BIBLICAL ANTIQUITIES, or Iltm.tc.u. ARGIi.£OLOOY, is a study which has for its objects the social and political constitution, the manners, customs, geography, etc., of the Jews and other peoples mentioned in the Scriptures. A knowledge of these is essen tial to a right understanding of many passages of Scripture. The antiquities of the ancient Jews themselves undoubtedly form the most important part of such a study; but an examination of the laws, customs, etc., of the neighboring Semitic nations is likewise indispensable. The principal sources of such knowledge are the Old and the New Testa ment; the books of Josephus on Jcirislt Antiquiticg, and the Wars of Mr Jews; the writings of Philo, the Talmud and Rabbinical works; and. lastly, Greek, Roman. and Arabian writers, with medals, monuments. and other works of art, the accounts of travelers, etc. The first work on 'Hebrew archaeology was Thomas Goodwin's Noses ft Aaron, see Ciedcs et Ecelesiastki 1k7u3 Anliqa runs (Oxford, 1616). Among later treatises we may especially notice Jahn's Biblical Arclarolooll (5 vols., Vienna, 1790-1805); Bauer's n val of 11:.:brcir Antiquities (Leip. 1797): De ''v'ette's iGscinah of Hebreiv-Jeicish Arclarology (Leip., l514): Rosenmelller's Manual of Riblic
BIBLIOGRAPHY, a term applied to the description and proper cataloguing of books. Bibliography, a term applied to the description and proper cataloguing of books. It is derived from bibliographia, which was employed by the Greeks to signify the tran• seription of books; while bibliographos was merely a copyist. The introduction of the term in the meaning which we now attach to it may be dated from the appearance of the first volume of De Bore's Bibliographie Instructive in 1763.
The bare enumeration of the works that have been written on this branch of litera ture would more than fill an ordinary volume; Ike shall here confine ourselves to the more important of them.
A favorite dream of bibliographers has been the production of a general catalogue. embracing the whole range of printed literature; and one attempt at least has been made to realize it. In the year 1543, Conrad Gesner published at Zurich, in one folio volume. his Bibliotheca Unirersalis, in which are described, tinder the names of the authors, alphabetically, all the books of the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages about which the compiler could obtain information. This restriction as to language, of course, does away to some extent with the idea of universality indicated by the title-page; still, as the three which are included were in Gesuer's time almost the only ones employed by men of learning, his work may be regarded as a nearly complete account of the state of printed literature as it then existed. The only other effort in this direction which we have to record is the B8liotheca Britannica of Dr. Robert Watt, 4 vols. 4to (Edinburgh. 1S24). Its object will be best described by the following extract from the preface to it " The account given of British writers and their works is universal, embracing every description of authors, and every branch of knowledge and literature. What has been admitted of foreign publications, though selective, forms a very considerable and valu able portion of the work, and as none of note have been purposely omitted, the theca Britannica may be considered as a universal catalogue of all the authors with which this country is acquainted, whether of its own or of the continent." This great work was compiled under very adverse circumstances, and its author did not live to see it through the press. It thus labors under all the disadvantages of a posthumous publica tion; but with all its faults both .of omission and commission, which are neither few nor small, it deservedly maintains a high character as a work of reference, and is indispen sable to the library of every bibliographer.