Of the first HEBREW PRINTING

Of the first HEBREW PRINTING. A very satisfactory account of this branch of printing is thus given by Dr. Kennicott, in his Annual Accounts of the Collation of Hebrew MSS. p. 112. "The method which seems to have been originally observed, in printing the Hebrew Bible, was just what might have been expected: 1. The Pentateuch, in 1482. 2. The Prior Prophets, in 1484. 3. The Posterior Prophets, in 1486. 4. The Hagiographa,

Printing. in 1487. And, after the four great parts had been thus printed separately (each with a comment), the whole text (without a comment) was printed in one volume in 1488: and the text continued to be printed, as in these first editions, so in several others for 20 or 30 years, without marginal Keri or Masora, and with greater arguments to the more ancient Mss. till, about the year 1520, some of the Jews adopted later Mss. and the Masora; which absurd preference has obtained ever since."

Thus much for the ancient editions given by Jews.

In 1642, a Hebrew Bible was printed at Mantua, under the care of the most learned Jews in Italy. This Bible had not been heard of among the Christians in this country, nor perhaps in any other; tho' the nature of it is very extraordinary. The text indeed is nearly the same with that in other modern editions; but at the bottom of each page are various readings, amounting in the whole to above 2000, and many of them of great consequence, collected from manuscripts, printed editions, copies of the Talmud, and the works of the most renowned Rabbies. And in one of the notes is this remark:—"That in several passages of the Hebrew Bible the differences are so many and so great, that they know not which to fix upon as the true readings."

We cannot quit this subject without observing, on Dr Kennicott's authority, that as the first printed Bibles are more correct than the later ones; so the variations between the first edition, printed in 1488, and the edition of Vander Hooght, in 1705, at Amsterdam, in 2 vols 8vo. amount, upon the whole, to above 1200! See further Bowyer and Nichols, p. 112—117.