BIBLE (in Greek βιβλίον, or ἡ βιβλίον, the book), a name applied by Christians, by way of eminence, to the collection of books contained in the Old and New Testaments, known also by various other appellations, as the Sacred Books, Holy Writ, Inspired Writings, Scriptures, &c. The Jews styled their Bible, that is, the Old Testament, mikra, which signifies lesson, lecture, or reading. The same title (האגרת, the reading), is repeatedly applied by St Paul to the Old Testament, as 2 Cor. iii. 14. 1 Tim. iv. 13, but more generally he prefers the more common designation, הכתוב, the writing.
The Jews acknowledged only the Scriptures of the Old Testament, the collecting and publishing of which is unanimously ascribed, both by Jews and Christians, to Ezra. Some of the ancient fathers, on no other foundation than that of the fabulous and apocryphal book of Esdras, pretend that the Scriptures were entirely lost and destroyed at the Babylonish captivity, and that Ezra restored them all by divine revelation. What is certain is, that in the reign of Josiah there was no book of the law extant excepting 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; by which means copies of the whole became multiplied among the people, and were carried 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 is said to have divided into three parts. 1. The Law; 2. The Prophets; 3. The Chetubim or Hagiographa, that is, 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. The former prophets, including Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings. 2. The latter prophets, viz. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and the twelve minor prophets.
III. The Hagiographa consist of the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, Job, Ruth, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah.
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 fifty-four, because in their intercalated years a month being then added, there were fifty-four sabbaths. In other years they reduced them to fifty-two, 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 fifty-four 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, which division, if Ezra was not the author of 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 vernacular tongue, and the Chaldee came 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 dialect; 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.; others to Hugo de Sancto Caro, commonly called Hugo Cardinalis, who flourished about the year 1240, and who projected the first concordance, which is that of the vulgar Latin Bible. The aim of this work being to facilitate the finding of any word or passage in the Scriptures, it became necessary to divide the book into sections, and the sections into subsections; for till that time it is generally supposed, though not correctly, that 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, is said to have been originated by a famous Jewish rabbi, named Mordcai 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 although he followed Hugo in his division of the books into chapters, he refined upon his invention as to the subdivision, and contrived the one by verses, a much more convenient method, which has been followed ever since. And thus, as the Jews borrowed the division of the books of the Holy
Scriptures into chapters from the Christians, the Christians in like manner borrowed that of the chapters into verses from the Jews.
The following is 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.; and the reader will observe, that those books to which the asterisms are prefixed have been rejected by the Protestants as apocryphal.
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges and Ruth, 1 Samuel or 1 Kings, 2 Samuel or 2 Kings, 1 Kings, otherwise called 3 Kings, 2 Kings, otherwise called 4 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, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, * 1 Maccabees, * 2 Maccabees. The books of the New Testament are, The Gospel of St Matthew, of St Mark, of St Luke, and of St John; The Acts of the Apostles; The Epistles of St Paul to the Romans, to the Corinthians I., to the Corinthians II., to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians I., to the Thessalonians II., to Timothy I., to Timothy II., to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; The general Epistles of St James, of St Peter I., of St Peter II., of St John I., of St John II., of St John III., of St Jude; 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 to the Laodiceans, several spurious gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and Revelations; the book of Hermas, 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, but 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); and 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.
In the opinion of most learned men, Ezra published the Scriptures in the Chaldee character; for that language having come into general use among the Jews, he thought proper to exchange the old Hebrew character for the Chaldee, which since that time has been retained only by the Samaritans. 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 may have been assisted by the same inspiration by which they were first written. Among such additions are to be reckoned the last chapter of Deuteronomy, in which 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, nowise to be solved without allowing them. Ezra changed the names of several places which were grown obsolete, and instead of them inserted the 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 a century later than Ezra. It may also be added, that in the first book of Chronicles, the genealogy of the sons of Zerubbabel is carried down for as many generations as to bring it down to the time of Alexander; and consequently this book could not be included in the canon in Ezra's days. It is probable that the two books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Malachi, were admitted 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 communicating their Scripture to strangers. Despising and shunning the Gentiles, they would not disclose to them any of the treasures concealed in the sacred books. We may add, that the people bordering on Judæa, as the Egyptians, Phœnicians, Arabs, and others, 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 traces of the Scripture history interspersed in the Egyptian, Chaldee, Phœnician, and Grecian history; and he accounts for it from the circumstance of the sacred books not having as yet been translated into Greek or other languages, and consequently not being known to the writers of those nations.
The first Greek version of the Bible was that of the SEPTUAGINT, 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 that of the Seventy, critics profess to 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, in the estimation of the Jews, are the Spanish. The German manuscripts are less esteemed by the Jews, but far more valued by biblical critics. The two kinds are easily distinguished from each other; the former being in beautiful characters, like the Hebrew Bibles of Bomberg, Stephens, and Plantin, and the latter in characters like those of Munster and Gryphius.
Dr Kennicott, in his Dissertatio Generalis prefixed to his Hebrew Bible, observes, that the most ancient manuscripts were written between the years 900 and 1100; but that although those which are the most ancient are not more than 800 or 900 years old, they were transcribed from others of a still more ancient date. One manuscript preserved in the Bodleian library is not less than 800 years old. Another manuscript, equally ancient, is preserved in the imperial library at Vienna.
The most ancient printed Hebrew Bibles are those pub-
Bible. lished by the Jews of Italy. The Jews of Portugal also printed some parts of the Bible at Lisbon, before their expulsion. And in general it may be observed, 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 scarcely possible for others to succeed in it.
