THE MODERN CYCLOPEDIA of Universal Information - 1901 -

Edited By Charles Annandale, MA., LL.D.

London The Gresham Publshing Company Farringdon Avenue E.C. - & - 130 Bath Street Glasgow

Bible (Greek biblia, books, from biblos, the inner bark of the papyrus, on which the ancients wrote), the collection of the Sacred Writings or Holy Scriptures of the Christians. Its two main divisions, one received by both Jews and Christians, the other by Christians only, are improperly termed Testaments, owing to the confusion of two meanings of the Greek word diatheke which was applied indifferently to a covenant and to a last will or testament. The Jewish religion being represented as a compact between God and the Jews, the Christian religion was regarded as a new compact between God and the human race; and the Bible is, therefore, properly divisible into the Writings of the Old and New Covenants.

The books of the Old Testament received by the Jews were divided by them into three classes:

1. The Law, contained in the Pentateuch or five books of Moses.

2. The Prophets, comprising Joshua, Judges, I. and II. Samuel, I. and II, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets.

3. The Ketubim, or Hagiographa (holy writings), containing the Psalms, the Proverbs, Job, in one division; Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, the Song of Solomon, in another division; Daniel, Ezra Nehemiah I and II. Chronicles, in a third.

These books are extant in the Hebrew language; others, rejected from the Canon as apocryphal by Protestants, are found only in Greek or Latin.

The books of Moses were deposited, according to the Bible, in the tabernacle, near the ark, the other sacred writings being similarly preserved. They were removed by Solomon to the temple, and on the capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar probably perished. According to Jewish tradition Ezra, with the assistance of the great synagogue, collected and compared as many copies as could be found, and from this collation an edition of the whole was prepared, with the exception of the writings of Ezra, Malachi, and Nehemiah, added subsequently, and certain obviously later insertions in other books. When Judas Maccabaeus repaired the temple, which had been destroyed by Antiochus Epiphanes, he placed in it a correct copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, whether the recension of Ezra or not is not known. This copy was carried to Rome by Titus. The exact data of the determination of the Hebrew canon is uncertain, but no work known to be written later than about 100 years after the captivity was admitted into it by the Jews of Palestine. The Hellenistic or Alexandrian Jews, however, were less strict and admitted many later writings, forming what is now known as the Apocrypha, in which they were followed by the Latin Church. The Protestant churches at the Reformation gave in their adherence to the restricted Hebrew canon, though the Apocrypha was long included in the various editions of the Bible.

The division into chapter and Verses, as it now exists, is of comparatively modern origin, though divisions of some kind were early introduced. Cardinal Hugo de Santo Caro, in the thirteenth century, divided the latin translation known as the Vulgate into chapters for convenience of reference, and similar division. were made in the Hebrew, text by Rabbi Mordecai Nathan in the fifteenth century. About the middle of the sixteenth century the verses in Robert Stephanus's edition of the Vulgate were for the first time marked by numbers.

The earliest and most famous version of the Old Testament is the Septuagint, or Greek translation, executed by Alexandrian Greeks, and completed probably before 130 B.C. different portions being done at different times. This version was adopted by the early Christian church and by the Jews themselves, and has always held an important place in regard to the interpretation and history of the Bible. The Syriac version, the Peshito, made early in the second century after Christ is celebrated for its fidelity. The Coptic version was made from the Septuagint in the third or fourth century. The Gothic version, by Ulphilas, was made from the Septuagint in the fourth century, but mere insignificant fragments of it are extant. The most important Latin version is the Vulgate, executed by Jerome, partly on the basis of the original Hebrew, and completed in 405 A.D.
The printed editions of the Hebrew Bible are very numerous. The first edition of the entire Hebrew Bible was printed at Soncino in 1488. The Brescian edition of 1494 was used by Luther in making his German translation. The editions of Athias ( 1661 and 1667 ) are much esteemed for heir beauty and correctness. Van der Hooght followed the latter. Dr. Kennicott did more than any one of his predecessors to settle the Hebrew text. His Hebrew Bible appeared at Oxford in 1776 - 80, two vols. folio. The text is from that of Van der Hooght, with which 630 MSS. were collated. De Rossi, who published a supplement to Kennicott's edition ( Parma, 1784 - 99, five vols. 4to), collated 958 MSS. The German Orientalists, Gesenius, De Wette, &c., in recent times, have done very much towards correcting the Hebrew text. The oldest MS. of the Hebrew Bible belongs to 1106, and presents what is known as the Massoretic text, that is the text provided with the vowel points and other markings which were inserted by Jewish scholars known as the Massoretes.

