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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



first complete Hebrew Bible, and was soon fol- ' 

 lowed by the edition of Brescia, used by Luther 

 (1494). At length Christians interested them- 

 selves in the work. The Antwerp printer, Daniel 

 Bomberg, established a Hebrew press in Venice, 

 from which he sent forth a series of Bibles and 

 other books. The famous Rabbinical Bible of 

 1517, edited by Felix Pratensis, a converted Jew, 

 is known as the first Bomberg Bible, and is es- 

 pecially valuable for the text of the Targums, 

 which it prints in parallel columns with the He- 

 brew. The second Rabbinical Bible of Bomberg 

 was edited by R. Jacob Chayim (who also became 

 a Christian), and contains tbe first printed edition 

 of the Masora, with a text carefully corrected in 

 accordance with Masoretic precepts. This edi- 

 tion at once attained a great reputation. It was 

 several times reprinted, and most subsequent edi- 

 tions are directly or indirectly dependent on it. 

 The only early edition which rivals its fame is 

 the " Complutcnsian Polyglot," published at Al- 

 cala in 1517, at the expense of Cardinal Ximenes. 

 The Hebrew of this polyglot exhibits a peculiar 

 text, independent of the Italian editions. Later 

 editions of the Hebrew Bible present little or no 

 advance on the early prints; and most recent 

 editions are decidedly inferior. Of Hebrew Bibles, 

 with various readings from MS. authority, the 

 best known are Kennicott's (Oxford, 1776-1780) 

 and De Rossi's (Parma, 1784-1788). The latter 

 collection is by far the best, but neither has done 

 much for the improvement of the text. In fact, 

 the differences between really good MSS. are gen- 

 erally very minute ; and where the current text 

 is corrupt it is not from MSS., but from the ver- 

 sions, or from conjecture, that help must be 

 sought. On the other hand, a more accurate 

 edition of the Masoretic text is certainly wanted. 

 But such an edition must pay special regard to 

 vowel-points and accents, which Kennicott and 

 Be Rossi neglect, and must consult MSS. of the 

 Masora as well as of the text. The most valu- 

 able edition which notes variations not affecting 

 the consonantal text is the Mantuan Bible of 

 1742-1744, with the notes of Norzi (R. Jedidiah 

 Solomon, of Norcia). The best recent texts are 

 S. Baer's Leipsic editions of Genesis (1869), 

 Psalms (1861), and Isaiah (1S72). Among easily 

 accessible editions of the whole Old Testament, 

 those of Jablonsky (Berlin, 1699) and J. H. 

 Michaelis (Halle, 1720) have the best reputation. 

 The Greek New Testament was first printed in 

 the " Complutcnsian Polyglot" (1514), but a de- 

 lay in the publication enabled Froben of Basel to 

 preoccupy the market with an edition hastily pre- 



pared by Erasmus from very recent codices. In 

 subsequent editions a good many changes were 

 made, partly after the Complutensian text, and in 

 the third edition (1522) the spurious passage, 1 

 John v. 7, appeared for the first time. But it 

 was still a recent and therefore an unsatisfactory 

 text that was represented, and this radical defect 

 was not corrected by the editors who followed 

 Erasmus, though some of them, and notably Theo- 

 dore Beza, possessed, and to some extent used, bet- 

 ter MSS. than Erasmus consvdted. Their beauty 

 and convenience, rather than the merit of their 

 text, procured a great currency for the editions 

 of Robert Stephens (0 mirificam editions, 1546, 

 1549 ; royal edition, 1550), and his text of 1550, 

 or the Elzevir text of 1624, which, though mainly 

 based on Beza, is very nearly identical with the 

 other, came to be regarded as the "received text," 

 which subsequent editors were long afraid to 

 change. But materials for a better text were 

 gradually accumulated by Walton in the Lon- 

 don "Polyglot" (1657), Curcellteus (1658), Fell 

 (1675), and above all by John Mill in his great 

 edition of 1707. These labors were viewed with 

 much jealousy by the hyper-orthodox; and even 

 as late as 1751, Wetstein, after long and most 

 valuable studies, could find a publisher only on 

 consideration that his amendments on the re- 

 ceived editions should not stand in the text. 

 Some important steps, however, were taken in 

 the interval between Mill and Wetstein. Bcntley 

 sketched in 1720 the plan of an edition which 

 should restore the text of the fourth century; and 

 Bengcl in 1734 actually published an amended 

 text, though readings which had not been given 

 in any previous edition were admitted only in the 

 Apocalypse. Ber.gel was the first who classed 

 MSS. under families, as Asiatic and African re- 

 spectively. The next great critical editor after 

 Bengel and Wetstein was J. J. Griesbach, whose 

 chief edition appeared 1796-1806. Griesbach 

 gave an exaggerated importance to the doctrine 

 of families of MSS. ; and his edition was con- 

 structed on the principle of adhering to the re- 

 ceived text, unless the reasons to the contrary 

 were irresistible; but his industry and critical 

 skill give him a very high place among editors. 

 Griesbach was followed by the Roman Catholic 

 Scholz, whose labors were more pretentious than 

 valuable; and at length the great critic Lach- 

 mann (1842-1850) threw aside all traditional re- 

 spect for the received text, and sought to restore 

 the text of the fourth century by the aid of a 

 very small number of select MSS., together with 

 the Latin versions as given in the oldest copies, 



