302 Rev. Dr. Watt on the different Kinds of Cuneiform Writing 
repeatedly called MW, ‘ Assyriac,’ and is stated to have been such ever since 
the days of Ezra.* But in the Gemara, or commentary of each, contradictory 
explanations are offered of this epithet ; some of the Talmudic Rabbins assigning 
its proper meaning to it, and affirming that the writing in question was so de- 
nominated on account of its having been brought from Assyria; while others of 
them would have us believe the word here to signify ‘happy,’ as if it were 
written MW IND, < beatified.+ MAW, however, is no where else to be met 
with, used in the latter acceptation, and even if it were, this meaning of it, in the 
passage referred to, is excluded by the context, as it would be absurd to attribute 
happiness to the elements of any sort of writing. But whether the bearing of 
those passages was thus perverted to make them accord with the national preju- 
dices of the Jews, or because it was perceived that the tradition conveyed in 
them, when taken in their natural sense, would not stand the test of examination, 
that tradition must, at any rate, be rejected, as it is inconsistent with all that is 
known of this people, to suppose that they would ever have wittingly allowed 
their sacred text to be written with letters of profane origin. Neither would 
Christian divines, after the revival of learning in Europe, have endeavoured to 
strain the passages I have quoted of the early fathers to a sense in conformity 
with the tradition here adverted to, had they not at first estimated too highly 
the veracity of the Talmudic writers, and attached a weight to their evidence far 
above that to which it has been since found to be entitled. In the third place, the 
principal schools of the Jews, after the destruction of Jerusalem, were held in 
Babylonia, where they lasted till the persecution of the Arabians put an end to 
them, early in the eleventh century ; and it was in those schools, most probably, that 
the Hebrew character was improved and brought near to its present state. From 
* PSTWN BDA NY sHy2 OT TIN, Et data fuit ipsis [scil. Lex Mosis] diebus Esre in 
Scriptura Assyriaca.— Talmud Babylonicus, Tractatus Sanhedrim, sect. 2. 
Sow 32ND N77 AAAWAWS 3D, Scriptura Assyriaca est ea, quam nos hodie habemus [scil. in 
textu Biblico].— Talmud Hierosol., Gemara Tractatus Megilla, sect. 1. 
+ In the Rabbinical annotations on both the treatises referred to in the preceding note may be 
found the following and other equivalent passages : 
3awWND OMY byw ATAwWs Mow Napa md, Quare vocatur ejus nomen [Scriptura] 
Assyriaca? quia ascendit cum lis ex Assyria. 
n> Aw NAW AWS ANP. m5, Quare vocatur Assyriaca? quia est beatificata 
Scriptura. 
afl 