The books of the New Testament were all written in Greek, unless it be true, as some critics suppose, that the Gospel of St. Matthew was originally written in Hebrew. Most of these writings have always teen received as canonical; but the Epistle to the Hebrews, commonly ascribed to St. Paul, that of St. Jude, the second of Peter, the second and third of John, and the Apocalypse, have been doubted. The three oldest MSS. are

(1) the Sinaitic MS., discovered by Tischendorf in a convent on Mount Sinai in 1859, assigned to the middle of the fourth century;

(2) the Vatican MS. at Rome, of similar date;

(3) the Alexandrine MS. in the British Museum, assigned to the middle of the fifth century.

Each MS. contains also the Septuagint Greek of the Old Testament in great part. The Vulgate of Jerome embraces a Latin translation of the New as well as of the Old Testament based on an older Latin version. The division of the text of the New Testament into chapters and verses was introduced later than that of the Old Testament; but it is not precisely known when or by whom. The Greek text was first printed in the Complutensian Polyglot in 1514; in 1516 an edition of it was published at Basel by Erasmus. Among recent valuable editions are those of Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Westoott and Hort.

Of translations of the Bible into modern languages the English and the German are the most celebrated. Considerable portions were translated into Anglo-Saxon, including the Gospels and the Psalter. Wycliffe's translation of the whole Bible (from the Vulgate), begun about 1356, was completed shortly before his death, which took place in 1384. The first printed version of the Bible in English was the translation of William Tindall or Tyndale, whose New Testament was printed in quarto at Cologne in 1525, a small octavo edition appearing at the same time at Worms. Tonstall, bishop of London, caused the first edition to be bought up and burned. The Pentateuch was published by Tindall in 1530, and he also translated some of the prophetical books. Oar translation of the New Testament is much indebted to Tindall's. A translation of the entire Bible was published by Miles Coverdale in 1535. It was undertaken at the instance of 'Thomas Cromwell, and being made from German and Latin versions was inferior to Tindall's. After the death of Tindall John Rogers undertook the completion of his translation and the preparation of a new edition. In this edition the latter part of the Old Testament (after II. Chronicles) was based on Coverdale's version. A revised edition was published in 1539 under the superintendence of Richard Taverner. In the same year as Taverner's another edition appeared, printed by authority, with a preface by Cranmer, and hence called Cranmer's Bible. This was the first Bible printed by authority in England, and a royal proclamation in 1540 ordered it to be placed in every parish church. This continued, with various revisions, to be the authorized version till 1568. In 1557-60 an edition appeared at Geneva, based on Tindall's - the work of Whittington, Coverdale, Goodman. John Knox, and other exiles - and commonly called the Geneva or Breeches Bible ( from breeches' standing instead of 'aprons' in Gen. iii. 7 ). This version, for sixty years the most popular in England, was allowed to be printed it England under a patent of monopoly in 1561. It was the first printed in Roman letters, and was also the first to adopt the plan previously adopted in the Hebrew of a division into verses. It omitted the Apocrypha, left the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews open, and put words not in the original in italics. The Bishops' Bible, published 1568 to 1572, was based on Cranmer's and revised by Archbishop Parker and eight bishops. It succeeded Cranmer's as the authorized version, but did not commend itself to scholars or people. In 1582 an edition of the New Testament, translated from the Latin Vulgate, appeared at Rheims, and in 1609 - 10 the Old Testament was published at Douay. This is the version recognized by the R, Catholic Church.

