CRITICISM
502
CRITICISM
Again, here and there, and precisely in the same places,
may be noticed spaces indicating a hiatus; finally, on
certain words or letters are points intended to annul
them. (See Cornill, "Einleitung in die Kanon.
Bucher des A. T.", 5th ed., Tubingen, 1905, p. 310.)
All these phenomena led Spinoza to suspect, and en-
abled Paul de Lagarde to prove (Annierkungen zur
griechischen Uebersetzung dcr Proverbien, 1803, pp.
1, 2) that all the Hebrew manuscripts known come
down from a single copy of which they reproduce even
the faults and imperfections. This theory is now
generally accepted, and the opposition it has met has
only served to make its truth clearer. It has even
been made more specific and has been proved to the
extent of showing that the actual text of our manu-
scripts was established and, so to speak, canonized
between the first and second century of our era, in
an epoch, that is, when, after the destruction of the
Temple and the downfall of the Jewish nation, all
Judaism was reduced to one school. In fact, this
text does not differ from that which St. Jerome used
for the Vulgate, Origen for his Hexapla, and Aquila,
Symmachus, and Theodotus for their versions of the
Old Testament, although it is far removed from the
text followed in the Septuagint.
As centuries elapsed between the composition of the various boolvs of the Old Testament and the deter- mining of the Massoretic text, it is but likely that more or less serious modifications were introduced, the more so as, in the interval, there had occurred two events particularly favourable to textual corruption, namely a change in writing — the old Phoenician hav- ing given way to the square Hebrew — and a change in spelling, consisting, for example, of the separation of words formerly united and in the frequent and rather irregular use of matres lectionis. The variants that supervened may be accounted for by comparing parallel parts of Samuel and Kings with the Paralipo- mena, and above all by collating passages twice repro- duced in the Bible, such as Ps. xvii (xviii) with II Sam., xxii, or Is., xxxvi-xxxix, with II Kings, xviii, 17-xx, 19. [See Touzard, "Dc la conservation du texte h^breu" in "Revue biblique", VI (1897), 31-47, 185-206; VII (1898), 511-524; VIII (1899), 83-108.]
An evident consequence of what has just been said is that the comparison of extant manuscripts en- lightens us on the Massoretic, but not on the primitive text. On the latter subject the Mishna and, for still stronger reasons, the remainder of the Talmud cannot teach us anything, as they were subsequent to the constitution of the Massoretic text; nor can the Tar- gums, for the same reason and because they may have since been retouched. Therefore, outside of the Mas- soretic text, our only guides are the Samaritan Pen- tateuch and the Septuagint version. The Samaritan Pentateuch offers us an independent recension of the Hebrew text, dating from the fourth century before our era, that is, from an epoch in which the Samari- tans, under their high-priest Manasseh, separated from the Jews; and this recension is not suspected of any important modifications except the rather inof- fensive, harmless one of substituting Mount Gerizim for Mount Hebal in Deut., xxvii, 4. As to the Sep- tuagint version, we know that it was begim, if not completed, about 280 b. c. To Paul de Lagarde es- pecially belongs the credit of drawing the attention of scholars to the value of the Septuagint for a critical edition of the Hebrew Bible.
(b) Critical editions of the Hebrew text. — After the publication of the Psalms at Bologna in 1477, of the Pentateuch at Bologna in 1482, of the Prophets at Soncino in 1485, and of the Hagiographa at Naples in 1487, the entire Old Testament appeared at Soncino (148H), at Naples (1491-93), at Brescia (1494), at Pesaro (1511-17), and at Alcala (1514-17). Then, between 1510 and 15(i8, came the four Rabbinic Bibles of Venice. It is the second, edited by Jacob ben
Chayim and printed by Bomberg in 1524-1525, that
is generally looked upon as containing the textus
rcceptus (received text). The list of the innmnerable
editions which followed is given by Pick in his "His-
tory of the Printed Editions of the Old Testament"
in " Hebraica" (1892-1893), IX, pp. 47-110. For the
most important editions see Ginsburg, "Introduction
to the Massoretic-critical edition of the Hebrew Bible"
(London, 1897), 779-976. The editions most fre-
quently reprinted are probably those of Van der
Hoogt, Halin, and Theile; but all these older editions
are now supplanted by those of Baer and Delitzsch,
Ginsburg, and Kittel, which are considered more cor-
rect. The Baer and Delitzsch Bible appeared in
fascicles at Leipzig, between 1809 and 1895, and ia
not yet complete; the entire Pentateuch except
Genesis is wanting. Ginsburg, author of the " Intro-
duction" mentioned above, has published an edition
in two volumes (London, 1894). Finally, Kittel, who
had called attention to the necessity of a new edition
(L'eber die Notwendigkeit imd Moglichkeit einer
neuen Ausgabe der hebraischen Bibel, Leipzig, 1902)
has just published one (Leipzig, 1905-00) with the
assistance of several collaborators, Ryssel, Driver, and
others. Almost all the editions thus far mentioned
reproduce the textus receptus by correcting the typo-
graphical errors and indicating the interesting vari-
ants; all adhere to the Massoretic text, that is, to the ]
text adopted by the rabbis between the first and sec-
ond centuries of our era, and found in all the Hebrew
manuscripts. A group of German, English, and
American scholars, under the direction of Haupt, have
undertaken an edition which claims to go back to the
primitive text of the sacred authors. Of the twenty
parts of this Bible, appearing in Leipzig, Baltimore,
and London, and generally known imder the name
of the " Polychrome Bible", sixteen have already been
published: Genesis (Ball, 1890), Leviticus (Driver,
1S94), Numbers (Paterson, 1900), Joshua (Bennett,
1895), Judges (Moore, 1900), Samuel (Budtle, 1894),
Kings (Stade, 1904), Isaiah (Cheyne, 1899), Jeremiah
(Cornill, 1895), Ezekiel (Toy, 1899), Psalms (Well-
hausen, 1895), Proverbs (Kautzsch, 1901), Job (Sieg-
fried, 1893), Daniel (Kamphausen, 1896), Ezra-
Nehemiah (Guthe, 1901), and Chronicles (Kittel,
1895); Deuteronomy (Smith) is in press. It is need-
less to state that, like all who have thus far endeav-
oured to restore the primitive text of certain books,
the editors of the "Polychrome Bible" allow a broad
margin for subjective and conjectural criticism.
2. Greek text of the New Testament, (a) Use of the critical apparatus. — The greatest difficulty con- fronting the editor of the New Testament is the end- less variety of the documents at his disposal. The number of manuscripts increases so rapidly that no list is absolutely complete. The latest, " Die Schriften des N. T." (Berlin, 1902), by Von Sodcn, enumerates 2328 distinct manuscripts outside of lectiOnaries (Gospels and Epistles), and exclusive of about 30 numbers added in an appendix, 30 October, 1902. It must be acknowledged that many of these texts are but fragments of chapters or even of verees. This enormous mass of manuscripts is still but imperfectly studied, and some copies are scarcely known except as figuring in the catalogues. The great uncials them- selves are not yet all collated, and many of them have but lately been rendered accessible to critics. The genealogical classification, above all, is far from com- plete, and many fundamental points are still under discission. The text of the principal versions and of the patristic quotations is far from being satisfac- torily edited, and the genealogical relationship of all these sources of information is not yet determined. These varied ditliculties explain the lack of agreement on the part of editors and the want of conformity in the critical editions published down to the present day.
