521 



BIBLE SOCIETIES. 



to the end of II Kings; fight at Cambridge were 

 to finMi the remaining historical books iind the 

 Hagiogrupha : at Oxt'unl, seven were engaged on 

 the prophets: the lour Gospels, Acts of the Apos- 

 tles, and Apocalypse, were assigned to another com- 

 pany of eight at Oxford ; and the Epistles were 

 allotted to a company of seven at Westminster : 

 Uie apocryphal books were to be t mutated by a 

 company ut Cambridge. Eiieh individual translated 

 all the books allotted to his class. 'Hie whole class 

 then compared all Uie translations, and adopted the 

 readings agreed on by Uie majority. The book thus 

 finished, was sent to each of the other classes. This 

 translation occupied three years. C'opies were then 

 sent to London, one from each of the above-named 

 places. Here a committee of six, one from each 

 class, reviewed the whole, which was last of all re- 

 vised by I)r Smith and Dr Bilson, bishop of Win- 

 vhe>ter. It was printed in 1011. The latest and 

 most complete revision was made by Dr Blayney, 

 Oxford, 17(59. (For an account of the German trans- 

 1 it ion, sec Luther and Kfformalion. As a general 

 Ixiok of reference, relating to the literature of the 

 Pible, Home's Introduction to the study of the Scrip- 

 tures may be consulted. See also Harris's Natural 

 History of the Bible.) 



BMe, Geography of, describes Palestine, and gives 

 nn account of the Asiatic countries bordering on Pa- 

 lestine, and of the provinces of the Roman empire 

 into which Christianity was introduced, during the 

 age of the apostles. The sources of this science are 

 Uie Scriptures, the writings of Josephus, the geogra- 

 phical authors of antiquity, Strabo, Ptolemy, and 

 Pomponius Mela, and the Onomasticon Urbium et 

 Locorum Scriptura Sacra, written by Eusebius, bi- 

 shop of Caesarea, in the 4th c^nvury, in Greek, and 

 translated by Jerome into Latin. Among the learn- 

 ed moderns who have cultivated this science, so im- 

 portant for the interpreter of the Holy Scriptures, are 

 Bachiene, Wells, and the Dutchman Ysbraud of Ha- 

 melsfeld. See Geography. 



BIBLE SOCIETIES. A clergyman of Wales, whom 

 the want of a Welsh Bible led to London, occasioned 

 the establishment of the British and Foreign Bible 

 Society, which was founded in London, March 7, 

 l.soi. It was called the Bible society, because its 

 object was the distribution of the Bible ; British, 

 because its operations were first directed towards the 

 poor of Great Britain ; and foreign, because it pro- 

 posed, as far as its means would permit, to send 

 Bibles, in all languages, to all parts of the world. The 

 Bibles distributed by the society were to be without 

 additions and explanations, in order to give them a 

 more universal circulation. In the same year, the 

 first geiM-ral meeting was held in London, which 

 unanimously adopted the proposed plan. Lord 

 Teignmouth was chosen president, and many bishops, 

 lords, and members of parliament, accepted the office 

 of vice-president. In 1815, 484 similar institutions 

 had been formed in all parts of Great Britain, and 

 connected with the former as a parent society, to 

 support it with pecuniary contributions, and to re- 

 ceive, in return, a supply of Bibles. There are be- 

 sides, several Bible societies among the lower class 

 of people, the members of which pay, weekly, a 

 penny or a halfpenny to provide themselves, their 

 children, or other poor persons, with Bibles. In 

 Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Russia, Sweden, 

 Denmark, America, similar Bible societies have been 

 formed, and are connected with the British. 



The twenty-fourth annual report of the British and 

 Foreign Bible Society in London, 1828, gives a list of 

 editions of the whole or parts of the Scriptures, 

 printed for the society in the following languages : 

 English, Welsh, Gaelic, Irish, Manks, French. 



