A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

All the Books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive, and account them canonical.”—Article VI.

The Jews acknowledge the Books of the Old Testament only, which both Jews and Christians agree were collected into one body, except the Book of Malachi, by Ezra. They had been preserved during the Babylonish captivity, and the collection was made by him on the return from it. He divided the Bible, (מקרה) mikra, lesson, lecture, or Scripture, Βίβλος, (the Book,) into three parts: 1. The Law, containing the Pentateuch, or five books of Moses; 2. The Prophets, containing thirteen books; and 3. The Hagiographa, four books, making in the whole twenty-two, the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet, but which the Jews now make twenty-four.

The first (the Law) was divided into fifty-four sections, for the several sabbaths, (with the intercalated month,) and these sections into verses. The division into chapters, which were originally subdivided by letters, not figures as now, is of late date, and was done to facilitate the use of concordances.

Some Books are cited in the Old Testament which are now lost, unless the same as others, under different names; as, 1. “The Book of Jasher” (Josh. x. 13; 2 Sam. i. 18); 2. “The Book of the Wars of the Lord” (Numb. xxi. 14); 3. “The Book of Chronicles or Days,” containing the annals of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, frequently cited in the Books of Kings and Chronicles; 4. The remainder of Solomon’s “three thousand proverbs,” and “a thousand and five songs,” and the whole of his writings on natural history, “of trees,” “of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes” (1 Kings iv. 32, 33); and 5. Probably the Lamentations of Jeremiah on the death of Josiah, as this subject seems not included in the book now extant. Some think that the first, the Book of Jasher, is the same as the second; others, the Books of Moses; and others think the first three are the same, and were public records deposited in the house of God. It is very probable that the references to these books, from the sense of them, were subsequent introductions.

Hebrew was the language of the Old Testament generally, but Ezra, ch. iv., from verse 8 to ch. vi. verse 19, and ch. vii., from verse 12 to 27, Jeremiah, ch. x. verse 11, and Daniel, from ch. ii. verse 4, to end of ch. vii., are in Chaldee. The Books of the New Testament were written in Greek, except, only, it has been questioned whether St. Matthew did not write in Hebrew, or Syriac, the language then spoken in Judea; and St. Mark in Latin; and whether the Epistle to the Hebrews was not first written in Hebrew.

Whether the art of writing had its origin in the communication of God with Moses on Mount Sinai, is doubtful. Some imagine that the passage, Gen. xxiii. 17, is an actual abridgment of the conveyance of the field of Ephron made to Abraham. It is certainly not improbable that the patriarchs might have compiled records of their time, and that by inspiration; and that Moses might collect these, as Ezra did in after-times. And this is argued by some from a supposed difference of style. Moses himself was expressly directed to write by way of record; a custom which continued under the Judges and the Kings, some of the latter of whom collected and arranged the books then existing; as it is clear Hezekiah did the proverbs of Solomon. The prophecies of Jeremiah, we know, were publicly read; and when Ezra made his collection, the number of copies was great, and the difference existing between them is supposed to form the marginal readings, amounting in all to 840. It was after his time that translations began to be made.

The preservation of the sacred Scriptures, and of the genuineness and integrity of the text, seems almost miraculous. It was in order to this that the Masora was composed, by which was ascertained, with stupendous labour, the number of verses, of words, and even of letters, contained in the twenty-four books of the Old Testament, and in every section and subdivision; and also the words supposed to be changed, superfluous letters, repetitions of verses and words, significations different or analogous, mute letters, and various other particulars and mysteries.

The Targum (explanation) is the Chaldee Paraphrase; being this rather than literal translations of the books of the Old Testament, and by which, when the Hebrew text was read in the synagogue, it was explained to the people. The first Targum was that of Jonathan, about thirty years before Christ, on the greater and lesser Prophets. The next is that of Onkelos, nearly contemporary, or something later, on the Books of Moses only, short and simple, and the most esteemed. The Targum of Joseph the Blind, on the Hagiographa, is more modern, in a corrupt Chaldee, and less regarded. The Targum of Jerusalem, on the Pentateuch only, is very imperfect, and supposed by some to be only a fragment. Besides these there is a Targum falsely ascribed to Jonathan, on the Pentateuch, evidently not older than the 7th century: the Targums on Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Lamentations, Ruth, Esther: three Targums on Esther, and a Targum on the Chronicles, discovered in 1680: all these are of late date, not earlier than the 6th century. On Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, there is no Targum.

Most of the MSS. of the Hebrew Bible at present in existence were collated by and for Dr. Kennicott, 250 by himself, and 350 by another, being from 480 to 800 years old. Since this more than 400 others, of the 7th or 8th century, have been discovered. Dr. Rossi followed up Dr. Kennicott’s work.

The first printed edition of the whole Bible was in 1488; the first Latin translation was by Munster, in 1534. The Septuagint was probably the first Greek version; to which followed those of Symmachus and Theodotion, with three others by unknown authors. The Septuagint, (a translation supposed to have been by seventy-two Jews,) called for conciseness “the Seventy,” was made in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, B. C. 277, at an expense of above £136,000. There are four principal modern editions: the Complutensian, A. D. 1514–1517; the Aldine, 1518; the Roman of Sixtus V., 1587; and Grabe’s, printed at Oxford, 1707–1720. In 1798, Dr. Holmes began publishing an edition at Oxford, carried on since his death by Mr. Parsons, on the plan of Kennicott’s Hebrew Bible with the various readings in the margin.