KENNICOTT (Dr Benjamin), well known in the learned world for his elaborate edition of the Hebrew Bible and other valuable publications, was born at Totnes in Devonshire in the year 1718. With the rank and character of his parents we are entirely unacquainted; but it is certain they were unable to satisfy that thirst for knowledge which they could not but discover in their son. Some opportunities of early improvement must, however, have been afforded him, or (which we sometimes see) the natural vigour of his mind must have superseded the necessity of them. For in the year 1743, he wrote A Poem on the Recovery of the Hon. Mrs Eliz. Courtenay from her late dangerous illness; and this probably recommended him to the notice of those gentlemen who afterwards sent him to Oxford and supported him there. In judging of this performance, they may be supposed to have considered not so much its intrinsic merit, as the circumstances under which it was produced. For though it might claim just praise as the fruit of youthful in-
dustry struggling with obscurity and indigence, as a Kennicott, poem it never rises above mediocrity, and generally sinks below it. But in whatever light these verses were considered, the publication of them was soon followed by such contributions as procured for the author the advantages of an academical education. In the year 1744 he entered at Wadham college; nor was it long before he distinguished himself in that particular branch of study in which he afterwards became so eminent. His two dissertations, On the Tree of Life, and The Oblations of Cain and Abel, came to a second edition so early as the year 1747, and procured him the singular honour of a bachelor's degree conferred on him grati by the University a year before the statutable time. The dissertations were gratefully dedicated to those benefactors whose liberality had opened his way to the University, or whose kindness had made it a scene not only of manly labour, but of honourable friendship. With such merit, and such support, he was a successful candidate for a fellowship of Exeter college, and soon after his admission into that society, he distinguished himself by the publication of several occasional sermons. In the year 1753 he laid the foundation of that stupendous monument of learned industry, at which the wife and the good will gaze with admiration, when prejudice, and envy, and ingratitude, shall be dumb. This he did by publishing his first dissertation, On the State of the Printed Hebrew Text, in which he proposed to overthrow the then prevailing notion of its absolute integrity. The first blow, indeed, had been struck long before, by Cappellus, in his Critica Sacra, published after his death by his son, in 1650—a blow which Buxtorf, with all his abilities and dialectical skill, was unable to ward off. But Cappellus having no opportunity of consulting MSS. though his arguments were supported by the authority of the Samaritan Pentateuch, of parallel passages, and of the ancient versions, could never absolutely prove his point. Indeed the general opinion was, that the Hebrew MSS. contained none, or at least very few and trifling variations from the printed text: and with respect to the Samaritan Pentateuch very different opinions were entertained. Those who held the Hebrew verity, of course condemned the Samaritan as corrupt in every place where it deviated from the Hebrew: and those who believed the Hebrew to be incorrect, did not think the Samaritan of sufficient authority to correct it. Besides, the Samaritan itself appeared to a very great advantage; for no Samaritan MSS. were then known, and the Pentateuch itself was condemned for those errors which ought rather to have been ascribed to the incorrectness of the editions. In this dissertation, therefore, Dr Kennicott, proved that there were many Hebrew MSS. extant, which, though they had hitherto been generally supposed to agree with each other, and with the Hebrew text, yet contained many and important various readings: and that from those various readings considerable authority was derived in support of the ancient versions. He announced the existence of six Samaritan MSS. in Oxford only, by which many errors in the printed Samaritan might be removed; and he attempted to prove, that even from the Samaritan, as it was already printed, many passages in the Hebrew might undoubtedly be corrected. This work, as it was reasonable to expect, was examined with great severity
Kennicott. verity both at home and abroad. In some foreign universities the belief of the Hebrew verity, on its being attacked by Capellus, had been insisted on as an article of faith—Ista Capelli sententia adeo non approbata fuit fidei sociis, ut potius Helvetii theologi, et speciatim Genevenses, anno 1678, peculiari canone caverint, ne quis in divisione sua minister ecclesie recipiatur, nisi fateatur publice, textum Hebraum, ut hodie est in exemplaribus Masoreticis, quoad consonantes et vocales, divinum et authenticum esse, (Wolfii Biblioth. Heb. tom. ii. 27). And at home this doctrine of the corrupt state of the Hebrew text was opposed by Comings and Bate, two Hutchinsonians, with as much violence as if the whole truth of the revelation were at stake.
The next three or four years of Dr Kennicott's life were principally spent in searching out and examining Hebrew MSS. though he found leisure not only to preach, but to publish several occasional sermons. About this time Dr Kennicott became one of the king's preachers at Whitehall; and in the year 1759 we find him vicar of Culham in Oxfordshire. In January 1760 he published his second dissertation on the state of the Hebrew Text; in which, after vindicating the authority and antiquity of the Samaritan Pentateuch, he disarmed the advocates for the Hebrew verity of one of their most specious arguments. They had observed that the Chaldee Paraphrase having been made from Hebrew MSS. near the time of Christ, its general coincidence with the present Hebrew Text must evince the agreement of this last with the MSS. from which the paraphrase was taken. Dr Kennicott demonstrated the fallacy of this reasoning, by showing that the Chaldee Paraphrase had been frequently corrupted, in order to reconcile it with the printed text; and thus the weapons of his antagonists were successfully turned upon themselves. He appealed also to the writings of the Jews themselves on the subject of the Hebrew Text, and gave a compendious history of it from the close of the Hebrew canon down to the invention of printing, together with a description of 103 Hebrew MSS. which he had discovered in England, and an account of many others preserved in various parts of Europe. A collation of the Hebrew MSS. was now loudly called for by the most learned and enlightened of the friends of biblical criticism; and in this same year (1760) Dr Kennicott emitted his proposals for collating all the Hebrew MSS. prior to the invention of printing, that could be found in Great Britain and Ireland, and for procuring at the same time as many collations of foreign MSS. of note, as the time and money he should receive would permit. His first subscribers were the learned and pious Archbishop Secker, and the delegates of the Oxford pres, who with that liberality which has generally marked their character, gave him an annual subscription of 40l. In the first year the money received was about 500 guineas, in the next it arose to 900, at which sum it continued stationary till the tenth year, when it amounted to 1000. During the progress of the work the industry of our author was rewarded by a canonry of Christ Church. He was also presented, though we know not exactly when, to the valuable living of Mynhenyote, in Cornwall, on the nomination of the Chapter of Exeter. In 1776 the first volume was published, and in 1780 the whole was completed. If now we consider that
above 600 MSS. were collated, and that the whole work occupied 20 years of Dr Kennicott's life, it must be owned that sacred criticism is more indebted to him than to any scholar of any age. Within two years of his death, he resigned his living in Cornwall, from conscientious motives, on account of his not having a prospect of ever again being able to visit his parish. Although many good and conscientious men may justly think, in this case, that his professional labours carried on elsewhere might properly have entitled him to retain this preferment, and may apply this reasoning in other cases; yet a conduct so signally disinterested deserves certainly to be admired and celebrated. Dr Kennicott died at Oxford, after a lingering illness, Sept. 18, 1783; and left a widow, who was sister to the late Edward Chamberlayne, Esq; of the treasury. At the time of his death he was employed in printing Remarks on Select Passages in the Old Testament; which were afterwards published, the volume having been completed from his papers.