Basque, Breton, Flemish, Spanish, Portuguese, Ha- 

 lian, Hutch, Danish, 1 lehrew, Swedish, German, Po- 

 lish, Greek (ancient and modern). Armenian (ancient 

 and iii(xlcrn), Arabic, Coptic, Indo -Portuguese, Sy- 

 rjac, Carshun, Esquimaux, Mohawk, Ethiopic, Ma- 

 lay, Turkish, Hindostanee, Greenlandish, Amliaric, 

 Persian, Bohemian, Latin, Albanian. The same re- 

 port gives Uie following summary of languages and 

 dialects, in which the distribution, printing, or trans- 

 lation of the Scriptures, in whole or in part, has been 

 promoted by the society, directly or indirectly : Re- 

 prints, 42; retranslations, 5 ; languages and d;. 

 in which Uie Scriptures had never been printed lie- 

 fore the institution of the society, 58 ; New trans- 

 lations commenced or completed, 38; Cotal, 143. 

 The society provides many translations of single 

 books of the Bible, or of the New Testament, in nn 

 merous languages and dialects of the nations oi' 

 Middle and Eastern Asia, at Calcutta and Madras ; 

 as well as in the languages of the Levant, North Af- 

 rica, &c. (e. g., the Arabic, Tartar, Syriac, and two 

 dialects of Uie EUiiopic), at Smyrna, Malta, and 

 other depots of the Mediterranean ; and aids all tin; 

 Bible societies of the continent of Europe. It lias 

 agents in almost all parts of the inhabited globe, who 

 travel at its expense, to discover the best means of 

 diffusing the Bible, and to procure able, translators 

 and manuscripts of ancient translations for the use ot 

 the society. Pinkerton found, in Paris, translations 

 of the Bible in Uie dialects of Northern Asia and 

 Thibet, with the characters belonging to them, which 

 had been brought to France, under Napoleon, from (lie 

 archives of Uie propaganda at Rome. The most difli- 

 cult translation was that into the Esquimaux langim ge. 



Of Uie Bibles and Testaments issued in the twen- 

 ty-seven years, about five millions have been printed 

 in the languages spoken in the united kingdom, \ i/.., 

 English, 4,568,314, Welsh, 300,416, Gaelic, 115,343, 

 Irish, 64,188, and Manx, 7250. About 2,000,000 

 have been issued in foreign parts. 



The proceedings of the British and Foreign Bible 

 Society have given rise to several controversies, one 

 of which related to the neglecting to give the pmjer 

 book with the Bible ; a neglect against which strong 

 remonstrances were published by several divines of 

 the church of England, and especially by bishop 

 Marsh, who also published in 1812 " A History of 

 the Translations which have been made of the Scrip- 

 tures, from the earliest to the present age, through- 

 out Europe, Asia, Africa, and America; composed 

 chiefly with the view of ascertaining in how many 

 new languages the British and Foreign Bible Society 

 has been the means of preaching the Gospel." This 

 pamphlet was intended as an answer to a statement 

 of Mr Vansittart, that the society, besides reprinting 

 many translations, had published the Scriptures in 

 twenty-five languages, into which they were not 

 known to have been before translated. Ur Marsli 

 maintained that the society had not translated so 

 much as even the four gospels into any one language 

 into which they had not been previously translated, 

 and that, though they had translated a single gospel 

 into two languages (the Bug is and the Macassar), 

 into which no part of Scripture had been previously 

 translated, they had not then printed even one entire 

 gospel into anyone language into which translations 

 of portions of the Scripture had not been executed 

 either before the existence of the society, or indepen- 

 dently of its assistance. Another controversy, in 

 which the supporters of the society have been invol- 

 ved, related to the circulation of the Apocrypha along 

 with the canonical books. Their most distinguished 

 antagonist on this question was the late Dr Andrew 

 Thomson, one of Uie ministers of Edinburgh. A 

 third controversy has been occasioned by the alleged 



