Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-11-30
THE BIBLES HISTORY.
WONDERFUL FACTS AND FIGURES
ABOUT THE DIVINE BOOK.

The Early Completeness. jerome aud Hs
work-rhs Trsusistors and the Many
Bibles They PubiIshed-when the Divis-
Ion Into Verses Took Place.
Two thousand one hundred and seven
ty-four years ago, In the year 285 3. c.,
seventy of the wise men of Alexandria
engaged themselves In compiling and
collating the Hebrew Scriptures into
their present united form and further
simplifying the works by translating
them into Greek for the benefit OF the
jews then in Egypt The results Of their
labors have since been known collective
ly as the Septuagint. from the fact that
it is the work Of the seventy translators.
About 400 years later. In the Second
century. A. d., the books Of the New
Testament were added and the whole
translated into Latin.
The italia, or Latin version, soon be-
came the standard Of the primitive
Christians, and was used to the exclu-
sion Of both the Hebrew and Greek ver-
sions for two centuries. until the St
Jerome revision Of A. ID. 405. After st.
Jerome had finished his browning work.
n 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 patton. jerome. him
self.
The Jerome revision was rs superior 70
the work of the seventy as their work
was to the old semi-barbaric work which
existed prior to the translation Of 2S5
b. c.
ST. JEROME.
The most carefully written copies OF
the Bible obtainable were consulted by
the scholarly saint and compared with
the Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac versions,
in all Of which he made e~mendations
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 200 versions
of the Evangelists, each differing from
the other In many Of Its essential de-
tails, were presented for the considera-
ton Of the sages at the council of Nice,
in 3o5 A. ID. For hundreds Of years
copyists had added to and taken from
the Scriptures to such an extent as 70
make it extremely difficult for even the
most learned TO decide what should re-
main for the edifcation Of future gener-
atoms or what should be eliminated from
the sacred pages as a~pocryphal.
The word 'bible," meaning book. OF
as applied by the early writers, 1.-THE
book" was first used by Chrysostom az
early as the fifth century, where he
speaks Of the sacred writings collective
ly as the Biblia, or 'the Books" The
infinite variations which occurred in the
manuscripts written by the early Chris
tian fathers have caused a great deal Of
contention among c~hurchinen. some adj
Uniting CERTAIN books A canonical whicl
are rejected by others as apocryphaI
This you car find illustrated by compar
ing a Douay and a King James Bible Of
today; the former admits several book.
which the King James translators would
not, as they considered them uncanoni
cal
The several books as arranged and &C
cepted at present are the results Of year.
of labor and of countless councils anC
revision assemblages. For l,200 year,
after the Saviour Of Men ended his brieI
career on the rugged heights of Calvary
the touching details Of Which are known
to over 700, 0O0. 900 Of people and in every
land on the globe. each book Of the Bible
was one continued story, undivided int
chapters, paragraphs or verses.
, DIVISIONS OF THE BIBLE.
, Prior t. the time Of the Spanish rabbi
the Jew had employed q system of divid
! ing the chapters into verses in the Oh
Testament, q system which had nevel
J been adopted by the Christians. anc
! which was discarded for that Of thu
, learned Spaniard by the Jews themselves
7 The New Testament was not divides
. into verses until after the invention o.
I the art OF printing, by the Robert Steph
ems Greek edition In 1851.
OF the early translations Of the Bibl
the most important, aside from the Sept
uagint and the st. Jerome versions, ar
: the threefold Egyptian translation Of tn
. fourth century. This remarkable worl
: Of the copyist vas in three languages
and was intended for all parts Of Egypt
the versio Figurata, collated by Jacob
; of Odessa, In the eighth century; that O
b Paul, bishop Of Tela, in GIT. and tn
{ eighth. ninth and tenth century transla
: tions, made respectively BY Bede. Attire
I and Alfrio.
{ During the dark ages, and on down b
! the time Luther gave his masterpiece ;
= the world, several TRANSACTIONS wer
8 made, including that Of Notker-Labec
i $50 A. D.; that prepared under the super
J. vision OF Petrus Waldus, ITO; the i'm
{ portant work Of Louis the Pious, l22;
that Of Charles the Wise, 1880; tn
Guyars version Of 1856; the thirteent
Z century version In Spanish during tn
reign ef Alphonso v, and the two exec
{ lent works Of Wicklife and Huss, tn
. latter for the Bohemians and the forme
for the English speaking people. Wit
the invention Of printing every perso
{ who had aver laid claim 10 lterar
abilities seemed to think that he In
been specially commissioned from o
= h;0h IN ana the Word Of q 4