In the beginning of the sixteenth century Daniel Bomberg printed several Hebrew Bibles in folio and quarto at Venice, most of which are esteemed both by the Jews and Christians. The first, which was printed in 1518, is the least exact, and generally goes by the name of Felix Pratensis, the person who revised it. This edition contains the Hebrew text, the targum, and the commentaries of several rabbins. In 1526 the same Bomberg printed the folio Bible of Rabbi Benchajim, with his preface, the masoretical divisions, a preface of Aben Ezra, a double masora, and several various readings. The third edition was printed in 1549; it is the same with the second, but much more correct. From these editions it was that Buxtorf, the father, printed his rabbinical Hebrew Bible at Basel in 1618; which, although 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, in 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, 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; particularly one in eight columns, with a preface by Arias Montanus, in 1572, which far exceeds the Complutensian Bible, in paper and print, and contents, and is called the Royal Bible, because it was printed at the expense of Philip II. of Spain; and 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 quarto in 1635, the other in octavo, 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 quarto at Venice, with small literal notes at the bottom of each page, where he explains the Hebrew words by Spanish ones. This Bible was much esteemed by the Jews at Constantinople: in the text they have distinguished between words where the point kamets is to be read with a kamets-katuph, that is, by o, instead of a.
Of all the editions of the Hebrew Bible in octavo, among the most beautiful are the two of Jo. Athias, a Jew of Amsterdam. The first, of 1661, is on the best paper, but that of 1667 is the more exact: that, however, published since at Amsterdam by Van der Hooft in 1705 is preferable to either of them.
After Athias, three Hebraizing Protestants engaged in revising and publishing the Hebrew Bible, namely, Clodius, Jablonski, and Opius. Clodius's edition was published at Frankfort 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 errors have crept into it. That of Jablonski, in 1699, in 4to, at Berlin, is very beautiful in letter and in print; but although the editor pretends to have made use of the editions of Athias and Clodius, some critics find it scarcely in any respect different from the quarto edition of Bomberg. That of Opius is also in quarto, at Keil in 1709. The character is large and good, but the paper is bad. It was executed
with a great deal of care; but the editor made use of no manuscripts excepting those of the German libraries, neglecting the French ones; which indeed is an omission common to all the three. They have this advantage, however, that besides the divisions used by the Jews, both general and particular, into paraskes and pesukim, they have also those of the Christians, or of the Latin Bibles, into chapters and verses, the keri and ketib, or various readings, Latin summaries, &c., which render them of considerable use with reference to the Latin edition and the concordances.
The little Bible of R. Stephens, in sexto-decimo, is very much prized for the beauty of the character. Care, however, must be taken to distinguish it, as there is 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 octavo and vigesimo-quarto, 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 octavo, with two columns, and the other in twenty-fours, reprinted by Raphelengius at Leyden in 1610. There is also an edition of them by Laurence at Amsterdam in 1631, in a large character; and another in duodecimo, at Frankfort, in 1694, full of errors, 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 Hooft, without points, to which he has added marginal notes, supplying the variations of the Samaritan copy. Dr Kennicott, after almost twenty years' laborious collation of nearly 700 copies, manuscript and printed, either of the whole or of particular parts of the Bible, published, in 1776, the first volume of the Hebrew Bible in folio. The text is that of Van der Hooft, 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 Hooft. This edition is printed on an excellent type; and 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 Hooft, are placed separately at the bottom of the page, and marked with numbers referring to the copies from which they are taken. The second volume was published in 1780, with a Dissertatio Generalis annexed, containing an account of manuscripts collated for this edition.
Greek Bibles. There is a great number of editions of the Bible in Greek; but they may be all reduced to three or four principal ones, viz. that of Complutensian or Alcala, that of Venice, that of Rome, and that of Oxford. The first was published in 1515, by Cardinal Ximenes, and inserted in the Polyglot Bible, usually called the Complutensian Bible; but this edition is not correct, the Greek of the Seventy being altered in many places according to the Hebrew text. It has, however, been reprinted in the Polyglot Bible of Antwerp, in that of Paris, and in the quarto Bible commonly called Vatablus's Bible.
The second Greek Bible is that of Venice, printed by Aldus in 1518. Here the Greek text of the Septuagint is reprinted just as it stood in the manuscript, full of the errors of the copyists, but capable of being easily amended. This edition was reprinted at Strasburg in 1526, at Basel in 1545, at Frankfort in 1597, and at other places, with
some alterations to bring it nearer the Hebrew. The most commodious is that of Frankfort, there being added to this, little scholia, which show the different interpretations of the old Greek translators. The author of this collection has not added his name, but it is commonly ascribed to Junius.
The third Greek Bible is that of Rome, or the Vatican, in 1587, with Greek scholia collected from the manuscripts in the Roman libraries by Pet. Morin. It was first set on foot by Cardinal Montalbo, afterwards Pope Sixtus V. This fine edition was reprinted at Paris in 1628 by J. Morin, priest of the oratory, who added the Latin translation, which in the Roman edition had been printed separately, with scholia. The Greek edition of Rome has been printed in the Polyglot Bible of London; to which are added, at the bottom of each page, the various readings of the Alexandrian manuscript, which has also been reprinted in England in quarto and duodecimo, with some alterations. It was again published at Franeker in 1709 by Bos, who added all the various readings he could find.
The fourth Greek Bible is that printed from the Alexandrian manuscript, and begun at Oxford by Dr. Grabe in 1707. In this the Alexandrian manuscript is not printed such as it is, but such as it was thought it should be; that is, it is altered wherever there appeared any fault of the copyists, or any word inserted from any particular dialect. This some think an excellence, but others a fault, urging, that the manuscript should have been given absolutely and entirely of itself, and that all conjectures as to the readings should have been thrown into the notes.