grotius, Usher, and Ravius, have patronised this opinion, it is too improbable to meet with appro bation. common use. among (3) Another supposition, in order to account for the agreement of the Septuagint and Samaritan, and their departures from the Hebrew text, has been made by Gesenius. This is, that both the Samaritan and Septuagint flowed from a common recension of the Hebrew Scriptures; one older, of course, than either, and differing in many places from the recension of the Masorites, now in This is certainly a very ingenious supposition; and one which we cannot well avoid admitting as quite probable. It will account for the differences and for the agreements of the Septuagint and Samaritan. On the supposition that two different recensions had long been in circulation the Jews, the one of which was substantially what the Samaritan now is, with the exception of a few more recent and designed alterations of the text, and the other substantially what our Masoretic codex now is; then the Seventy, using the former, would of course accord, in a multitude of cases, with the peculiar readings of it, as they have now done. If we suppose now, that the ancient copy from which the present Samaritan is descended, and that from which the Septuagint was translated, were of the same genus, so to speak, or of the same class, and yet were of different species under that genus, and had early been divided off, and subjected to alterations in transcribing, then we may have a plausible reason, why the Septuagint, agreeing with the Samaritan in so many places, should differ from it in so many others. Add to this, that the Samaritan and Septuagint, each, in the course of being transcribed for several centuries, would receive more or less changes, that might increase the discrepancies between them. This seems to be the only probable way in which the actual state of the Samaritan and the Septuagint texts, compared with each other and with the Hebrew, can be critically accounted for. IX. But here we are treading on sacred ground. If these suggestions are well founded, then must it follow that, in the time of Ezra, and previously to his time, there existed recensions of the Jewish Scriptures which differed, in some respects, very considerably from each other. From this conclusion many will spontaneously revolt. All who have not made sacred criticism a study, or who, at least, have not been fully apprised of the character of various readings, and the sources in which they have originated, will be agitated with some unnecessary and ill-grounded fears.* But be this as it may, the position can be rendered highly probable, and is no more dangerous than many other positions which all enlightened critics of the present day admit. 1. It is probable; because, as it has been already shown, the actual state of the Samaritan and Septuagint codices renders it necessary to admit the position. Moreover, the Jews have from the most ancient times uniformly held a tradition, that Ezra with his associates, whom they style the great Synagogue, restored the law and the prophets, that is, renewed and corrected the copies of them, which had become erroneous during the captivity. Certainly, there is nothing at all improbable in this tradition. The corrected copies were the originals, probably, of our present Masoretic recension, which has in every age been in the keeping and under the inspection of the most learned Jews. The Samaritan copy, and that from which the Septuagint was translated, most probably belonged to the recension in common use among the Jews, and which, having been often copied, and by unskilful hands, had come to differ in very many places from the corrected recensions of Ezra. 2. How far back some of the errors in this common recension may be dated, it is difficult to say; but in all probability more or less of them must be traced even to the very first copies taken from the original autographs. Such we know to have been the case, as is now universally admitted, in respect to the early copies of the New Testament. Is the Old Testament under a more watchful and efficient Providence than the New? Or has it ever been so? Nothing but the belief of a miraculous aid, imparted to every copyist of the Hebrew Scriptures, can, it is presumed, stand in the way of admitting the fact as it is now stated; and with such a belief, after several hundred thousand different readings have been actually * See the section on this subject. selected from the MSS. of the Old Testament, it | when only one small nation admitted its claims. would not be worth while to expostulate. X. In justice, however, to this subject, and to allay the fears of well-meaning persons, who are not experienced in matters of criticism, and therefore often exposed to be agitated by groundless fears, a few words must be added, with respect to the dangers of the position that has been now discussed. 