BIBLE (in Greek βιβλίον, the book), 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 Testaments; 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) mibra; 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, acknowledged 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 22. At present, the Jews reckon 24 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.
The latter prophets are, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the 12 minor prophets.
And the Hagiographia consists 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 54 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 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,
brew, 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 has 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 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 of 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.
The books of the New Testament are,
The Revelation 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
Paul to the Laodiceans, several spurious gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and Revelations; the book of Heremas, entitled 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 cited in the Old Testament, and now lost, 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 3000 proverbs and his 1005 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 100 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.
The Jews, at first, were very reserved in communing.
VOL. III. Part II.
cating their Scripture to strangers: despising and shunning the Gentiles, they would not disclose to them any of the treasures concealed in the Bible. We may add, that the people bordering on the Jews, as the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Arabs, &c. were not very curious to know the laws or history of a people, whom in their turn they hated or despised. Their first acquaintance with these books was not till after the several captivities of the Jews, when the singularity of the Hebrew laws and ceremonies induced several to desire a more particular knowledge of them. Josephus seems surprised to find such slight footsteps of the Scripture-history interspersed in the Egyptian, Chaldean, Phoenician, and Grecian history; and accounts for it hence, that the sacred books were not as yet translated into Greek or other languages, and consequently not known to the writers of those nations.
The first version of the Bible was that of the SEP-TUAGINT into Greek, in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus; though some maintain that the whole was not then translated, but only the Pentateuch; between which and the other books in the version called of the Seventy, the critics find a great diversity in point of style and expression, as well as of accuracy.
Hebrew BIBLES are either manuscript or printed. The best manuscript Bibles are those copied by the Jews of Spain. Those copied by the Jews of Germany are less exact, but more common. The two kinds are easily distinguished from each other; the former being in beautiful characters, like the Hebrew Bibles of Bomberg, Stephens, and Plantin; the latter in characters like those of Munster and Gryphius. F. Simon observes, that the oldest manuscript Hebrew Bibles are not above six or seven hundred years old; nor does Rabbi Menaham, who quotes a vast number of them, pretend that any of them exceed six hundred years.
Dr Kennicot, in his Dissertatio Generalis prefixed to his Hebrew Bible, p. 21. observes, that the most ancient manuscripts were written between the years 900 and 1100: but though those that are the most ancient are not more than 800 or 900 years old, they were transcribed from others of a much more ancient date. The manuscript preserved in the Bodleian library is not less than 800 years old. Another manuscript, not less ancient, is preserved in the Caesarean library at Vienna.
The most ancient printed Hebrew Bibles are those published by the Jews of Italy, especially of Pelaro and Bresse. Those of Portugal also printed some parts of the Bible at Lisbon, before their expulsion.—This may be observed in the general, that the best Hebrew Bibles are those printed under the inspection of the Jews; there being so many minutiae to be observed, that it is scarce possible for any other to succeed in it.
In the beginning of the 16th century Dan. Bomberg printed several Hebrew Bibles in folio and quarto at Venice, most of which are esteemed both by the Jews and Christians: the first in 1517, which is the least exact, and generally goes by the name of Felix Pratenfis, the person who revised it. This edition contains the Hebrew text, the targum, and the commentaries of several rabbins. In 1528, the same Bom-
Berg printed the folio Bible of Rabbi Benchajim, with his preface, the maforetical divisions, a preface of Aben Ezra, a double mafora, and several various readings. The third edition was printed in 1618; it is the same with the second, but much more correct. From the former editions it was, that Buxtorf the father, printed his rabbinical Hebrew Bible at Basel in 1618; which, though there are many faults in it, is more correct than any of the former. In 1623 appeared at Venice a new edition of the rabbinical Bible by Leo of Modena, a rabbin of that city, who pretended to have corrected a great number of faults in the former edition; but, besides that it is much inferior to the other Hebrew Bibles of Venice, with regard to paper and print, it has passed through the hands of the inquisitors, who have altered many passages in the commentaries of the rabbins.
