EGYPTIAN VERSIONS. After the death of Alexander the Great, the Greeks multiplied in Egypt, and obtained important places of trust near the throne of the Ptolemies. The Greek language accordingly began to diffuse itself from the court among the people ; so that the proper language of the country was either forced to adapt itself to the Greek, both in construction and in the adoption of new words ; or was entirely supplanted. In this way originated the Coptic, compounded of the old Egyptian and the Greek. There is a version in the dialect of Lower Egypt usually called the Cop tic, or, better, the Memphitic version ; and there is another in the dialect of Upper Egypt, termed the Sahidic, and sometimes the Thebaic.
t. The Memphitic version of the Bible. —The O. T. in this version was made from the Septua gint and not the original Hebrew. It would appear from Miinter (Specim. verss. Dan. Copt., Rams,, 1786) that the original was the Hesychian recen sion of the LXX. then current in the country. There is little doubt that all the O. T. books were translated, though many of them have not yet been discovered. The Pentateuch was published by Wilkins (Lond. 431, 4to) and by Fallet (Paris, 1854, et segy.); the Psalms at Rome (1744 and by the Propaganda Society. In 1837, Ideler published the Psalter more correctly ; and in 1844 the best critical edition, by Schwartze, ap peared. The twelve minor prophets were pub lished by Tattam, Oxon, 1836, Svo ; and the major prophets by the same, 1852. Bardelli published Daniel (Pisa, 1849). A few small pieces of other books were printed at different times by Minga relli, Quatremere, and Mhnter. The N. T., made from the original Greek, was published by Wil kins, at Oxford, with a Latin translation, A.D. 1716. In 1846 a new and more correct edition was begun by Schwartze, and continued, but in a different manner, after his death by Botticher (1852, etc.) In 1848-52 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge published the N. T. in Mem phitic and Arabic, 2 vols. fol. The text was revised by Lieder. Its readings, as may be inferred from the place where it was made, coincide with the Alexandrine family, and deserve the attention of the critic. Unfortunately the version is not yet correctly edited. It belongs perhaps to the third
century.
2. The 772ebaic.—This version was also made fr m the Greek, both in the 0. and N. T., and probably in the second century. Only some frag ments of the 0. T. part have been printed by Miinter, Mingarelli, and Zoeg,a. In the N. T. it agrees generally, though not uniformly, with the Alexandrine family. Not a few readings, however, are peculiar ; and some harmonise with the Latin versions. Fragments of it have been published by Mingarelli, Giorgi, Munter, and Ford.
3. The Bashiuurk or Avzmoniazz.—Only some fragments of such a version in the 0. and. N. T. have been published, and very little is known con cerning it. Scholars are not agreed as to the nature of the dialect in which it is written ; some thinking that it does not deserve the name of a dialect ; • while others regard the Bashmuric as a kind of dialect between those spoken in Upper and Lower Egypt. Hug and De Wette are inclined to believe that it is merely the version of Upper Egypt transferred into the idiom of the particular place where the Bashmuric was spoken. The origin of this version belongs to the third or fourth century.—S. 1).
EHI ; Sept. 'A7x1s). One of the sons of Benjamin, and chief of one of the clans or septs of that tribe (Gen. xlvi. 21). In Num. xxvi. 3S he is called Ahiram, which probably is the full name. It is doubtful whether the same person is intended by Huram, 1 Chron. viii. 5, or Ehud, in the next verse.—W. L. A.
EHUD ('llmt ; Sept. 'AO), of the tribe of Benjamin, one of the Judges' of Israel, or rather of that part of Israel which he delivered from the dominion of the Moabites by the assassination of their king Eglon. These were the tribes beyond the Jordan, and the southern tribes on this side the river. Ehud obtained access to Eglon as the bearer of tribute from the subjugated tribes, and being left-handed, or rather ambidextrous, he was enabled to use with a sure and fatal aim a dagger concealed under a part of his dress, where it was unsuspected, because it would there have been use less to a person employing his right hand. The Israelites continued to enjoy for eighty years the independence obtained through this deed of Ehud (Judg• iii. 15-30).—J. K.