EDITIONS OF TILE BIBLE: HISTORY OF TITF. TEXT.—As both the Old and the New Testament were written ia ancient languages. and transcribed in times when philological criticism hardly existed, the examination and comparison of various editions, with a view to obtain the greatest possible purity of text, forms an import:ma part of theological study., i'ext of the Old first duty of an impartial critic of this question is to lay aside both of the extreme and untenable opinions regarding the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, viz.—lst, that it has come down to us in an absolutely faultless condi tion, by miraculous preservation; and 2d, that it has been willfully and unscrupulously falsified by the Jews. That there are erroneous reading,, nobody doubts. The real task devolving on a student of this branch of theolOgical science is to explain these on natural principles. and, by collating the various recensions, to endeavor to obtain a pure text. or as close an approximation to that as may be possible. The following is a toler ably complete classification of the causes of errors. 1. Errors arising from impaled ryikt or oceimionni inattentireness; as when transcribers substituted one letter for an titer similar in appearance. transposed letters, words, and senteuces, and omitted the same; of which there are various etainples. 2: Errors ariating•from iirsperfeet Acaring, of which there are not many examples. 3. Errors arising from defective memory; as, when a transcriber fancied that he knew certain words, phrases, or clauses, on account of their having occurred before; of these there are occasional examples. 4. Errors arising front defective judgment; as when words were wrongly divided, or abbreviations wrongly resolved; also from the custodes lincarum (1.e., the letters which filled up the occasional vacant space at the end of lines) and marginal remarks being sometimes incorporated with the text. These not 'Infrequently happen. 5. Errors arising from it 2cel1-ntegnt desire ou the part of the transcriber to explain or amend a text, really or apparently obscure. In this respect the Samaritans arc greatly to blame. A very knotty point is the condition of the text before and at the close of the canon. The opinion of Eichhorn, De Wette, and others is, that while the books circulated singly in a sphere of uncertain authority, they were greatly corrupted; in support of which, considerable evidence is adduced, but still the probabilities are, on the whole, against such a supposition, and it is better to suppose that the conflicting accounts of the same events which are to be met with, especially in the historical books, arise not from the carelessness or corruptions of copyists, but rather from the original authors or compilers having consulted differing documents.
From recent investigations, it appears clear that the strict dogmatic Jews of Pales tine and Babylon were generally far more careful in their preservation of sacred records than the Samaritans and the Alexandrines, the latter of whom were remarkable for their free, philosophizing, non-textual spirit. In the schools of learning in Jerusalem at the time of Christ, presided over by IIillel, who had come from Babylon, and Shentinal, and in those which flourished elsewhere in Palestine, after the fall of the metropolis, for instance. at Lydda, Caesarea, Tiberias, etc., as also in the academies of Sort, Pitin peditlitt, and Nahardea, near the Euphrates, at a later period. the text of the Old Testar ment was defined with great care, first by the Talmudists, who seem to have adhered very closely to the ancient text, and after the completion of the Talmud at the close of the 5th c. by the Mosiorites. Sec Massonau. This care was at first bestowed only on the consonants of the Hebrew text. .The Masoretic vowel system. which sprang from that already existing among the Syrians and Arabians, was developed from the 7th to the lOtli centuries at Tiberias. By the 11th c. it appears to have been completed, while the Spanish rabbis of the next century seem ignorant of its then recent origin. (For proof of this, see Davidson's 2ext of the Grzt lodgment (Jonsidered, 1856.) After the 11th c., the Masoretic text, with its perfected system of vowels and accents, became the standard authority among Jewish scholars. The comparative values of the different readings in the various alS„ had by that time been caretully determined, and the chief business of copyists, henceforth, was to make faithful transcripts.