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 parti cular hooks 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 manuscripts of which are in the Bod leian library.
The Gospel being preached in all na tions, the bible, which is the foundation of the Christian religion, was translated into the respective languages of each na tion ; as the Egyptian or Coptic, the In dian, Persian, Arminian, Ethiopic, Scy thian, Sarmatian, Selavonian, Polish, Bo hemian, 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 bor row from Ezra himself.
Each book is subdivided into sections, or parasches ; which some maintain to have been as old as Moses, though others, with more probability, ascribe it to the same Ezra. These were subdivided into verses, pesuchim, marked in the Hebrew bible by two great points, called soph pasuch, at the end of each. For the di vision of the bible into chapters, as we now have it, is of much later date.
Divers of the ancient bible-books ap pear to be irrecoverably lost, whether it be that the copies of them perished, or that Ezdras threw them out of his canon. Hence it is, that, in the books still extant, we find divers citations of, and references to, others, which are now no more ; as the book of Jasher, the book of the wars of the Lord, annals of the kings of Judah and Israel, part of Solomon's three thou sand proverbs, and his thousand and five songs, besides his books on plants, ani mals, fishes, insects, &c. To which may
be added, a book of Jeremiah, wherein he enjoined the captives who went to Babylon to take the sacred fire and con: ceal it ; also the precepts which that pro phet gave the Jews, to preserve them selves from idolatry, and his lamentations on the death of king Josiah.
The Jewish canon of scripture then was settled by Ezra ; yet not so, but that several variations have been since made in it : Malachi, for instance, could not be put in the bible by him, since that pro phet is allowed to have lived after Ezra ; nor could Nehemiah be there, since men tion is made in that book of Juddua as high priest, and of Darius Codomannus as king of Persia, who were at least an hun dred years later than Ezra. It may be added, that in the first book of Chro nicles, the genealogy of the sons of Ze rubbabel is carried down for so many ge nerations, as must necessarily bring it to the time of Alexander ; and consequent ly this book could not be in the canon in Ezra's days. It is probable the two books of Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, and Malachi, were adopted into the bi ble in the time of Simon the Just, the last of the men of the great synagogue.