History of the transmission of ancient books to modern times / together with the process of historical proof; or, a concise account of the means by which genuineness of ancient literature generally, and the authenticity of historical works especially are ascertained including incidental remarks upon the relative strength of the evidence usually adduced in behalf of the Holy Scriptures

by Isaac Taylor

If any one is so uninformed as to suppose that this kind of evidence is open to uncertainty, or that it admits of refutation, let him, if he has access to an ordinary English library, open the volumes of writers of all classes since the days of Elizabeth, and see how many allusions to Shakespeare, and how many verbal quotations from his plays, and how many commentaries upon portions, or upon the whole of them he can find; and then let him ask himself if there remains the possibility of doubting that these dramas—such in the main as they now are, were in existence at the accession of James I. If these quotations and allusions were not more than a fifth or a tenth part of what they actually are, the proof would not, in fact, be less conclusive than it is.

9. Early versions.

For the purpose of establishing the antiquity, genuineness, and integrity of the Scriptures, no other proof need be adduced than that which is afforded by the ancient versions now extant. When accordant translations of the same writings, in several unconnected languages, and in languages which have long ceased to be vernacular, are in existence, every other kind of evidence may be regarded as superfluous.

In this respect a comparison between the classic authors and the Scriptures can barely be instituted; for scarcely anything that deserves to be called a translation of those writers—executed at a very early period after their first publication, is extant. But, on the other side, the high importance attached by the Jews to the Old Testament, and by the early Christians to the New, and the earnest desire of the poor and unlearned to possess, in their own tongue, the words of eternal life, suggested the idea, and introduced the practice, of making complete and faithful translations of both.

Thus it is that, independently of the original text, the Old Testament exists in the Chaldee paraphrases or Targums; in the Septuagint, or Greek version; in the translations of Aquila, of Symmachus, and of Theodosian; in the Syriac and the Latin, or Vulgate versions; in the Arabic, and in the Ethiopic; not to mention others of later date.

The New Testament has been conveyed to modern times, in whole or in part, in the Peshito, or Syriac translation, in the Coptic, in several Arabic versions, in the Æthiopic, the Armenian, the Persian, the Gothic, and in the old Latin versions.

10. The vernacular extinction of the languages, or of the idioms, in which these books were written.

To write Attic Greek was the ambition and the affectation of the Constantinopolitan writers of the third and fourth centuries; and thus also, to acquire a pure Latinity, was assiduously aimed at by writers of the middle ages; and, in fact, a few of them so far succeeded in this sort of imitation that they executed some forgeries, on a small scale, which would hardly have been detected, if they had not wanted external proof.

But now the pure Hebrew—such as it had been spoken and written before the Babylonish captivity, had so entirely ceased to be vernacular during the removal of the Jews from their land, that immediately after their return the original Scriptures needed to be interpreted to the people by their Rabbis; nor is there any evidence that the power of writing the primitive language was affected by these Rabbis, whose commentaries are composed in the dialect that was vernacular in their times.

As to the Hellenistic Greek of the New Testament, differing as it does, from the style of the classic authors, and even from that of the Septuagint, to which it is the most nearly allied, it very soon passed out of use; for the later Christian writers, in the Greek language, had, in most instances, formed their style before the time of their conversion; or at least they aimed at a style, widely differing from that of the apostles and evangelists. The idiom of the New Testament, in which phrases or forms of speech borrowed from the surrounding languages occur, resulted from the very peculiar education and circumstances of the writers, which were such as to make their dialect, in many particulars, unlike any other style; and such as could not fail soon to become extinct.