Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-11-17
BIBLE GURIOSiTIES.
WONDERFUL FACTS CONCERNING THE
DIVINE BOOK.
The Translators and the Many Bibles
They Published-Errors in Print
ing-Lost Books.

1nS-LOSC BOOKS.
Two thousand one hundred and seventy
four years ago, in the year 2S5 B. c., 70 of
the wise men of Alexandria engaged them
selves in compiling and collating the He
brew Scriptures into their present united
form and further simplifying the works by
translating them into Greek for the bene-
fit of the Jews then in Egypt. The re-
suits of their labors have since been known
collectively as the Septuagint, from the
fact that it is the work of the 70 trans
lators.
About 400 years later in the second CEN
fury, A. D., the books of the New Tesla
ment were added and the whole translated
into Latin.
The Italia, or Latin version, soon be-
| came the standard of the primitive Chris
tians, and was used to the exclusion of both
the Hebrew and Greek versions for two
| A. D. 405 After St. Jerome had finished
his crowning work, great deal of which
he performed in the village of Bethlehem,
almost in sight of the birthplace of Jesus,
the Dalmatian and Pannonian monks hid
away their old versions Of the Bible and
would use no other except the one which
had been given them by their patron, St.
Jerome, himself.
The Jerome version was as superior to
the work of the 20 as their work was to
the old semi-barbaric work which existed
prior to the translation of 2S6 B. C.
SAINT JEROME.
The most carefully written copies of the
Bible obtainable were consulted by the
scholarly saint and carefully compared
with the Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac YER
sions, in all of which he made emenda-
| lions and corrections which have stood the
test of all subsequent time. The hercu-
lean task undertaken by st. Jerome will
| be better understood when the reader has
been informed that over two hundred YER
sions of the Evangelists, each differing
from the other in many of its essential de-
tails, were presented for the consideration
of the sages at the council of Nice in 325
A. D. For hundreds of years copyists
had added to and taken from the Scrip
lures to such an extent as to make it ex-
tremely difficult for even the most learned
to decide what should remain for the
edifcation of future generations or what
should be eliminated from the sacred
pages as apocryphal.
COMPARISONS.
The word "Bible," meaning book, or as
applied by the early writers, "the book"
was first used by Chrysostom as early as
the fifth century, where he spoke of the
sacred writings collectively as the Biblia,
or "the Books" The infinite variations
which occurred in the manuscripts writ
ten by the early Christian fathers have
caused great deal of contention amongst
churchmen, some admitting certain books
as canonical which are rejected by others
as apocryphal. This you can find illus
trated by comparing Douay and King
James Bible of to-day; the former admits
several books which the King James
translators would not, as they considered
them uncanonical.
The several books as arranged and &C
cepted at present are the results of years
of labor and countless councils and revis-
ion assemblages. For 1000 years after the
Savior of men ended his brief career on
the rugged heights of Calvary, the touch
ing details of which are known to over
700,000,000 of the people, and in every
land on the globe, each book OF the Bible
was one continued story, undivided into
chapters, paragraphs or verses.
Biblical scholars, savants and common
tators are undecided as to whom belongs
the honor of dividing the works into chap
tiers some preferring to bestow their
| praise upon Langdon, Archbishop of Can
terbury; others doing homage to Cardinal
Hugo, who, it is alleged, completed his
work about the middle of the thirteenth
century.
1t was in 1445 that Spanish rabbi in
troduced the present system of dividing
the chapters into verses. This in connec-
ton with his concordance of the Hebrew
Scriptures.
DIVISIONS OF THE BIBLE.
Prior to the time of the Spanish rabbi,
the Jew had employed a system of divid-
ing the chapters into verses in the Old
Testament, system which had never been
adopted by the Christians, and which was
discarded for that of the learned Spaniard
| by the Jews themselves The New Tesla
ment was not divided into verses until
after the invention of the art of printing,
by Robert Stephens Greek edition, in
| 1881.
| OF the early translations of the Bible
the most important, aside from the Septu-
agint and the St. jerome versions, are the
three-fold Egyptian translation of the
fourth century. This remarkable work of
the copyist was in three languages, and
was intended for all parts of Egypt; the
| Versio Figurata, collated by Jacob of
Odessa in the eight century that of Paul,
Bishop of Tela, in 617, and the eighth,
ninth and tenth TRANSACTIONS made re-
spectively by Bede, Alfred and 4Elfric.
TRANsLATIoNs.
During the dark ages, and on down to
the time Luther gave his masterpiece to
the world, several translations were made,
including that of Notker-Labeo, A. D.
$780, that prepared under the supervision
of Petrus Waldus, 1l70 the important
work of Louis the Pious, 1927; that of
Charles the Wise, 1880; the Guayars YER
sion of 1886; the thirteenth century YER
sion in Spanish, during the reign of Al
| phonso ", and the two excellent versions
| of Wickliffe and Huss, the latter for the
Bohemians and the former for the En-
glish-speaking people. With the inven-
ton Of printing every person who had
ever laid claim to literary abilities seemed
to think that he had been specially COM
missioned from high to retranslate the word
of God, as one would naturally infer from
the fact that not less than seventeen Ger
man TRANSACTIONS alone were given to the
public between the time of Gutenberg and
| Faust and that of Martin Luther. Every
publisher in the land seemed to vie with
the others in trying to get out the most
popular guide to the world beyond the
clouds.
THE EARLY EDITIONS.
The early printed editions of the Bible
remind one of what the philosopher said
about the human frame-they were ''curi-
| ously and wonderfully made" The Vic
kliffe sometimes spelled Wyclife) version
of 1884 was the first English translation.
John Wickliffe, the translator, was con-
demned to be burned for presuming to do
| such thing without the consent of the
| clergy, but was finally allowed to die a
| natural death. His Bible was never
printed. However, there are many manu-
script copies Of it.