so zealously pursued," to intrude upon the text when its form was once established." [Slight alterations, however, it appears, were actually made from the Targums, and for the sake of rendering the grammatical structure more perfect. Sometimes the text of the manuscript did not agree with the Targums, and its possessor would make the text conform to the paraphrase. Thus arose the slight differences in punctuation, and the division of vowels, and even in consonants and words, which are still found in the manuscripts. As the Targums were often written on the margin of the text, so an occasion was offered for interpolating the one from the other. But the present state of the text, perhaps, justifies a suspicion, rather than a positive assertion, that attempts have been made, in some instances, to produce this conformity. There are passages in which the manuscripts do not agree-where the old versions support one reading, and the Targums another. In such cases, the reading which agrees with the Targum is properly suspected. Perhaps the alterations to suit the rules of grammar are still more rare.]

C

When the rabbins of the middle ages adhered to old and celebrated manuscripts, they seem to have been such as had the truest copies of the masoretic text for their

a

Jahn, 1. c. p. 400, sq., thinks the text has not been altered from the Targums, but rather the Targums from the text. In this he departs from the opinion expressed in the former edition of his work, and also from Eichhorn, § 134. Kennicott, Diss. ii. super Ratione Text. Heb. p. 173, sqq., thinks the Targums have been altered to conform to the text.

Meir Hallevi, about 1250, complains of the corruption of the MSS.; but his complaint relates chiefly to the scriptio plena et defectiva. See his preface to the Masora, inserted by Bruns, in Kennicott, Diss. Gen. p. 113, sqq. Buxtorf, Tiberias, p. 44.

basis.

[Among these celebrated manuscripts, often quoted, are:

1. Hillel's manuscript. It is from the hand of a deceiver, and has no critical value, yet attained a great celebrity from the name of its reputed author. Its writer is unknown. Some ascribe it to the Hillel who lived a century before Christ; others to Hillel the Prince, who lived in Palestine 340 A. C. Kimchi, in the thirteenth, and Rabbi Zadok, in the fifteenth century, speak of it as still extant.

2. The rabbins often cite a Babylonian manuscript, which is, perhaps, the recension made by Ben Naphtali.'

3. Ben Asher's recension is, perhaps, the work referred to as the manuscript of Israel, and the Jerusalem and Egyptian manuscript.

4. The codex Sinai contains only the Pentateuch, and is remarkably accurate in its accentuation.

5. The Pentateuch of Jericho is esteemed the most accurate in respect to the full and defective readings.

6. The codex Sanbuki, which Richard Simon found cited on the margin of a manuscript, and which is sometimes referred to by Menachem de Lonzano and Solomon Norzi.d

"Hottinger, Thes. Phil. p. 105, sqq. Carpzov, Crit. sac. p. 368, sqq. Kennicott, Diss. Gen. § 54-56.

с

b [See above, § 93.]

All of us

[Maimonides, Hil. Seph. Thora. ch. viii. p. 4, says, "The book on which we rely, in these matters, is very celebrated in Egypt. It was kept many years at Jerusalem, that other copies might be corrected from it. rely upon this, because Ben Asher corrected it, often revised it, many years in laboring diligently upon it." Walton, Prol. iv. 9. thinks the MS. of Israel is not the same as the Egyptian MS. Bruns apud Kennicott, Diss. Gen. § 54.]

and spent Eichhorn

d [Rabbi Menachem de Lonzano, Or Thorah, (Berol. 1745, 4to.,) fol. 13,

7. The book Taggin, which Jacob Ben Chajim places beside "the most accurate manuscripts." But all of these, with the manuscripts containing eastern and western readings of Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali, are lost.]'

§ 95.

THE PRINTED TEXT. PRINCIPAL EDITIONS OR RECENSIONS.

[In general, the early editions of the Hebrew Bible are printed on parchment, in large, black letters, with a wide margin. The initial letters and words are not printed, but executed with a pen, or wooden stamp, and ornamented. They are without a title-page at the beginning, but have the name of the work at the end. They are without points, and are not remarkable for accuracy.]

Separate parts of the Old Testament first appeared in print. The Psalter, with Kimchi's commentary, was first printed in 1477, probably at Bologna. [It contains one hundred and forty-nine leaves, small folio; it has not the less and greater, the extended and final letters. It is without the points, except in Ps. i.—iv. 2, and v. 12, 13, vi. 1, which are rudely pointed. It is printed with numerous abbreviations and omissions. It has no accents except Soph pasuk. It is printed very carelessly, for sometimes whole verses are left out.

col. 3, and fol. 15, col. 4, cited in Eichhorn, § 374. Tychsen, Tent. p. 219, 249.]

a

[See specimens of the readings of these MSS. in Eichhorn, Repert. vol. xii. p. 242, sqq.]

C

b [Eichhorn, § 136, 374. Kennicott, Diss. Gen. § 54-58, sqq.]

[De Rossi, Annales Heb. Typog. See Tychsen's Essay on the Pentateuch, printed at Bologna, 1482, in Eichhorn's Repert. vol. vi. p. 77, sqq.]

is often omitted, and an empty space left, with an inverted in it."