1. A great part of it is evidently imaginary; for out of some eight hundred thousand various readings, about seven hundred and ninety-nine thousand are of just as much importance to the sense of the Hebrew Scriptures, as the question in English orthography is, whether the word honour shall be spelt with u, or without it. Of the remainder, some change the sense of particular passages or expressions, or omit particular words or phrases, or insert them; but not one doctrine of religion is changed, not one precept is taken away, not one important fact is altered, by the whole of the various readings collectively taken. This is clearly the case in respect to the various readings which are found in the Samaritan and Septuagint, if we except the very few cases of alteration in them which plainly are the result of design, and which belong to more modern times. There is no ground, then, to fear for the safety of the Scriptures, on account of any legitimate criticism to which the text may be subjected. 2. Jerome long ago had shrewdness enough to say, that "the Scripture was not the shell, but the nut;" by which he meant, that the sentiment of the Bible is the word of God, while the costume, that is, the words in which this sentiment is conveyed, were of minor importance. So the apostles and so the Saviour thought, for they have, in a multitude of cases (indeed, in almost all the appeals recorded in the New Testament), appealed to the authority of the Old Testament, by quoting the Septuagint Version of it; a Version any It is surely no more objection, then, against the watchful care of Providence over the church and the records of its holy religion, to admit that divers recensions of the Scriptures existed at an early age, than to admit that they now exist. 4. The fact, that various readings are found, not only in different classes of MSS., which have come down to us through different channels, but in cases where the same original documents are inserted in different places of the same class of MSS., is proved beyond contradiction: the first, by the actual comparison of MSS.; the second, by a comparison of different parts of Scripture. Such a comparison may be extended very much further; indeed, to a great portion of the books of Chronicles, by reading them in connexion with the parallel places in the books of Kings, and other parts of the Old Testament. Jahn's Hebrew Bible is not only the best, but the only, work which will enable any one to do this without trouble, as he has disposed of the whole books of the Chronicles in the way of harmony with other parts of Scripture. One thorough perusal and study of this will effectually set the matter at rest with any sober man. 5. Truth needs no concealment; and, at the present day, admits none. The Bible has nothing to fear from examination: it has ever been illustrated and confirmed by it; and so it will, doubtless, be still more so. But all "pious frauds," all "expurgatory indices," all suppression of facts and truths of any kind, only prove injurious at last to the cause which they are designed to aid. This is a sufficient reason for abjuring them for ever; not to insist on the disingenuousness which is implied in every artifice of this nature.* SECTION IV. THE GREEK TESTAMENT. Editions of the Text-Critical labours of Erasmus, Mill, Bengel, Wetstein, Griesbach, and others-Modern Critical Editions of the Greek Testament. incomparably more incorrect, and differing from Causes of Error in the Text of the Greek Testament -Early the original Hebrew in incomparably more places, than the very worst Version made in modern times. But de minimis non curat lex; a truly noble maxim, yet one which superstition or ignorance knows not well how either to use or to estimate. 3. There is, then, no more danger in supposing that very early there were different recensions of the Hebrew Scriptures, than in supposing that there are different ones of the Scriptures of the New Testament, which all now admit; for it is not a matter of opinion and judgment, but of fact. The Bible, spreading through the whole earth, and becoming the rule of life and salvation to all nations, is at least as important now, as it was I. We have now to sketch the literary history of the Text of the Greek Testament, as we have done that of the Hebrew Bible. This section has been compiled from Hodg., Diss. Cont. Aristeæ, 1684, et de Bibl. Text, 1705; Prideaux's Connexion, sub anno 409 and 277; Owen's Inquiry, sect. 2, 11, 13; Du Pin, Biblioth. Pat. Prel. Dissert., sect. 3; Geddes's Prospectus, pp. 23-40; Enfield's Hist. Philosoph., vol. i., p. 298, rican Review, vol. xxii., pp. 274-317, N. S.; Bishop Marsh's ii., p. 152; Butler's Hora Biblicæ, pp. 14-19; North AmeLectures, Lect. ii.; and Townley's Illustrations of Bib. Literature, vol. i., pp. 59-64. 