SECTION II.

ON THE COGNATE OR KINDRED LANGUAGES.

I. The Aramaan, with its two dialects; 1. The Chaldee; 2. The Syriac.II. The Arabic, with its derivative, the Ethiopic. -III. Use and importance of the Cognate Languages to Sacred Criticism.

THE Cognate or Kindred Languages are those which are allied to the Hebrew, as being sister-dialects of the Shemitic trunk language, all of which preserve nearly the same structure and analogy. The principal cognate languages are the Aramaan, and the Arabic, with their respective dialects or derivatives.

I. The ARAMEAN LANGUAGE (which in the authorized English version of 2 Kings xviii. 26., and Dan. ii. 4., is rendered the Syrian or Syriac) derives its name from the very extensive region of Aram, in which it was anciently vernacular. As that region extended from the Mediterranean sea through Syria and Mesopotamia, beyond the river Tigris, the language there spoken necessarily diverged into various dialects; the two principal of which are the Chaldee and the Syriac.

1. The CHALDEE, sometimes called by way of distinction the EastAramaan dialect, was formerly spoken in the province of Babylonia, between the Euphrates and the Tigris, the original inhabitants of which cultivated this language as a distinct dialect, and communicated it to the Jews during the Babylonian captivity. By means of the Jews it was transplanted into Palestine, where it gradually became the vernacular tongue; though it did not completely displace the old Hebrew until the time of the Maccabees. Although the Aramæan, as spoken by Jews, partook somewhat of the Hebrew character, no entire or very important corruption of it took place; and to this circumstance alone the Babylonians are indebted for the survival, or at least the partial preservation, of their language, which, even in the mothercountry, has, since the spread of Mohammedism, been totally extinct. The principal remains of the Chaldee dialect now extant will be found

(1.) In the Canonical Books, Ezra iv. 8 to vi. 18. and vii. 12-26. Jer. x. 11., and Dan. ii. 4. to the end of chapter vii.; and

(2.) In the Targums or Chaldee Paraphrases of the Books of the Old Testament, of which an account will be hereafter given.1

2. The SYRIAC or West-Aramaan was spoken both in Syria and Mesopotamia; and, after the captivity, it became vernacular in Galilee. Hence, though several of the sacred writers of the New Testament expressed themselves in Greek, their ideas were Syriac; and they consequently used many Syriac idioms, and a few Syriac words.2 The

1 Jahn, Elementa Aramaica Linguæ, p. 2.'; Walton's Proleg. xii. §§ 2, 3. pp. 559— 562. (edit. Dathii); Riggs' Manual of the Chaldee Language, pp. 9—12. (Boston, Mass. 1832.). To his excellent Chaldee Grammar Mr. R. has appended a Chrestomathy, containing the biblical Chaldee passages, and select portions of the Targums with very useful notes and a vocabulary, to facilitate the acquisition of this dialect to the biblical student.

" Masclef, Gramm. Hebr. vol. ii. p. 114.; Wotton's Misna, vol. i. præf. p. xviii.

chief difference between the Syriac and Chaldee consists in the vowelpoints or mode of pronunciation; and, notwithstanding the forms of their respective letters are very dissimilar, yet the correspondence between the two dialects is so close that, if the Chaldee be written in Syriac characters without points, it becomes Syriac, with the exception of a single inflection in the formation of the verbs. The earliest document still extant in the Syriac dialect is the Peshito or old Syriac version of the Old and New Testaments; of which an account will be hereafter given. The great assistance, which a knowledge of this dialect affords to the critical understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures, is illustrated at considerable length by the elder Michaelis, in a philological dissertation, originally published in 1756, and reprinted in the first volume of MM. Pott's and Ruperti's "Sylloge Commentationum Theologicarum.”2

[Some scholars have denied that there was any real distinction between the so-called East and West-Aramæan dialects. Thus De Wette would consider the Chaldee as merely a branch of the single Aramæan tongue debased by admixture with the Hebrew. It may be conceded that there is no proof that two dialects, Chaldee and Syriac, existed in anything like strong contrast; still there would seem to be variations, lexical and grammatical, enough to show that a peculiar language, the East-Aramæan, was in use in Babylon. The Syriac, which has also been termed a New-Aramaan, has been developed among the Syrian churches in Nisibis and Edessa, and is to this day the ecclesiastical language of those Syrian Christians who are comprehended under the divisions of Jacobites, Maronites, and Papal Syrians. The Nestorians, and Chaldeans, or Papal Nestorians, use Chaldee in its purer form in their liturgies and theological literature. A vulgar dialect of Chaldee is spoken by the Nestorians.

