KENNICOTT, BENJAMIN, was born of humble parents, at Totnes, in Devonshire, April 4th, 1718. Being appointed master of a charity-school in his native town, he continued in this situation till 1744, when several of his friends raised a sufficient sum of money to enable him to go to Oxford. He enteral at Wadham College, and applied himself with the greatest diligence to the study of divinity and Hebrew. While he was an undergraduate he published a work ' On the Tree of Life in Paradise, and on the Oblations of Cain and Abel,' which was so well received that the university allowed him to take his degree before the usual time, without the payment of the customary fees. He was elected a Fellow of Exeter College shortly afterwards, and took his degree of M.A. in 1750. He continued to reside at Oxford till the time of his death, which happened Sep tember 18th, 1783. He was a canon of Christchurch, and librarian of the Radcliffe Library, to which office he was appointed in 1767.
The most celebrated of Kennicott's works is his edition of the Hebrew Bible,' which was published at Oxford in 2 vols. folio, the first volume in 1776, and the second in 1780. In 1753 Dr. Kennicott published a work On the State of the Printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament,' which was succeeded by another volume on the same subject in 1759. The first volume contained a comparison of 1 Chron. xi. with 2 Sam v., xxiii., with observations on seventy Hebrew manuscripts, In which he maintained that numerous mistakes and interpolations had crept into the sacred text. In the second he gave an account of numerous other manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, and proposed an extensive collation of Hebrew manuscripts, with the view of publishing a correct edition of the Hebrew Bible. This under taking met with much opposition from several persons, who were afraid that such a collation might overturn the received reading of various important passages, and introduce uncertainty iuto the whole system of Biblical interpretation. The plan was however warmly patronised by the majority of the clergy, and nearly 10,000/. were subscribed to defray the expenses of the collation of tho manuscripts and the pub• lication of the work. Several learned men were employed both at home and abroad, and more than GOO Hebrew manuscrips, and If manuscripts of the Samaritan Pentateuch, were collated either wholly m- in the more important passages. The business of collation con tinued from 1760 to 1769, during which period Dr. Keunicott pub lished annually an account of the progress which was made. Though the number of various readings was found to be very great, yet they were neither so numerous nor by any means so important as those that are contained in Griesbach's edition of the New Testament. But this is easily accounted for from the revision of the Hebrew text by the Masorites in the 7th and 8th centuries, and from the scrupulous fidelity with which the Jews have transcribed the same text from that time.
"The text of Kennicott's edition was printed from that of Van der Hooght, with which the Hebrew manuscripts, by Kennicott's direction, were all collated. But as variations iu the points were disregarded in the collation, the points were not added in the text. The various readings, as in the critical editions of the Greek Testament, were printed at the bottom of the page, with references to the correspond ing readings of the text. In the Pentateuch the variations of the Samaritan text were printed in a column parallel to the Hebrew; and the variations observable in the Samaritan manuscripts, which differ from each other as well as the Hebrew, are likewise noted, with refer ences to the Samaritan printed text. To this collation of manuscripts was added a collation of the most distinguished editions of the Hebrew Bible, in the same manner as Wetstein has noticed the variations observable in the principal editions of the Greek Testament. Nor did Kennicott confine his collation to manuscripts and editions. He fur ther considered that as the quotations from the Greek Testament in the works of ecclesiastical writers afford another source of various readings, so the quotations from the Hebrew Bible in the works of Jewish writers are likewise subjects of critical inquiry. For this purpose he had recourse to the most distinguished among the Rab binical writings, but particularly to the Talmud, the text of which is as ancient as the 3rd century." (Marsh Divinity Lectures,' part ii) Kennicott annexed to the second volume a 'Dissertatio Generalis,' in which he gives an account of the manuscripts and other authorities collated for his work, and also a history of the Hebrew text from the time of the Babylonian captivity. This dissertation was reprinted at Brunswick in 1783, under the superintendence of Professor Bruns, who had collated a great number of manuscripts for the original work.
An important Supplement to Kennicctt's Hebrew Bible was pub lished by De Rossi, under the title of Varies Lectiones Veteris Testa menti,' Parma, 1784-88, 4 vols. 4to ; to which an appendix was added iu 1798.
The works of Kennicott and De Rossi are too bulky and expensive for general use. An edition of the Hebrew Bible, containing the most important of the various readings iu Kennicott's and De Rossi's volumes, was published by Doederlein and.Meisoner, Leip., 1793; but the text is incorrectly printed, and the paper is exceedingly bad. A far more correct and elegant edition of the Hebrew Bible, which also contains the most important of Kennicott's and De Rossi's various readings, was published by Jahn, Vienna, 1806, 4 vole. 8vo.
Two scholarships were founded at Oxford by the widow of Dr. Ken nicott for the promotion of the study of the Hebrew language.