BIBLE, a name applied by Christians, by way of eminence or distinction, to the collection of sacred writings, or the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testament; known also by various other appellations, as, the Sacred Books, Holy Writ, Inspired Writings, Scriptures, &c. The Jews styled the Bible (that is, the Old Testament) hikra, which signifies Lesson, or Lecture.
This collection of the sacred writings, containing those of the Old and New Testament, is justly looked upon as the foundation of the Jewish as well as the Christian religion. The Jews, it is true, acknowledge only the scriptures of the Old Testament, the correcting and publishing of which is unanimously ascribed, both by the Jews and Christians, to Ezra. Some of the ancient fathers, on no other foundation than that fabulous and apocryphal book, the second book of Esdras, pretend, that the scriptures were entirely lost and destroyed at the Babylonish captivity, and that Ezra restored them all again by divine revelation. What is certain is, that in the reign of Josiah there was no other book of the law extant besides that found in the temple by Hilkiah; from which original, by order of that pious king, copies were immediately written out, and search made for all the other parts of the scriptures, (2 Kings xxii.); by which means copies of the whole became multiplied among the people, who carried them with them into their captivity. After the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, Ezra got together as many copies as he could of the Sacred writings, and out of them all prepared a correct edition, disposing the several books in their proper order, and settling the canon of scripture for his time. These books he divided into three parts. 1. The Law. 2. The Prophets. 3. The Cetusim, or Hagiographia, i. e. The holy writings.
I. The Law contains, 1. Genesis. 2. Exodus. 3. Leviticus. 4. Numbers. 5. Deuteronomy.
II. The writings of the Prophets are, 1. Joshua. 2. Judges, with Ruth. 3. Samuel. 4. Kings. 5. Isaiah. 6. Jeremiah, with his Lamentations. 7. Ezekiel. 8. Daniel. 9. The twelve minor Prophets. 10. Job. 11. Ezra. 12. Nehemiah. 13. Esther.
III. And the Hagiographia consists of, 1. The Psalms. 2. The Proverbs. 3. Ecclesiastes. 4. The Song of Solomon. This division was made for the sake of reducing the number of the sacred books to the number of the letters in their alphabet, which amount to twenty-two. At present, the Jews reckon twenty-four books in their canon of scripture, in disposing of which the law stands as it did in the former division, and the prophets are distributed into the former and latter prophets.
The former prophets are, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings,
VOL. I. Numb. 23.
The latter prophets are, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets. And the hagiographia consist of,
The Psalms, the Proverbs, Job, the Song of Solomon, Ruth, the Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, the Chronicles.
Under the name of Ezra, they comprehend Nehemiah. It is true this order hath not always been observed, but the variations from it are of little or no moment.
The five books of the law are divided into fifty-four sections. This division many of the Jews hold to have been appointed by Moses himself; but others, with more probability, ascribe it to Ezra. The design of this division was, that one of these sections might be read in their synagogues every sabbath-day. The number was 54, because in their intercalated years, a month being then added, there were 54 sabbaths. In other years, they reduced them to 52, by twice joining together two short sections. Till the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, they read only the law; but the reading of it being then prohibited, they substituted in the room of it 54 sections out of the Prophets; and when the reading of the law was restored by the Maccabees, the section which was read every sabbath out of the law, served for their first lesson, and the section out of the prophets for their second. These sections were divided into verses, of which division, if Ezra was not the author, it was introduced not long after him, and seems to have been designed for the use of the Targumists, or Chaldee interpreters; for after the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, when the Hebrew language had ceased to be their mother tongue, and the Chaldee grew into use instead of it, the custom was, that the law should be first read in the original Hebrew, and then interpreted to the people in the Chaldee language, for which purpose these shorter sections or periods were very convenient.
The division of the scriptures into chapters, as we at present have them, is of much later date. Some attribute it to Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, in the reigns of John and Henry III. But the true author of the invention was Hugo de Sancto Caro, commonly called Hugo Cardinalis, because he was the first Dominican that ever was raised to the degree of cardinal. This Hugo flourished about the year 1240. He wrote a comment on the scriptures, and projected the first concordance, which is that of the vulgar Latin Bible. The aim of this work being for the more easy finding out any word or passage in the scriptures, he found it necessary to divide the book into sections, and the sections into subdivisions; for till that time the vulgar Latin Bibles were without any division at all. These sections are the chapters into which the Bible hath ever since been divided. But the subdivision of the chapters was not then into verses, as it is now. Hugo's method of subdividing them was by the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, placed in the margin at an equal distance from each other, according to the length of the chapters. The subdivision of the chapters into verses, as they now stand in our Bibles, had its original from a famous Jewish rabbi, named Mordecai Nathan, about the year 1445. This rabbi, in imitation of Hugo Cardinalis, drew up a concordance
ance to the Hebrew Bible, for the use of the Jews. But though he followed Hugo in his division of the books into chapters, he refined upon his invention as to the subdivision, and contrived that by verses: this being found to be a much more convenient method, it has been ever since followed. And thus, as the Jews borrowed the division of the books of the holy scriptures into chapters from the Christians, in like manner the Christians borrowed that of the chapters into verses from the Jews.
The order and division of the books of the Bible, as well of the Old as the New Testament, according to the disposition made by the council of Trent, by decree I. session iv, are as follow; where we are to observe, that those books to which the asterisks are prefixed, are rejected by the Protestants, as apocryphal. See APOCYPH.
