The National tribune., 1902-11-20
LINEAGE OF THE BIBLE.
The Ancient Manuscripts Upon Which ou
Bible Is Based.
INSTRUCTIONS To GABRARp.

The Ancient Manuscripts Upon Which Our
Bible Is Based.
The Hebrew Old Testament was first
committed to print in the year l4SS, IL
years after a portion of it, the Book OF
Psalms, had issued from the press. Be
hind these printed texts lie great quanti-
ty of manuscripts, hundreds, or even thou
sands. in number; the English Bishop,
Kennicott, published collations of 643
manuscripts in 1716-17SO. while the Italian
scholar, De ROssi, shortly afterward,
added S25 more to the list, without by any
means exhausting the number of extant
copies The earliest extant manuscript OF
the Hebrew Old Testament is copy OF
the Pentateuch, now in the British
museum, and assigned to the ninth CEN
tury, and the earliest manuscript bearing
a precise date is copy of the Prophets, at
St Petersburg, dated AID. GIG, while the
majority of the manuscripts belong to
much later periods. At the same time so
uniform is the text preserved in all the
manuscripts that the earliest and the lat
est of them differ in no essential respect.
For about 1000 years, then, from the
10Th century back to the ninth, we have
the evidence of printed editions and manu-
scripts; the schools of Jewish commenta-
tors, known as the Massoretes from the
''Massorah," or commentary, which they
attached to the sacred text, and their pre-
decessors the TaImudists, or compilers of
the traditions entitled the ''Talmud," all
evidently had before them the same type
Of text, which we can thus trace back to
about the year 100 after Christ. But
what of the thousand years or more which
still separate the supposed origin of this
Massoretic text from the actual dates of
composition of the earlier parts of the
sacred books? There are two translations,
or versions" as they are commonly
termed, which we know to have been made
before the formation of the Massoretic
text, and which therefore throw some light
on the state of the Hebrew text before
that event. One of these is the Samaritan
version, the other the Greek version known
as the Septuagint. The Samaritan version
planted in Samaria by the Assyrians. af-
ter the conquest and deportation of the
Ten Tribes, adopted from their Jewish
neighbors. Unfortunately the Samaritan
version is only available for the Penta-
tench; and it is in the other books that
the greatest textual difficulties arise. Here
our only help is the Greek Septuagint YER
sion, SO named from the TO- translators
by whom it is traditionally said to have
been made. in the reign of Ptolemy Phila-
delphus of Egypt B.C. 2S424O. We
possess early and good manuscripts of it,
dating from the fourth, or even Gn the
case of a few recently discovered scraps
on papyrus) from the third century of our
era.
When we come to look at the New
Testament we find very different set of
circumstances, leading naturally to very
different results. Throughout the second
and third centuries. Christianity, though
often tolerated by Roman Emperors and
Governors, was never officially recognized
and was always liable to recurrence of
prescription and persecution. At such
times the sacred books were special OBJ
jects Of attack. Until the beginning OF
the fourth century, then, the circumstances
| attending the circulation of the New
Testament books were very inimical to
their continued existence. The material on
perishable that it is only in the dry soil
and climate of Egypt that it has survived
at all. The first quarter of the fourth
| century, however, brought about n great
| change. Christianity became the official
religion of the Empire; and papyrus was
superseded by vellum as the material on
which the best copies of books were writ
ten. To this period, or very shortly after,
ward, may be assigned the two Oldest
among the extant manuscripts of the
Greek Bible-the COdex Vaticanus and the
Codex Sinaiticus. The COdex Vaticanus
| is written in a beautiful small hand, with
three columns to the page, and has been
preserved in the Vatican library at Rome
since the 18th century, though it is only
| within the last 80. years that its contents
have been, made accessible to scholars.
The Codex Sinaiticus, discovered in the
monastery of st. Catherine, on Mount
Sinai, by Tischendorf, and now in the I'm
perial Library at st. Petersburg, is writ
ten in q rather larger hand, with four col
umns to the page. Both contained, when
complete, the whole of both Testaments;
and both are written, like all early manu-
| scripts, on velIum, in uncial characters
that is, in capital lettels formed separately.
They rank foremost among the witnesses
to the text of the New Testament, and
their evidence has had great weight with
the revisers of the English Bible. Other
important uncial manuscripts of the Greek
Bible are the COdex Alexandrinus, in the
British Museum, and the paiimpsest COdex
Ephraemi, mt Paris. both of the fifth cen
tury. and the COdex Bezae. at Cambridge.
of the sixth century, the last containing
the Gospels and Acts only, with many re-
markable variants in the text, and with a
Latin version parallel to the Greek.