HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF SOME OF THE MORE Important Versions and Editions of the Bible, -BY- CHARLES W. DARLING, A. M., Corresponding Secretary of the Oneida Historical Society, at Utica, N. Y.; HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE MORE IMPORTANT VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE, BEFORE THE DISCOVERY OF PRINTING, AND ALLUSIONS TO AFFINITIES BETWEEN LANGUAGES. BY CHARLES W. DARLING. THE nations of the world possessing inything like an organized government have ever had writings bearing upon the spiritual relations of their people. Among the more important of these writings may be named the Vedas of the Hindus, the teachings of the Confucious of China, the Koran of the Mohammedans, and what is known as the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures. These several writings have a most suggestive history, but as the latter have a special interest for all who know their influence, in this introductory paper it is proposed to refer only to them; and at the same time nothing but a compilation will be attempted. In the early centuries, what in our day is termed the Bible, was known as the Sacred Writings, the Holy Scriptures, and by other phrases of similar significance; nor was it until the fourth century that this collection of writings received the name by which it is now known throughout Christendom. Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople, and one of the most illustrious fathers of the Church, was the first to give the name of Bible to the various books of the Old and New Testament. According to Ripley the number of the books and their grouping have varied in different versions, thirty-nine appearing in Our English Bible. Jerome counted the same books so as to equal the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet: Judges and Ruth; the two books of Samuel; two of the Kings; two of the Chronicles; and the twelve minor prophets making five books. The later Jews of Palestine counted these twenty-four. As to their order the Masoretic arrangement, which is that of our Hebrew Bibles, is very ancient. The Greek speaking Jews varied from those of Palestine, and their arrangement is preserved in the Septuagint, which is followed in the Vulgate and in our English Bibles, an order not according to chronological succession, but made with a view to grouping similar classes of composition together, the historical being placed first, the poetic next, and the prophetical last. The Apocalypse, or the Revelation of St. John, is the only book in the New Testament of a strictly prophetic character. It was written shortly after the death of Nero, and whatever may have been the opinion of heathen writers as to the inspiration of the books of the Bible, we have the testimony of Papias of Sardis, Melito, Eusebius and others, that this book is inspired. Justin Martyr and Irenæus quote the Apocalypse as the work of the apostle John; and the third council of Carthage, in 397, admitted it into the list of canonical books. On the other hand Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, undertakes to prove that it was not the work of the apostle John who lived in Asia, and he bases his opinion upon the fact that the Apocalypse is absent from the ancient Peshito edition. Semler, De Wette, Ewald, Lucke and other exegetical writers have tried to prove that this book and the Gospel of John could not have been written by the same author, while Baur, Hilgenfeld, and others of the Tubingen school, ascribe the Apocalypse to him but not the fourth Gospel. Dana says that the Johannean origin of both the Apocalypse and the fourth Gospel was, on the other hand, vindicated against the critical schools by Hengstenberg, Godet, Hase and Niermeyer. In the opinion of the former the Apocalypse is a progressive representation of the entire history of the Church and the world, and therein may be found references to nearly every great event of the Christian era; such as the migrations of nations, the reformation, the pope, and the French revolution. Able advocates for the preterist mode of interpretation have been found in Grotius, Bossuet and Calmet, who say that the Apocalyptic visions have been fulfilled in the time which has passed since the book was written, and they refer principally to the triumph of Christianity over Judaism and paganism. Ewald, to come. Cer Bleek, Stuart, Lee and declare that the "seven heads" are the seven emperors, and as Galba was accounted as the sixth of the emperors, the fifth was Nero, who would return as the eighth. tan English writers believe that (with the exception of the first three chapters) the book refers to events which are yet For ten centuries men have been studying the authenticity and arrangement of the constituent parts of the Bible, and the text of the Old Testament has already passed through many revisions. The books, as is well known, were first written on stone and papyrus rolls, and the old Hebrew characters used are found on the coins of the Maccabees. After the return from the Babylonish exile, the ancient Hebrew was modified by Aramaic chirography until it took the square form of the Palmyrene letters. After a time the words were separated from each other, followed by a division into verses; then the necessity was felt of breaking up the text into sections. In this division the book of the law was made to consist of six hundred and sixty-nine headings) were known by the most parashes, which (in the absence of the prominent subject in each. The text thus written was most carefully guarded, and in copying nothing could be added, nothing taken away. Rules were made in regard to the manner in which the manuscripts were to be written, and those rules were absolute. In the Masoretic period, reckoned from the sixth to the eleventh centuries, the ancient manuscripts were critically collated and the notes of the Masorites were recorded in separate books. Since this period scholars have labored to elucidate the Masoretic text, and the manuscripts of the Pentateuch have been revised. In July, 1881, the writer published in the New York Observer, a list of Bibles translated, copied in manuscript, and printed in early times; but it is not possible to make such a list complete. The chronology of the period of history in which these manuscripts were written is, to a certain extent, involved in uncertainty, as dates were seldom given by the sacred writers. The scribes may have supposed that in the matter of chronology, the truth could easily be ascertained by such means as were at the disposal of those for whose immediate benefit those writings were made. The transcription of these copies scattered throughout Europe, Africa, Ethiopia, Syria, Persia and China, was chiefly the work of monks to whose laborious pens we are indebted for the preservation of the Scriptures through the darkness of the Middle Ages. The original copies, both of the Old and New Testaments, have nearly all disappeared, and the oldest manuscript known, as yet preserved, is of the fourth century after Christ. These Biblical manuscripts are usually divided into the Hebrew and Greek, of which the latter are more numerous, and include only the New Testament. The form of the letters varies, sometimes they are all capitals, and manuscripts so written are called uncial. These are the oldest, while cursive writings, in which the letters run on, being often joined, with no capitals except as initials, belong to a later age. Greek manuscripts are in the square form, and though doubtless rolls like the Hebrew existed in very early times but few of them have been preserved. The writer has one which contains only the book of Esther, and which probably dates back to a very remote period of time. McClintock states that the most ancient manuscripts are without any separation of words. At the beginning of the fifth century, and probably earlier, a dot was used to divide sentences. The older manuscripts are generally incomplete; a few originally contained the whole Bible, some the New Testament, and others only certain portions of it. Manuscripts where the original writing has been almost or altogether obliterated, and other matter substituted, are called Codices Palimpsesti, or Rescripti (palimpsest manuscripts), that is manuscripts rewritten. When the text is accompanied by a version, the manuscripts are termed Codices Bilingues, or double tongued. These are usually Greek and Latin, and in a very old manuscript the |