Result.

19. Such is a sample of the evidence by which it is proved that in the 1st century of the Christian era (and in the case of the Old Testament two centuries earlier), there existed and were known throughout the Roman world books called the Sacred Scriptures, written by inspired men, and that the present text of the Bible is identical with the text which these books contained.

mena.

mena.

20. These remarks apply without exception to the books of the Old Testament, and to twenty out of the Homologoutwenty-seven of the New. These twenty are the Antilego- four Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles of Paul (except that to the Hebrews), and the first Epistles of John and Peter. These twenty books were universally received as genuine, and were therefore called Homologoumena (i. e. acknowledged). The other seven books were disputed for a time by particular churches, and were therefore styled Antilegomena (or disputed). After a deliberate examination, however, they were at last received as genuine, the very delay proving the closeness of the scrutiny which their claims had undergone.

21. Decisive as these facts are, they give a very inadequate Facts more idea of the amount of proof of which the genuinedecisive still. ness of the Scriptures is susceptible. The MSS. are innumerable. They belong to all ages: and many of them are very ancient. They have been kept for centuries in distant parts of the world, under the custody of opposing sects, and in circumstances that made extensive or important alterations impossible. The possessors of these MSS. deemed them of the highest value, and professed to live under the influence of the truths contained in them. Copyists preserved them with the utmost reverence, counting every letter of every book, and registering the very tittles of the law. How remarkable, how decisive as an evidence of Divine care, that while all the libraries of Europe and of the world containing copies of the Sacred Scriptures have been examined, all ancient versions extant compared, the MSS. of all countries from the 3rd to the 16th century collated, the commentaries of all the Fathers again and again investigated, nothing has been discovered, not even a single general reading which can set aside any important passage hitherto received as genuine. This negative conclusion, that our Bible does not essentially differ from the

Bible of the Primitive Church is indeed an ample recompense for all the labour and time which have been devoted to these pursuits.

Effect of various readings.

22. To give the reader a just conception of the expression that our Bible does not differ essentially from the Bible of the Primitive Church, we may notice what the various readings of the New Testament involve. In the Epistle to the ROMANS, for example, which contains Epistle to 433 verses, there are at most four passages, the Romans. meaning of which is modified by readings which Griesbach deems of weight :

In ch. 7. 6, for "that being dead in which we were held," he reads "We being dead to that in which we were held:" a difference in the original between o and e. So some editions of the tex. rec. In ch. 11. 6, he omits the latter half of the verse.

In ch. 12. 11, he reads "time" for "Lord;" αιρ for υρι.
In ch. 16. 5, he reads the first fruits of Asia for Achaia.

These are the only corrections that affect the sense, and they are all unimportant. To make them he examined all the principal MSS. already named, 110 others, and 30 from Mount Athos collated by Matthæi, who travelled over a great part of Russia and Asia for this purpose.

Epistle to
Galatians.

In Galatians the important corrections are three only:

In ch. 4. 17, for you in the second clause he reads us: a change in the original of one letter.

In ch. 4. 26, he omits the word "all."

In ch. 5. 19, he omits the word “adultery.”

Corrections which make no difference in the sense.

New

In the 7959 verses of the New Testament there are not more than ten or twelve various readings of great imTestament. portance, and these affect not the doctrines of Scripture, but only the number of proof passages in which the doctrines are revealed.

The important various readings sanctioned by Griesbach are the following:

In Acts 8. 37, he omits the verse.

In Acts 9. 6, he omits the first part of the verse.

In Acts 20. 28, for "the church of God," he reads "the church of the Lord," a change depending on one letter K for e.

In Phil. 4. 13, for "through Christ," he reads "through Him." In 1 Tim. 3. 16, for "God manifest," he reads "who was:" a difference arising from the supposed omission of a mark in one of the two letters of the word-o for .

In Jas. 2. 18, for "by thy works," he reads "without thy works," as do many copies of the English version.

In 1 John 5. 7, 8, he omits from "in heaven," to "in earth."
In Jude 4, he omits "God."

In Rev. 8. 13, for "angel,” he reads "eagle."

These corrections are all sanctioned, except Acts 20. 28, and 1 Tim. 3. 16, by Scholz and Hahn. In these two passages both writers agree with the common text, as they do much more frequently than Griesbach in other unimportant readings. Several of the readings of Griesbach, though not theologically important, remove difficulties from the present text. 23. Of the Old Testament, a careful examiner has noted

Old
Testament.

1314 various readings of value. Of these, 566 are adopted in the English version; 147 of the whole affect the sense, but none can be regarded as theologically important: generally they correct a date or complete the sense. See Hamilton's Codex Criticus, Lond. 1821.

Result.

