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TEXT AND VERSIONS

INTRODUCTION

The exact determination of the original text of theOld and New Testaments is a study which has points of1. General contact with questions concerning both the

Canon of Scripture, and the literary sourcesof the several books. Ther e are instances of

a translation acquiring a scriptural authority which hasnever been accorded to the original, as in the case ofECCLESIASTICUSq . v . ) other books have been theproduct of successive compilations and revisions, so thatit may become a matter of doub t a t what stage of itsexistence it can be said to have been in its original'form. Generally, however, the limits of the subjectcan be marked out by the actual state of extantdocuments. Thu s the criticism of the ' Priestly Code '

limits.

quite beyond textual . Our documents do not

as a single work. On the other band, the extant textsof the Greek translation of Jeremiah suggest very seriousquestions as to the collection and editing of his propheciesand as to the authority for the arrangement found inthe Hebrew and adopted in the English Bible.

Th e case stands much the same with the N T. Wecan learn from the variations of our MSS little that

directly bears on the apostolic origin of the FourthGospel or the Pastoral Epistles. Even the earliestversions do not take us behind the collection of thefour evangelical narratives which together made up t heGospel, or the collection of the thirteen Pauline Epistles.Of the literaryfate of the Apostle's letters, ofthe journeyswhich they may have made from Corinth to Rome,or from Thessalonica to Philippi, before incorporationinto the collected edition, our MSS tell us nothing.Ther e is some evidence that there circulated in theWest an edition of the Epistle 'to the Romans,' inwhich the name of Rome was absent from the openingsalutation, and there is strong evidence that elsewherethan in the West the name of Ephesus was absent fromthe Epistle 't o the Eph esians'; but on this one cir-cumstance it is difficult to build. Th e onlywhere textual study touches the ' Higher Cthough it must be confessed that it is an important one-arises when we consider what inferences are to bedrawn from the incomplete condition in which the

Gospel according to Mk. appears in the best texts. Bywhomsoever Mk. 169-20 was supplied , and at whatevertime it was first attached t o the Gospel, the fact remainsthat the genuine text breaks off in the middle of a sen-tence with all the marks of accidental mutilation. Th enatural inference, the only inference which would bedrawn from a similar state of things in any classical orecclesiastical writing in which such phenomena wereobserved, is that all our MSS are ultimately derivedfrom a single copy itself imperfect at the end.'

But this forms an exception to the class of problemsraised, and the subject of this article may with little lossof accuracy be defined to be the history of the t ext ofthe books of the Old and New Testament s from thetime each became canonical, whether in the Jewish or theChristian church.

The methods of scientific criticism are of courseequally applicable to the whole of the Bible. Indeed, incertain branches of textual st udy the division observedin this article between O T and N T has no significance.

The Old Latin for instance and the Egyptian versions aretranslations of th; Greek Bible as a whole: in such cases theonly true divisions are those produced by the mechanical con-ditions oftranscription. Those hooks of the Bible which wereusually included in the same volume have usually the sameliterary history. Nevertheless the division into NT and OTrepresents for the most part 'a real distinction. All purely

1 Prphably it was mutilated elsewhere.monstrousa form not to be a mere corruption.

Boanerges' is too

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TEXT A.ND VERSIONSJewish documents obviously extend to the OT only. Then,again, the Peshirta and the Latin Vulgate are in the OT trans-lations of the Hebrew and the study of them raises a class ofquestions quite sepadte from that raised by the study of thetexts ofthe N T with which they are bound up.

But the great distinction between the textual studyof the OT and that of the N T lies in the very differenta . Textual part which palzeographical error hascriticism. played in the surviving documents. Ac-

cidental mistakes in the chief ancienttexts of the NT are rare ; but in the OT they are tobe found continually. The inevitable result is thatconjectural emendation, which is almost inadmissible inthe NT, is in the OT a necessity, and one which canhistorically be justified.

A few words here on this important subject may notbe out of place. Strange and confusing as the appearanceof an ancient MS is to our eyes, it was neverthelessclear enough to those who wrote it, and the mistakes incopying which we make are as a rule avoided in oldtimes. Th e discoveries of very ancient papyrus frag-ments of classical works have not overthrown but ratherconfirmed the better class of extant medizval codices.As long as a work was frequently read, a s long as thescribe was fairly familiar with what he was copying,mere mistakes do not seem often to have been made,and when made were frequently corrected. In rareand unfamiliar writings a perfectly different state of

things obtains, and there is then no limit to the perversityof the copyist.Th e N T was written by Christians for Christians ; it

was moreover written in Greek for Greek-speakingcommunities, and the style of writing (with the exception,possibly, of the Apocalypse) was that of currentliterary composition. There has been no real break inthe continuity of the Greek-speaking church, and wefind accordingly that few real blunders of writing aremet with in the leading types of the extant texts. Thisstate of things has not prevented variations ; but they,are not for the most part accidental. An overwhelmingmajority of the ' various readings ' of the MSS of theN T were from the very first intentional aZtwntions.Th e N T in very early times had no canonical authority,and alterations and additions were actually made wherethey seemed improvements. Th e substitution of$ X e p o u L v ~ vfor GrKaroubv?]vin Mt. 6 I and the addition ofthe doxology to the Lords Prayer a dozen verses laterare not palzographical blunders, but deliberate editing.

Th e literary history of the O T has been very different.While the Canon of the OT was being formed, Hebrewwas a dying language, and the political misfortunes ofthe Jews were of a nature far less favourable to thepreservation of ancient documents than the legal per -secutions of the Christians. Under Antiochus, underTitus, and finally under Hadrian, the Palestinian Jewssuffered all the devastating and uprooting effects of awa,r for existence, and it is no wonder if, at the close ofeach of these epochs , the MSS which survived were fewand torn, and the scholars who could read them fewerstill. Hebrew had become a learned tongue, its placebeing mostly supplied by the various forms of Aramaic,and it was not every Jew who could read the Scripturesin the original, far less spell out correctly a damaged orfaulty exemplar. These are the very conditions inwhich slips of copying are inevitably made and leasteasily detected. Th e veneration which the Jews felt fortheir Scriptures ultimately led them to copy SO accuratelyas to preserve the most obvious blunders in the trans-

mitted text ; but this antiquarian science came too late.Nor ar e we on much sure r ground when we come to

the only very ancient version--vi#., the Greek Or,commonly called the Septuagint. Th e fable of the

seventy translators, each of whom independently agreedin their rendering, may be evidence that the AlexandrianJews had some common tradition of the meaning of theLaw ; but if we except the Pentateuch, to which alonethe name ' Septuagin t' properly applies, the various

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