BIBLE. 
the Christians, to Ezra. Some of the an- 
cient fathers, on no other foundation than 
that fabulous and apocryphal book, the se- 
cond book of Esdras, pretend that the scrip- 
tures were entirely lost in the Babylonish 
captivity, and that Ezra had restored them 
again by divine revelation. What is cer- 
tain is, that in the reign of Josiah, there 
were no other books of the law extant, be- 
sides that found in the temple by Hilkiah ; 
from which original, that pious king ordered 
copies to be immediately written out, and 
search made for all the parts of the scrip- 
tures ; by which means copies of the whole 
became pretty numerous among the people, 
who carried them with them into captivity. 
After the return of the Jews from the Ba- 
bylonish captivity, Ezra got together as 
many copies as he could of the sacred writ- 
ings, and out of them all prepared a correct 
edition, disposing the several books in their 
natural order, and settling the canon of the 
scripture for his time; having published 
them, according to the opinion of most 
learned men, in the Chaldee character, as 
the Jews, upon their return from the cap- 
tivity, brought with them the Chaldaic lan- 
guage, which from that time became their 
mother tongue, and probably gave birth to 
the Chaldee translation of their scriptures. 
Bible, Chaldee, is only the glosses, or ex- 
positions made by the Jews, when they 
spoke the Chaldee tongue; whence it is 
called targumim, or paraphrases, as not be- 
ing a strict version of the scriptures. 
Bible, Hebrew. There is, in the church 
of St. Dominic, in Bononia, a copy of the 
Hebrew scriptures, which they pretend to 
be the original copy, written by Ezra him- 
self. It is written in a fair character, upon 
a sort of leather, and made up into a roll, 
after the ancient manner; but its having 
the vowel points annexed, and the writing 
being fresh and fair, without any decay, are 
circumstances which prove the novelty of 
the copy, 
Bible, Greek. It is a dispute among au- 
thors, whether there was a Greek version 
of the Old Testament, more ancient than 
that of the 72 Jews employed by Ptolemy 
Philadelphus to translate that book : before 
our Saviour’s time, there was no other ver- 
sion of the Old Testament besides that 
which went under the name of the LXX. 
But, after the establishment of Chris- 
tianity, some authors undertook new trans- 
lations of the Bible, under pretence of 
making them more conformable to the He- 
brew text. There have been about six of 
these versions, some of which are charged 
with having corrupted several passages of 
the prophets relating to Jesus Christ ; others 
have been thought too free in their versions, 
and others have been found fault with, for 
having confined themselves too servilely to 
the letter. 
Bible, Latin. It is beyond dispute, that 
the Latin churches had, even in the first 
ages, a translation of the Bible in their lan- 
guage ; which being the vulgar language, 
and consequently understood by every 
body, occasioned a vast number of Latin 
versions. Among these there was one which 
was generally received, and called by St. 
Jerom, the vulgar or common translation. 
St. Austin gives this version the name of 
the Italic, and prefers it to all the rest. See 
Vulgate. 
There were several other translations of 
the Bible into Latin, the most remarkable 
of which are the versions of St. Jerom, 
Santes Pagninus, Cardinal Cajetan, and 
Isiodore Claims, all from the Hebrew text. 
Besides these translations by Catholic au- 
thors, there are some made by Protestant 
translators of the Hebrew ; the most emi- 
nent of their versions are those of Sebastian 
Munster, Leo Juda, Sebastian Castalio, 
Theodore Beza, Le Clerc, &c. 
Bible, Syriac. The Syrians have in their 
language a version of the Old Testament, 
which they pi'etend to be of great antiquity, 
most part of which they say was made in 
Solomon’s time, and the rest in the time of 
Abgarus king of Edessa. 
Bible, Arabic. The Arabic versions of 
the Bible are of two sorts, the one done by 
Christians, the other by Jews. There are 
also several Arabic versions of particular 
books of scripture, as a translation of the 
Pentateuch from the Syriac, and another of 
the same from the Septuagint, and two 
other versions of the Pentateuch, the ma- 
nuscripts of which are in the Bodleian li- 
brary. 
The Gospel being preached in all nations, 
the Bible, which is the foundation of tiie 
Christian religion, was translated into the 
respective languages of each nation ; as the 
Egyptian or Coptic, the Indian, Persian, 
Armenian, Ethiopic, Scythian, Sarmatian, 
Sclavonian, Polish, Bohemian, German, 
English, &c. 
The books of the Bible are divided by 
the Jews into three classes, viz. the law, the 
prophets, and the hagiographers ; a division 
which they are supposed to borrow froi* 
Ezra himself. 