1. The same causes that gave rise to various readings in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament operated to produce them in the Greek text of the New. From the periods of the original publication of these books down to the invention of printing-a period of fourteen hundred years the only method by which they could be multiplied, and thus rendered available for the purposes of general instruction, was that of transcription or writing; and as this process is so much more precarious than our present method of producing copies of literary works, it is evident that without a continued miracle, which we have no reason to expect, many deviations from the autographs of the sacred authors must have occurred. Letters would occasionally be exchanged, omitted, or improperly inserted; syllables and words be mis-spelt or transposed; and sentences be occasionally left out or repeated. Happily for us, however, the great multiplication and extensive circulation of copies furnish the materials for correction, and thus the causes of the errors become the means of their removal. contributed little or nothing toward restoring the purity of the Greek text. 3. In the year 1546, Robert Stephens, the celebrated printer at Paris, published the first edition of his New Testament, which is proved to be little more than a compilation from the Erasmean and Complutensian texts. In 1550, he published a third edition, which was once supposed to have had its text formed on the authority of Greek MSS., as professed by the editor in his preface; but a careful examination has shown it to be hardly anything more than a reprint of the fifth edition of Erasmus. 4. Beza's edition followed next in order (1565); but although he possessed some valuable materials for correcting the errors which had crept into the common text, he only amended that of Stephens in about fifty places, and this not always for the better. 5. The first of the Elzevir editions, in which was established the text now in common use, and known as the Textus Receptus, was published in 1624. It was taken from Beza's edition, except II. A summary account of the principal criti-in about fifty places, where the readings were cal editions of the Greek Testament will show the progressive improvement of the text, and prepare the way for a discussion of the causes, the character, and the value of various readings. 66 borrowed partly from the margin of Stephens' 1. The first edition of the New Testament appeared in the year 1516, under the editorship of the celebrated Erasmus. The MSS. upon which he formed his text, were only four in num-lowed sometimes Erasmus, and sometimes the ber; and the three of which he is found to have made the greatest use, contained only parts of the New Testament, and in other respects were not of very high value. In addition to his MSS., Erasmus consulted the writings of some of the Greek Fathers, and also the Latin Vulgate; and where, in cases of difficulty, these afforded him no assistance, he corrected from conjecture. It is plain, therefore, from the character of the materials of which Erasmus was possessed, that however learned and acute he may have been, his edition of the Greek text cannot possess the very highest degree of excellence. True it is, that in his subsequent editions he made numerous alterations; but, notwithstanding that many of them are real improvements, they do not materially alter the character of his text. 2. The next edition given to the public, was that printed in the Complutensian Polyglott; which, indeed, professes to have been printed two years prior to the appearance of Erasmus' first edition, though the publication was delayed till 1522. An examination of the Complutensian text has shown it to have been formed exclusively on comparatively modern MSS., and it therefore Complutensian editors. The text, therefore, in common use, resolves itself at last into the Complutensian and the Erasmean editions. But neither Erasmus nor the Complutensian editors printed from ancient Greek MSS.; and the remainder of their critical apparatus included little more than the latest of the Greek Fathers, and the Latin Vulgate." It is obvious, therefore, that but little had yet been effected towards giving consistency and permanency to the Greek text. For the attainment of so desirable an object, however, there were not wanting able and laborious critics. Walton, Usher, Curcellæus, and Fell, respectively contributed towards it by the collation of MSS. and the comparison of ancient Versions. 6. Between the years 1653-7, the London Polyglott made its appearance: and in 1707, Dr. Mill published his critical edition of the Greek Testament, upon which he had expended the labour of thirteen years. The text adopted by Mill was that of Stephens' third edition, but it was accompanied by no fewer than thirty thousand various readings, collected not only from Greek MSS., and previously printed editions, as well as the oriental and other ancient Versions, but also from the quotations made by the early Fathers in their respective works. The prolegomena give a full and distinct account of the sources from which they were drawn.