PHA.
Genesis,
Exodus,
Leviticus,
Numbers,
Deuteronomy,
Joshua,
Judges and Ruth,
1 Samuel, or 1 Kings,
2 Samuel, or 2 Kings,
1 Kings, otherwise called iii. Kings,
2 Kings, otherwise called iv. Kings,
1 Chronicles,
2 Chronicles,
1 Esdras, (as the LXX and Vulgate call it), or the book of Ezra,
2 Esdras, or (as we have it) the book of Nehemiah.
* Tobit,
* Judith,
Esther,
Job,
Psalms,
Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes,
Song of Solomon,
* The book of Wisdom,
* Ecclesiasticus,
Isaiah,
Jeremiah and * Baruch,
Ezekiel,
Daniel,
Hosea,
Joel,
Amos,
Obadiah,
Nahum, which we place immediately after Micah, before Habakkuk.
Jonah, which we place immediately after Obadiah.
Micah,
Habakkuk,
Zephaniah,
Haggai,
Zechariah,
Malachi,
* 1 Maccabees,
* Maccabees.
The books of the New Testament are,
The Gospel of {
St Matthew,
St Mark,
St Luke,
St John,
The acts of the Apostles,
the Romans,
the Corinthians I.
the Corinthians II.
the Galatians,
the Ephesians,
the Philippians,
the Colossians,
the Thessalonians I.
the Thessalonians II.
Timothy, I.
Timothy, II.
Titus,
Philemon,
the Hebrews.
St James,
St Peter, I.
St Peter, II.
St John, I.
St John, II.
St John, III.
St Jude,
The Revelations of St John.
The apocryphal books of the Old Testament, according to the Romanists, are, the book of Enoch, (see Jude 14.) the third and fourth books of Esdras, the third and fourth books of Maccabees, the prayer of Manasseh, the Testament of the twelve Patriarchs, the Psalter of Solomon, and some other pieces of this nature.
The apocryphal books of the New Testament are the epistle of St Barnabas, the pretended epistle of St Paul to the Laodiceans, several spurious gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and Revelations; the book of Hermas, intitled the Shepherd, Jesus Christ's Letter to Abgarus, the epistles of St Paul to Seneca, and several other pieces of the like nature, as may be seen in the collection of the apocryphal writings of the New Testament made by Fabricius.
The books which are now lost, and cited in the Old Testament, are these, the book of the Righteous, or of Jasher, as our version of the Bible has it, (Josh. x. 13. and 2 Sam. i. 18.); the book of the wars of the Lord, (Numb. xxi. 14.); the annals of the kings of Israel, so often cited in the books of the Kings and Chronicles. The authors of these annals were the prophets, who lived in the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. We have likewise but a part of Solomon's three thousand proverbs, and his thousand and five songs, (1 Kings iv. 32.); and we have entirely lost what he wrote upon plants, animals, birds, fishes, and reptiles.
Ezra; in the opinion of most learned men, published the scriptures in the Chaldee character: For that language being grown wholly into use among the Jews, he thought proper to change the old Hebrew character for it, which hath since that time been retained only by the Samaritans, among whom it is preserved to this day.
Prideaux is of opinion that Ezra made additions in several parts of the Bible, where any thing appeared necessary for illustrating, connecting, or completing the work; in which he appears to have been assisted by the same spirit in which they were first written. Among such additions are to be reckoned the last chapter of Deuteronomy, wherein Moses seems to give an account of his own death and burial, and the succession of Joshua after him. To the same cause our learned author thinks are to be attributed many other interpolations in the Bible, which created difficulties and objections to the authenticity of the sacred text, no ways to be solved without allowing them. Ezra changed the names of several places which were grown obsolete, and instead of them put their new names, by which they were then called, in the text. Thus it is that Abraham is said to have pursued the kings who carried Lot away captive, as far as Dan; whereas that place in Moses's time was called Laish; the name Dan, being unknown till the Danites, long after the death of Moses, possessed themselves of it.
The Jewish canon of scripture was then settled by Ezra, yet not so but that several variations have been made in it. Malachi, for instance, could not be put in the Bible by him, since that prophet is allowed to have lived after Ezra; nor could Nehemiah be there, since mention is made, in that book, of Jaddus, as high-priest, and of Darius Codomannus, as king of Persia, who were at least an hundred years later than Ezra. It may be added, that in the first book of Chronicles, the genealogy of the sons of Zerubbabel is carried down for so many generations as must necessarily bring it to the time of Alexander, and consequently this book could not be in the canon in Ezra's days. It is probable, the two books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Malachi, were adopted into the Bible in the time of Simon the Just, the last of the men of the great synagogue.
As the Jews were very backward in having any intercourse with strangers, it was a long time before their sacred books came to be known and read in other nations. Josephus ascribes the little that is said of the Jews by pagan writers to this, that the latter had no opportunity of being acquainted with their historians, for want of a translation of their books into the Greek language. Aristeas indeed pretends, that there was an imperfect version of the scriptures before the time of Demetrius Phalerus; and that Theopompus intending to insert a part of them in his verses, was deprived of his understanding; but of this there is no proof.
The Jews, upon their return from the Babylonish captivity, having brought with them their Chaldaic or Assyrian language, which from that time became their mother-tongue, gave birth to the Chaldaic translations, or rather paraphrases of the Bible, called Targum. See TARGUM.