24. The writings of Terence (six pieces only) contain 30,000 variations, and they have been copied many times less frequently than the New Testament. We may well acquiesce, therefore, in the language of Bengel, who, after laborious research into these topics, wrote to his scholar Reuss, "Eat the Scripture bread in simplicity, just as you have it, and do not be disturbed if here and there you find a grain of sand which the mill-stone may have suffered to pass. If the Holy Scriptures, which have been so often copied, were absolutely without variations, this would be so great a miracle that faith in them would be no longer faith. I am astonished, on the contrary, that from all these transcriptions there has not resulted a greater number of various readings."

But many expressions have already been employed which need to be explained. If their meaning be clear, yet is there much to be said in relation to them before the reader is thoroughly prepared to understand all they involve. The general

Quoted by Gaussen in his "Theopneustia."

conclusion that our Bible is, or the whole, as inspired writers left it, is undoubted; but the Bible-student often requires materials for closer inquiry. We proceed, therefore, to give a brief account of the original languages of the sacred volume -Hebrew and Hellenistic Greek-of the manuscripts, versions, and various readings of the sacred text.

a

Sec. 2. The Original Languages of Scripture.-Hebrew and the Shemitish Languages generally.

Hebrew.

Name.

25. The Hebrew language, in which nearly all the Old Testament is written, was the language of the Hebrews or Israelites during their independence. The people themselves were known among other nations by the name of Hebrews and Jews, not by the name of Israelites. The epithet of Hebrew, however, was not applied to their language till the days of the son of Sirach (B.C. 130). It occurs first in the Apocrypha, where it means, not the old Hebrew, but the Aramæan, or Syro-Aramæan. This is also the meaning of the term in the New Testament. Josephus seems to have been the first who applied the name Hebrew language (гooа Twν 'Eßpãιwr) to the old Hebrew, and this is the uniform meaning of the phrase in his writings. The Targums call the Hebrew “the holy tongue,” and in the Old Testament it is called the language of Canaan, or the Jews' language. Isa. 19. 18: 36. 13.

26. That the Hebrew language was the common tongue of Really Canaan and Phoenicia is generally admitted; a conPhoenician. clusion supported by several facts.

(r.) The Canaanitish names of persons and places mentioned in Scripture are genuine Hebrew, as Abimelech, Melchizedek, Salem, &c.

(2.) Fragments of the Phoenician and Carthaginian tongues which still remain on coins and in inscriptions preserved in Roman and Greek writers, are Hebrew. Augustine and Jerome both testify, moreover, that the Carthaginian spoken in their time was made up chiefly of Hebrew words, while there is evidence that Carthage was founded by Phoenicians, who left Canaan before the Jews could have resided long in their country.

(3.) The silence of Scripture respecting any difference between

a See Preface.

the language of Canaanites and Hebrews is also remarkable. They both dwelt in the land, and yet no difference of speech is noticed, though the difference between the language of Hebrew and Egyptian (Psa. 81. 5: 114. 1) is noticed, and even between the Hebrew and cognate languages as in the case of the Aramæan used by the Assyrians (Isa. 36. II); and of the Eastern Aramæan used by the Chaldees (Jer. 5. 15). It may be added that the Hebrew of Abraham's day was probably closely allied to the original tongue, if it were not itself identical with it. This conclusion is based chiefly on the proper names of the early chapters of Genesis. These names are all significant in Hebrew, and the meaning in that tongue always explains the reason why they were given. See Havernick's Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 134: see also Gesenius' Monum. Phoenicia.

27. The Hebrew, or modern Phoenician, as we may call it, belongs to the Shemitish family of languages, and is most closely connected with the other members of that family, both in matter and in form. The other members are the following. 28. The Aramaan. Of the old Aramæan, as spoken while Hebrew was a living tongue, we have no remains. Aramaan. But there have been discovered, near Palmyra, some inscriptions in this language, which were written about the commencement of the Christian era. The language was spoken in Syria and Mesopotamia. See Gen. 31. 47, and

Jer. 10. II.

29. From this common root sprang the Chaldee or Eastern Chaldee and Aramaan, spoken in Chaldæa and Babylon, and the Syriac. Syriac, or Western Aramæan, spoken in Northern Mesopotamia and Syria, and perhaps the Hebrew itself. The Chaldee is known only from Jewish memorials-the Scriptures and the Targums. The purer style of Onkelos is called the Babylonian dialect, to distinguish it from the language of the later Targums, which has been called the Jerusalem or Palestine dialect, and which is really a mixture of Hebrew and Aramæan or Syriac. What is now called Syriac is new Aramæan, as formed or spoken by the Christians of Emessa and its neighbourhood. This tongue early produced a literature rich in ecclesiastical history and theology, and is still the ecclesiastical language of Syrian Christians. Chaldee is the language of part of Ezra and Daniel :" as Syriac was the language of the Jews in the days of our Lord.

Ezra 4. 8: 6. 18: 7. 12-26: Dan. 2. 4: 7. 28.