* 7. It is to be remarked, however, that from the time at which Beza published his edition of the New Testament, no alterations had been made in the text. The several critics, to whose labours we have adverted, contributed largely to augment the materials for its improvement; but they left the application of these, in the emendation of the text, to those who should succeed them in this department of criticism. in his opinion, be omitted without the substitution of another, he prefixed to it a mark of minus in the text. But these proposed alterations and omissions are, in general, supported by powerful authority, and are such as will commonly recommend themselves to an impartial critic. Though, among the various readings, he has occasionally noted the conjectures of others, he has never ventured a conjecture of his own; nor has he made conjecture, in any one instance, the basis of a proposed alteration." + Wetstein's edition may therefore be regarded as not only the most elaborate, but also as the most valuable, critical edition of the Greek Testament extant. It is in two folio volumes, and was published in the years 1751 and 1752. 8. The earliest edition of the Greek Testament, in which the critical apparatus of Mill was applied to the revision of the text, was the one under- 10. Eleven years after this, Mr. Bowyer pubtaken by Dr. Edward Wells, and published be-lished an edition of the Greek text, in which he tween the years 1713 and 1718. In 1734, adopted such of the various readings collected Bengel, a learned professor in Germany, furnished a still more valuable edition for critical purposes, in which he added to the materials collected by Mill, extracts from upwards of twenty Greek MSS., from several of the ancient Latin Versions, and also from the Armenian translation. These, however, he did not venture to apply to the revision of the text, except in the Apocalypse; in the other books, they were printed under the text, and classed according to their respective by Wetstein as that eminent critic has suggested to be preferable to the textual readings: it is therefore valuable as a critical edition, but requires to be used with caution and judgment. values. 9. We have now arrived at the period when the elaborate and splendid edition of Wetstein made its appearance, superseding all that had gone before. The text adopted by Wetstein was that of Elzevir, or the one in common use, but it was accompanied by nearly a million of quotations, in the margin, collected from various sources. But "though Wetstein very considerably augmented the stock of critical materials; though he drew from various sources, which had hitherto remained unopened; though he collected, not by other hands, but by his own; and though few men have possessed a greater share either of learning or of sagacity, yet no alteration was made in the Greek text. He proposed, indeed, alterations, which he inserted in the space between the text and the body of various readings, with reference to the words which he thought should be exchanged for them; and where a reading should, * Dr. S. T. Bloomfield has recently published a very valuable edition of the Greek Testament, with English notes, ritical, philological, and exegetical, in 2 vols. 8vo. It is beautifully printed; the text (which is formed on the basis of the last edition by R. Stephens, adopted by Mill, without deviation, “except on the most preponderating evidence") occupying the upper part of the page; and the notes, in two columns, the lower. 11. The last edition of the Greek Testament, which the plan of this work requires us to notice, is that of Griesbach, the first impression of which appeared in the years 1775 and 1777; but was afterwards materially improved, and republished in 1796-1806. In this laborious work, Griesbach employed all the materials that had been collected by his predecessors, as well as many more procured from Greek manuscripts by his own industry. The various readings of Bengel, Mill, and Wetstein were subjected to a scrupulous examination, as were those collected by Matthæi, Alter, and Birch; the Latin Versions published by Blanchini and Sabatier, and the Sahidic, the Armenian, and the Slavonian Versions, as well as the fragments of the two very ancient Greek MSS. preserved at Walfenbüttel, were carefully collated (though some of them not expressly for this work) and then the whole of the materials, thus accumulated, were applied to the revision of the text.‡ The design of Griesbach was to collect in a small compass the critical apparatus which lay dispersed + Bishop Marsh's Lectures, p. 152. Of the MSS. used by Griesbach, he has given a complete catalogue in his Prolegomena, with an account of the age and character of each, its state of preservation, and the portions of the New Testament it contains. In the second volume is contained a complete and accurate collection of the quotations from the New Testament that are found in the writings of Origen and Clement of Alexandria. The quotations, in the works of these Fathers, it has been truly observed, are so numerous, that, had all the other documents) been lost, nearly the whole of the New Testament might have been restored from the writings of Origen alone. To Griesbach's system of revisions we shall have to advert in the next section. |