The Samaritan language, which, as before stated, is a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaan, exists only in the translation of the Pentateuch, and in some ecclesiastical poems published from the British Museum by Gesenius in 1824.5 The Zabian is a corrupt NewAramæan dialect.]

II. Though more remotely allied to the Hebrew than either of the preceding dialects, the ARABIC LANGUAGE possesses sufficient analogy to explain and illustrate the former, and is not, perhaps, inferior in importance to the Chaldee or the Syriac; particularly as it is a living language, in which almost every subject has been discussed, and has received the minutest investigation from native writers and lexicographers. The Arabic language has many roots in common with the Hebrew tongue: there are roots, too, yet existing in Arabic, of which only the derivatives are to be found in the Hebrew writings that are 1 Walton, Proleg. xiii. §§ 2, 3, 4, 5. pp. 594-603.

D. Christiani Benedicti Michaelis Dissertatio Philologica, quâ Lumina Syriaca pro illustrando Ebraismo Sacro exhibentur (Halæ, 1756), in Pott's and Ruperti's Sylloge, tom. i. pp. 170-244. The editors have inserted in the notes some additional observations from Michaelis's own copy.

Einleitung in die Bibel A. und N. Test., Erster Theil, § 32. pp. 49, 50.

See Hävernick, Einleitung, 1. i. §§ 19., &c. pp. 104., &c.; Keil, Einleitung, § 11. pp. 29., &c. See De Wette, Einleitung, as above.

extant. The learned Jews, who flourished in Spain from the tenth to the twelfth century under the dominion of the Moors, were the first who applied Arabic to the illustration of the Hebrew language; and subsequent Christian writers, as Bochart, the elder Schultens, Olaus Celsius, and others, have diligently and successfully used the Arabian historians, geographers, and authors on natural history, in the explanation of the Bible.1

[The Arabic is the richest and most fully developed of all the Shemitic languages. Originally confined within the limits of Arabia, it has with the success of Mohammedanism extended itself largely through Asia and Africa. There were doubtless many dialects of it. Of these the Himyaric in Yemen was distinct from that of central Arabia. It was simpler and more nearly allied to Hebrew. From it sprung the Ethiopic tongue; in which a version of the Scripture, and some ecclesiastical writings, exist. This was vernacular in Abyssinia, till it was supplanted in the 13th century by Amharic, still the language of the country. The Koreishite dialect was that of Mecca, and prevailed through north-western Arabia, till it became emphatically the Arabic language. All Arabic literature is found in it. It flourished till the 14th or 15th century, when it degenerated into the yet-spoken vulgar Arabic, which is more simple, and therefore nearer to the Hebrew and Aramæan, but corrupted with many foreign and especially Turkish words.3]

2

The ETHIOPIC Language, which is immediately derived from the Arabic, has been applied with great advantage to the illustration of the Scriptures by Bochart, De Dieu, Hottinger, and Ludolph (to whom we are indebted for an Ethiopic Grammar and Lexicon)1; and Pfeiffer has explained a few passages in the books of Ezra and Daniel, by the aid of the PERSIAN language.5

III. The Cognate or Kindred Languages are of considerable use in sacred criticism. Besides the help they furnish for interpretation, to be hereafter noticed, they may lead us to discover the occasions of such false readings as transcribers unskilled in the Hebrew, but accustomed to some of the other dialects, have made by writing words in the form of that dialect instead of the Hebrew form. Further, the knowledge of these languages will frequently serve to prevent ill-grounded conjectures that a passage is corrupted, by showing that the common reading is susceptible of the very sense which such passage requires; and, when different readings are found in copies of the Bible, these languages may sometimes assist us in determining which of them ought to be preferred."

1 Bauer, Herm. Sacr. pp. 82, 83, 106, 107.; Walton, Proleg. xiv. §§ 2-7. 14. pp. 635643, 649.; Bishop Marsh, Divinity Lectures, part iii. lect. xiv. p. 28.

Bauer, Herm. Sacr. p. 107.; Walton, Proleg. xv. §§ 6-8. pp. 674-678.

Dubia Vexata, cent. iv. no. 66. Op. tom. i. pp. 420-422. and Herm. Sacra, c. vi

§ 9. Ibid. tom. ii. p. 648.; Walton, Proleg. xvi. § 5. pp. 691, 692.

Gerard, Institutes of Biblical Criticism, part i. chap. iii. § 3. p. 68.

CHAP. II.

CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE TEXT OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

SECTION I.

