The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1880-06-24
OLD E0OKS.
Some Interesting Facts About
the Early Copies OF tiIe Bible
Modern and Ancient BOOK
Making,

Modern and Ancient Book
Making.
Philadelphia Ledger.
When man is satisfied because he
can Just read an English translation
Of foreign work, that he knows
everything that Is to be known about
it. and /, rs able to argue and enter
into all sorts Of controversies as any
man Oh earth, despises all ''bOok learn
ing beyond his own ken, we wish lie
could only be made aware Of his de
pendeuce upon the Iabors and learn
inc Of whole generations Of students
and critics on every old book, and on
every old thought and figure Of im~
portance that has come down to us,
from those in the Bible down to those
in Shakespeare Take for instance
the English Bible. There is hardly
a century since it has been completed,
but has contributed some important
matter, without which it would nave
been impossible for its meaning to be
made aS cleor to the English reader,
as it now Is to the most OF mel.
The man who now takes 1t up
reads 1t as one collection one volume;
but it was not until the time Of Ter
tuilan, a. u: ZVV' thaI the writing
Of the Ne" testament were coAecie';
or even spoken Oh us one. Even u.en
some OF the MINOR epl>ueS were Ife>
quentiy ommltted' ana Gy DO means
miTersa.ly known lis neloh-iHS 10 ],
at All. Inc teNl was written III Z Gen.
no, only without any attempt "i
punctuation OF accents Dat without
any space between me words. lAey
ran one at The END oI me o'Aer' Iheie
beng oIien no break from one emu OF
the line to the othef' All was one sol
Id word. The letters TOO were Sii rath-
er Ike Ill formed caPltaLS' sueh iet'erS
as a modern Urcek Schoiaf couIu win
difficulty and but Slowly ueclPher'
The DIVISIONS INTO chapters ana 'er>
ses were not made until the thlfleehts
century and many OF the Titles to the
books dld not 0rlglnaily DeionS 10
them. AS to the OLD testament II
was divided into three volumes or
d'i-renI 4'IeS' coLl7.SIlI9 VI I"c W.
tlngs Of Moses, the Prophets, ana the
HagiograPhs, OF sacred writing. IL
was written without any yo"eis, llIke
ourmodern short hand IN TINS reSpect')
and originally IN letters quiJe dliier,
eut from the present Hebrew, ana
such As would be almost entirely Gn-
inteILigible to the best modern He
brew scholar. Moreover, the IAN
guageof Palestine ha / undergone sucn
changes IhaJ the Hebrew o. the OLd
Testament was rot y much IKE the
spoken language Oh the jews Ill the
time Of Christ, us the English OF Chau-
Ger Is ike that OF the present day.
The Jews out oI Palestine mad almost
entirely lost the knowledge OF IL, using
the 5ePtuagut Greek translation m
stead parts OF which are very maccu,
rate. Phllo, though well educated
Jew OF AleXandrla' could not read a
line Of Hebrew; and JosephuS derived
nearly all his knowledge from the sep
t'Iaglnt.
Our presens translation compre-
hends a vast number OF results, derry
ed from the learning and laoors OF
coPylsts ana transI&lors o1 al lA'erIhe-
dlute periods, making the sense more
clear and easy to be understood.
Since 1911 great changes have been
made. Then the Ulble was printed
III folio, in black letter, hardly IegIoLe
to many now. Ihe Speiihg WIS oy
no means uniform; IN Iacl' tne same
word would be spelled quite diliereh'-
Iy in different parts OF the same sen
tence There were at least TWO e"'
( knows certainly, to tins DAY, Whlch
was printed first, or winch Is really
the standard edition Of the tranSlatOrs.