The Psalter was again printed in duodecimo, without place or date, but, as it is supposed, between 1477 and 1480; again, about the same time, in the same form, but with an index and certain peculiar benedictions." The whole Pentateuch was printed, with the points, the Chaldee paraphrase, and Jarchi's commentary, at Bologna, in 1482, folio. Ruth, Ecclesiastes, Solomon's Song, and the Lamentations, were published, with Jarchi's commentary, and Esther, with that of Aben Ezra, as it is conjectured, at the same place and time. Then the Early and Later Prophets, with Kimchi's commentary, appeared in two folios, at Soncino, in 1486.]

The various modern editions of the Hebrew Bible may be traced to the following sources, namely:

I. The entire Hebrew Bible was first printed at Soncino, in 1488, in small folio. This edition, it appears,

a

[See Tychsen's description of this edition in Eichhorn, 1. c. vol. v. p. 134, sqq.] On this and other ancient editions of the O. T., see J. B. de Rossi, De Hebr. Typographiæ Origine ac Primitiis, sive antiquis et rarissimis Heb. Bib. Edit. Sec. xv.; Parm. 1776, 4to., rec. cum Præf. Hufnagel; Erl. 1778, 8vo. His De Typographia Hebr. Ferrariensi Comment. Hist.; Parm. 1780, 8vo., auct. cum Præf. Hufnagel; Erl. 1781, 8vo. His Annales Typographiæ Ebr. Sabionetens. Appendice aucti, ex Italicis Latin. fecit J. Fr. Roos; Erl. 1783, 8vo. No. 14, 17, 21, 22, 23, 29. His De ignotis nonnullis antiquiss. Hebr. Textus Editt. et critico earum Usu. Accedit de Editt. Heb. Bib. Appendix hist. crit. ad Biblioth. sac. Le-Longio-Maschianam; Erl. 1782, 4to. His Annales Heb. Typogr. Sec. xv.; Parm. 1795, 4to. His Annales Typogr. ab An. 1501 ad 1540, ib. 1799, 4to. O. G. Tychsen, l. c. Kennicott, Diss. Gen. No. 255, sqq., p. 436, sqq., ed. Bruns.

d [Tychsen, in Eichhorn's Repert. vol. vii. p. 165, sqq., and viii. 51, sqq. De Rossi, l. c. p. 40, sqq. For a full account of these editions, see Eichhorn, Einleit. § 392, and Rosenmüller, Handbuch, vol. i. p. 190, sqq.]

was followed, throughout, by that printed at Brescia, in 1494. [Bruns makes it appear that this edition was made neither from very ancient, nor very good, manuscripts. It is so rare that only nine copies are known in Europe. There were twenty-seven editions of the whole or a part of the Hebrew text before the sixteenth century.]

II. The Hebrew Bible of the Complutensian Polyglot (1514-1517) represents an indifferent text, which has been made the basis of subsequent editions. [This edition was the work of Cardinal Ximenes, who assembled the most learned men of Spain to assist him. He expended large sums in the purchase of Hebrew manuscripts, and borrowed those of the Vatican and other libraries. Fourteen years were spent in preparatory

"From this edition the following descendants have proceeded: The first Bib. Rab. of Bomberg, 1517, 1518, ed. Felix Pratensis; Bomberg's manual editions, from 1518 to 1521, in 4to.; Robert Stephens's editions, in 4to., from 1539 to 1544; and Sebastian Münster's Bib. Heb.; Basil, 1536, 2 vols. 4to. Luther, in his translation of the O. T., used the edition of Brescia, 1494. [His copy, it is said, is still preserved at Berlin.] See J. G. Palm, De Codd. V. et N. T. quibus Lutherus.. ...... usus est; Hamb. 1753, 8vo. B. W. D. Schultz, Vollst. Kritik üb. die Ausgabe der Bib. Heb.; Berlin, 1766, 8vo. p. 13, sqq., 244, sqq. On the affinity of the editions of Soncino and Brescia, see Bruns, in Ammon, Hanlein, and Paulus, Theol. Journal, vol. vi. p. 757, sq. Annales Helmst.; 1782, vol. i. p. 110, vol. ii. p. 237. [Gerson, "son of the wise Rabbi Moses," the editor of the Brescia edition, had no mean opinion of his own labors; for he says, "This incomparable work was finished (the world will therefore be filled with the glory of the Eternal) in the year 1494, at Brescia, in Venice, whose fame will be exalted thereby."]

с

[See Eichhorn's remarks upon each of them, § 392.]

Namely, of Bib. Polyg. Bertrami, ex Officina Sanctandri, (1586, fol.,) and ex Officina Commelini, (1599 and 1616.) [Rosenmüller, 1. c. vol. iii. p. 279, sqq. Wolf, Bib. Heb. vol. ii. p. 539. Kennicott, 1. c. p. 347, sqq. Eichhorn, § 393, a.]

See Alvarez Gomez, De Gestis Fr. Ximenes, (Complut. 1569, fol. lib. ii. p. 47,) who says he collected seven Hebrew MSS., which are now at Complutensium, from different countries, at an expense of 40,000 ducats. Com