HISTORY AND CONDITION OF THE TEXT OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

I From the writing of the Books of the Old Testament, until the time of Jesus Christ; 1. History of the Pentateuch; 2. Ancient History of the remaining books of the Old Testament.—II. From the time of Jesus Christ to the age of the Masoretes; 1. History of the text in the first century ; 2. From the second to the fifth century; 3. Particularly in the time of Jerome.-III. From the age of the Masoretes to the invention of the art of Printing; 1. Origin of the Masorah,-its object and critical value; 2. Oriental and Occidental Readings; 3. Recensions of Aaron Ben Asher and Jacob Ben Naphtali; 4. Standard copies of the Hebrew Scriptures in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.-IV. From the invention of the art of Printing to our own time.

THE CRITICAL HISTORY of the Text of the Old Testament has been divided into various periods. Dr. Kennicott has specified six; Bauer divides it into two principal epochs, each of which is subdivided into two periods; Jahn has five periods; and Muntinghe, whose arrangement is here adopted, has disposed it into four periods; viz. 1. From the writing of the Hebrew books until the time of Jesus Christ; 2. From the time of Christ to the age of the Masoretes; 3. From the age of the Masoretes to the invention of the art of printing: and, 4. From the invention of printing to our own time.

I. HISTORY OF THE HEBREW TEXT FROM THE WRITING OF THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT UNTIL THE TIME of Jesus CHRIST.

1. We commence with the Pentateuch; concerning the earliest history of which we have more minute information than we have of the other books of the Old Testament. Previously to the building of Solomon's temple, the Pentateuch was deposited BY' the side of the ark of the covenant (Deut. xxxi. 24-26.), to be consulted by the Israelites; and, after the erection of that sacred edifice, it was deposited in the treasury, together with all the succeeding productions of the inspired writers. On the subsequent destruction of the temple by Nebuchadnezzar, the autographs of the sacred books are supposed to have perished; but some learned men have conjectured that they were preserved, because it does not appear that Nebuchadnezzar evinced any particular enmity against the Jewish religion; and, in the account of the sacred things carried to Babylon (2 Kings xxv. 2 Chron. xxxvi. Jer. lii.), no mention is made of the sacred

So it should be rendered; not, IN the side of the ark. See Dr. Kennicott, Diss. ii.

p. 298.

books. However this may be, it is a fact that copies of these autographs were carried to Babylon; for we find the prophet Daniel quoting the law (Dan. ix. 11, 13.), and also expressly mentioning the prophecies of Jeremiah (ix. 2.), which he could not have done, if he had never seen them. We are further informed that, on the finishing of the temple in the sixth year of Darius, the Jewish worship was fully re-established according as it is written in the book of Moses (Ezra vi. 18.); which would have been impracticable, if the Jews had not had copies of the law then among them. But what still more clearly proves that they must have had transcripts of their sacred writings during, as well as subsequent to, the Babylonish captivity, is the fact that, when the people requested Ezra to produce the law of Moses (Nehem. viii. 1.), they did not entreat him to get it dictated anew to them; but that he would bring forth the book of the law of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel. Further, long before the time of Jesus Christ, another edition of the Pentateuch was in the hands of the Samaritans, which has been preserved to our time; and, though it differs in some instances from the text of the Hebrew Pentateuch, yet upon the whole it accurately agrees with the Jewish copies.' And, in the year 286 or 285 before the Christian era, the Pentateuch was translated into the Greek language'; and this version, whatever errors may now be detected in it, was so executed as to show that the text, from which it was made, agreed substantially with the text which we now have.

2. With regard to the entire Hebrew Bible.- About fifty years after the re-building of the temple, and the consequent re-establishment of the Jewish religion, it is generally admitted that the canon of the Old Testament was settled; but by whom this great work was accomplished is a question on which there is considerable difference of opinion. On the one hand it is contended that it could not have been done by Ezra himself; because, though he has related his zealous efforts in restoring the law and worship of Jehovah, yet on the settlement of the canon he is totally silent; and the silence of Nehemiah, who has recorded the pious labours of Ezra, as well as the silence of Josephus, who is diffuse in his encomiums on him, has further been urged as a presumptive argument that he could not have collected the Jewish writings. But to these hypothetical reasonings we may oppose the constant tradition of the Jewish church, uncontradicted both by their enemies and by Christians, that Ezra, with the assistance of the members of the great synagogue (among whom were the prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi), did collect as many copies of the sacred writings as he could, and from them set forth a correct edition of the canon of the Old Testament, with the exception of his own writings, the book of Nehemiah, and the prophecy of Malachi; which were subsequently annexed to the canon by Simon the Just, who is said to have been the last of the great synagogue. In this Esdrine text, the errors of the former copyists were corrected; and Ezra (being himself an inspired writer) See a fuller account of the Samaritan Pentateuch, infra, sect. ii.

See a critical account of the Septuagint version, in chap. iii. sect. ii, infra.