LITERARY NOTICES. 



415 



petence, they were of course zealous for the 

 preservation of a correct and uniform text, 

 and it was apparently by them that the text 

 which we now have was fixed. The date of 

 this fixing becomes important, and may be 

 proved by incidental evidence. Down to 

 the apostolic age there seem to have been 

 manuscripts of the various books of the Old 

 Testament in circulation which varied con- 

 siderably from one another ; this appears 

 by the divergences from our received text 

 both of the Septuagint Greek translation 

 made in the third century b. c, and of the 

 Samaritan Pentateuch dating from the fifth 

 century b. c, as well as by other evidence. 

 But all our present MSS., none of which is 

 older than the ninth century a. d., present 

 what is practically one and the same text 

 showing that they must have been made 

 from one archetypal MS. This text is the 

 same text as Jerome used in making his 

 Latin version in the fifth century a. d. ; 

 and it may be traced back with some cer- 

 tainty to the second century a. d. There is, 

 therefore, good reason to believe that in the 

 first Christian century one MS. probably 

 one of the three which we are told were 

 then preserved in the Temple was taken 

 as authoritative, and all official copies or- 

 dered to be thenceforth made from it, every 

 other MS., showing a different text, being 

 discredited or even suppressed. From that 

 time the text was guarded with the most 

 scrupulous care, copies being made by a 

 guild named the Massorets (possessors of 

 tradition), who did not venture to change 

 even an accidental peculiarity of writing. 

 But, as many centuries had elapsed between 

 the original writing of the books and the 

 determination of this received text in the 

 post-apostolic age, many variations had of 

 course grown up. By far the most ample 

 evidence of these variations is that supplied 

 by the Septuagint ; and one of the most in- 

 teresting parts of Professor Smith's book 

 consists in his account of the relation be- 

 tween the present Hebrew text and this old 

 Greek translation, which carries us back to 

 forms of the text that afterward perished. 

 In common with the bulk of recent scholars, 

 he sets a high value on many of the Septua- 

 gint readings, conceiving that they often 

 give passages in a simpler and earlier form 

 than that of the established Hebrew, which 



has been injured by the amplifications of 

 editors, or, in some few cases, altered by 

 copyists who did not fully understand the 

 old language. These variations are more 

 numerous and important in the Prophets 

 than in the Law, because the latter held so 

 important a place in the services of public 

 worship, where it was read through once in 

 three years, that the copying of it was per- 

 formed more accurately and a uniform text 

 better preserved. The author then goes on 

 to show how little reliance can be placed on 

 some of the titles prefixed to the canonical 

 books, and how many traces we find of the 

 action of a succession of editors or redac- 

 teurs in getting the books into their present 

 shape. Explanations were added ; one doc- 

 ument was joined on to another; in some 

 cases it would seem that a book was written 

 by taking an old series of annals or official 

 records and filling into it anecdotes and 

 descriptions from some other source. Next 

 the formation of the Old Testament canon 

 is discussed ; and it is shown how, as in the 

 case of the New Testament, different views 

 as to the canonicity of particular books were 

 from time to time prevalent among the Jews 

 down till the second century a. d. The talcs 

 which ascribe the settlement of a canon to 

 Ezra or to Xehemiah are shown to rest on 

 no foundation. The inclusion of some of 

 the Apocryphal books in the Septuagint 

 shows that among the Alexandrian Jews 

 these books enjoyed a certain authority, and 

 yet they are not quoted by Philo, for in- 

 stance as if they stood on the same level 

 with the Prophets ; for there was a feeling, 

 a true feeling, that the prophetic voices had 

 come to an end a few generations after the 

 return from Babylon, or as Josephus too 

 precisely puts it, in the time of Artaxerxes L 

 These books are all comparatively late, and 

 to modern criticism stand on quite a differ- 

 ent footing from the Prophets, whose au- 

 thority seems to have become early estab- 

 lished. But grave doubts were long enter- 

 tained as to some of what we now consider 

 canonical books. Daniel and Esther were 

 disputed in the apostolic age, Ecclesiastes 

 and the Song of Solomon not finally admit- 

 ted till the time of Rabbi Aklba, who lived 

 under Hadrian. 



The second half of Professor Robertson 

 Smith's book is devoted to an inquiry into 