In the reign of James I. Hebrew scholar, Hugh Bronghton, Insisted on the necessity of a new translation, and at the Hampton Court Conference (1604) the suggestion was accepted by the king. The work was undertaken by forty-seven scholars divided into six companies, two meeting at Westminster, two at Oxford, and two at Cambridge, while general committee meeting in London revised the portions of the translation finished by each. The revision was begun in 1607, and occupied three years, the completed work being published in folio in 1611. By the general accuracy of its translation and the purity of its style it superseded all other versions. In response, however, to a widely-spread desire for a translation even yet more free from errors, the Convocation of Canterbury in 1870 appointed a committee to consider the question of revising the English version. Their report being favourable two companies were formed, one for the Old Testament and one for the New, consisting partly of members of Convocation and partly of outside scholars. Two similar companies were also organized in America to work along with the British scholars. The result was that the revised version of the New Testament was issued in 1881; that of the Old Testament in 1885. The revision has been carried out in a spirit of reverence towards the older version, and few alterations have been admitted but such as have been called for on the score of accuracy, clesrness and uniformity - see the revisers' prefaces.

In Germany some seventeen translations of the Bible, partly in the High German partly in the Low German dialect, appeared between the invention of printing and the Reformation, but they had all to make way for Luther's great translation - the New Testament in 1522, and the whole Bible in 1534.

Bible Societies, societies formed for the distribution of the Bible or portions of it in various languages, either gratuitously or at a low rate. A clergyman of Wales, whom The want of a Welsh Bible led to London, occasioned the establishment of the British and Foreign Bible Society, March 7, 1804. A great number of similar Institutions were soon formed in all parts of Great Britain, and afterwards on the Continent of Europe, in Asia and in America, and connected with the British as a parent or kindred society. Since the formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society it has circulated over 340 versions of the whole or parts of the Scriptures in 298 different languages. In more than thirty instances languages have for the first time been reduced to a written form, in order to translate into them and circulate amongst the people the Bibles of this society. The total issues now amount to about 100,000,000 copies, while about 70,000,000 additional copies have been distributed by the kindred societies which have sprung out of it. The proceedings of the British and Foreign Bible Society gave rise to several controversies, one of which related to the neglecting to give the Prayer-book with the Bible. Another controversy related to the circulation of the Apocrypha along with the canonical books. The Edinburgh Bible Society established in 1809, and up to 1826 connected with the British and Foreign Bible Society, seceded on the occasion of the controversy regarding the circulation of the Apocrypha, and up to 1860 existed as a separate society. In 1861 this society was united with the National, the Glasgow, and other Bible societies, into a whole called the National Bible Society of Scotland, having its headquarters in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Its total issue is now over 7,000,000. The Hibernian Bible Society, which has its headquarters in Dublin, was established in 1806, to encourage a wider circulation of the Bible in Ireland. Total issue about 5,000,000 copies. In Germany the principal Bible society is the Prussian, established at Berlin in 1814 and having many auxiliaries. France has two principal Bible Societies, whose headquarters are at Paris, the one instituted in 1818, the other in 1833. Switzerland possesses various Bible societies, chief among which are those of Basel (1804), Bern, Lausanne, and Geneva. In the Netherlands there has existed since 1815 a fraternal union of different sects for the distribution of Bibles. The Swedish Bible Society was instituted in 1808, and the Norwegian Bible Society in 1816. The first Russian Society in St. Petersburg printed the Bible in thirty-one languages. and dialects spoken in the Russian dominions, and auxiliary societies were formed at Irkutsk, Tobolsk, among the Kirghises, Georgians, and Cossacks of the Don; but they were all suppressed by an imperial ukase in 1826. In 1831 a new Bible Society was instituted at St. Petersburg - namely, the Russian Evangelical Bible Society. Italy, Spain, and Portugal have had as yet no Bible societies; but the British societies are energetic in providing them with bibles in their own tongues. In the United States of America the great American Bible Society, formed in 1816, acts in concert with auxiliary societies in all parts of the Union. Its total issue since its organization has been about 40,000,000.