As to Hebrew Bibles in 4to, that of R. Stephens is esteemed for the beauty of the characters; but it is very incorrect. Plantin also printed several beautiful Hebrew Bibles at Antwerp: one, in eight columns, with a preface by Arias Montanus in 1571, which far exceeds the Complutensian in paper and print, and contents; this is called the Royal Bible, because it was printed at the expence of Philip II. of Spain: another at Geneva in 1619; besides many more of different sizes, with and without points. Manasseh Ben Israel, a learned Portuguese Jew, published two editions of the Hebrew Bible at Amsterdam; the one in 4to in 1635; the other in 8vo in 1639: the first has two columns, and for that reason is commodious for the reader. In 1639, R. Jac. Lombroso published a new edition in 4to at Venice, with small literal notes at the bottom of each page, where he explains the Hebrew words by Spanish words. This bible is much esteemed by the Jews at Constantinople: in the text they have distinguished between words where the point camets is to be read with a camets-katuph, that is, by o, and not an a.
Of all the editions of the Hebrew Bible in 8vo, the most beautiful and correct are the two of Jo. Athias, a Jew of Amsterdam. The first, of 1661, is the best paper; but that of 1667 is the most exact; that, however, published since at Amsterdam by Vander Hooght, in 1705, is preferable to any of them.
After Athias, three Hebraizing Protestants, engaged in revising and publishing the Hebrew Bible, viz. Clodius, Jablonfki, and Opius. Clodius's edition was published at Franckfort in 1677, in 4to. At the bottom of the page it has the various readings of the former editions; but the author does not appear sufficiently versed in the accenting, especially in the poetical books; besides, as it was not published under his eye, many faults have crept in. That of Jablonfki in 1699, in 4to, at Berlin, is very beautiful as to letter and print: but, though the editor pretends he made use of the editions of Athias and Clodius, some critics find it scarce in any thing different from the 4to edition of Bomberg. That of Opius is also in 4to at Keil, in 1709; the character is large and good, but the paper bad: it is done with a great deal of care; but the editor made use of no manuscripts but those of the German libraries; neglecting the French ones, which is an omission common to all three. They have this advantage, however, that besides the divi-
sions used by the Jews, both general and particular, into paraske and pesukim, they have also those of the Christians, or of the Latin Bibles, into chapters and verses; the keir ketib, or various readings, Latin summaries, &c. which made them of considerable use, with respect to the Latin edition and the concordances.
The little Bible of R. Stephens, in 1610, is very much prized for the beauty of the character. Care, however, must be taken, there being another edition of Geneva exceedingly like it, excepting that the print is worse, and the text less correct. To these may be added some other Hebrew Bibles without points, in 8vo and 24to, which are much coveted by the Jews; not that they are more exact, but more portable than the rest, and are used in their synagogues and schools: of these there are two beautiful editions, the one of Plantin, in 8vo, with two columns, and the other in 24to reprinted by Raphalengius at Leyden, in 1610. There is also an edition of them by Laurence at Amsterdam in 1631, in a large character; and another in 12mo, at Franckfort, in 1694, full of faults, with a preface of M. Leusden at the head of it.
Houbigant published an elegant edition of the Hebrew Bible at Paris, in 1753, contained in four vols. folio. The text is that of Van der Hooght, without points, to which he has added marginal notes, supplying the variations of the Samaritan copy. Dr Kennicott, after almost 20 years laborious collation of near 700 copies, manuscript and printed, either of the whole or of particular parts of the Bible, did, in 1776, publish the first volume of the Hebrew Bible in folio. The text is that of Everard Van der Hooght, already mentioned, differing from it only in the disposition of the poetical parts, which Dr Kennicott has printed in hemistichs, into which they naturally divide themselves; however, the words follow one another in the same order as they do in the edition of Van der Hooght. This edition is printed on an excellent type; the Samaritan text, according to the copy in the London Polyglot, is exhibited in a column parallel with the Hebrew text; those parts of it only being introduced in which it differs from the Hebrew. The numerous variations both of the Samaritan manuscripts from the printed copy of the Samaritan text, and of the Hebrew manuscripts from the printed text of Van der Hooght, are placed separately at the bottom of the page, and marked with numbers referring to the copies from which they are taken. The editor regrets, that the differtatio generalis, which would help to enrich this article, is not to be published till the second volume is ready.