The Old Testament

                                 I. NAME

The word "testament", Hebrew ber�th, Greek diatheke, primarily
signifies the covenant which God entered into first with Abraham,
then with the people of Israel. The Prophets had knowledge of a
new covenant to which the one concluded on Mount Sinai should give
away. Accordingly Christ at the Last Supper speaks of the blood of
the new testament. The Apostle St. Paul declares himself (II Cor.,
iii, 6) a minister "of the new testament", and calls (iii, 14) the
covenant entered into on Mount Sinai "the old testament". The
Greek expression diatheke is employed in the Septuagint for the
Hebrew "ber�th". The later interpreters Aquila and Symmachus
substituted for diatheke the more common syntheke, which probably
agreed more with their literary taste. The Latin term is "f dus"
and oftener testamentum", a word corresponding more exactly to the
Greek.

As regards Christian times, the expression at an early period came
to signify the whole of God's Revelation as exhibited in the
history of Israelites, and because this old covenant was
incorporated into the Canonical Books, it was but an easy step to
make the term signify the Canonical Scriptures. Even the text
referred to above (II Cor., iii, 14) points to that. So, the
Scriptures are called "books of the Old Testament" by Melito of
Sardis and Clement of Alexandria (ta palaia biblia; ta tes palaias
diathekes biblia). It is not clear whether with these authors "Old
Testament" and "Scriptures of the Old Testament" mean the same.
Origen shows that in his time the transition was complete,
although in his writing signs of the gradual fixing of the
expression may be still traced. For he repeatedly speaks of the
"so-called" Old Testament, when meaning the Scriptures. With the
Western writers this use of term in the most ancient period cannot
yet be proved. To the lawyer Tertullian the Sacred Books are,
above all, documents and sources of argument, and he therefore
frequently calls them "vetus and novum instrumentum". Cyprian once
mentions the "scriptur veteres et nov ". Subsequently the Greek
use of the term becomes established among the Latins as well, and
through them it has been made common property of the Christian
world. In this meaning, as signifying the Canonical Scriptures of
the Old Testament, the expression "Old Testament" will be used in
what follows.

                         II. HISTORY OF THE TEXT

The canon of the Old Testament, its manuscripts, editions and
ancient versions are treated in the articles BIBLE; CANON OF THE
HOLY SCRIPTURES; CODEX ALEXANDRINUS, etc.; HEBREW BIBLE; MASSORAH;
MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE; VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE. Questions
concerning the origin and contents of the single books are
proposed and answered in articles on the respective books. This
article is confined to the general introduction on the text of the
parts of the Old Testament written in Hebrew; for the few books
originally composed in Greek (Wisdom; II Machabees) and those of
which the Semitic original has been lost (Judith; Tobias; Sirach,
i.e. Ecclus.; I Machabees) call for no special treatment.

A. Text of the Manuscripts and Massoretes

The sure starting-point for a correct estimation of the text of
the Old Testament is the evidence obtained from the manuscripts.
In this connection, the first thing to observe is that however
distant the oldest manuscripts are -- the earliest are of the
ninth century A.D. -- from the time when the books were composed,
there is a uniform and homogeneous tradition concerning the text.
The fact is all the more striking, as the history of the New
Testament is quite different. We have New Testament manuscripts
written not much more than 300 years after the composition of the
books, and in them we find numerous differences, though but few of
them are important. The textual variants n the manuscripts of the
Old Testament are limited to quite insignificant differences of
vowels and more rarely of consonants. Even when we take into
account the discrepancies between the Eastern, or Babylonian, and
Western, or Palestinian schools, no essential differences are
found. The proof for the agreement between the manuscripts was
established by B. Kennicott after comparing more than 600
manuscripts ("Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum cum cariis lectionibus",
Oxford, 1776, 1780). De Rossi has added considerably to this
material ("Vari� lectiones veteris Testamenti", Parma, 1784-88).
It is obvious that this striking uniformity cannot be due to
chance; it is unique in the history of text-tradition, and all the
more remarkable as the imperfect Hebrew system of writing could
not but occasion many and various errors and slips. Besides many
peculiarities in the method of writing show themselves uniformly
everywhere. False readings are retained in the same manner, so
that the text is clearly the result of artificial equalization.

The question now arises: How far back can we trace this care in
handing down the text to posterity? Philo, many authorities on the
Talmud, and alter Jewish rabbis and savants of the sixteenth and
seventeenth century favoured the opinion that the Hebrew text, as
it is now read in our manuscripts, was written down from the
outset and bequeathed to us unadulterated. The works of Elias
Levita, Morinus, Cappelus have shown this view to be untenable;
and later investigations have established the history of the text
in its essential features. The uniformity of the manuscripts is
ultimately the outcome of the labours of the Massoretes, which
were not concluded till after the writing of the oldest
manuscripts. The work of the Massoretes chiefly consisted in the
faithful preservation of the transmitted text. This they
accomplished by maintaining accurate statistics on the entire
state of the Sacred Books. Verses, words, letters were counted;
lists were complied of like words and of forms of words with full
and effective spelling, and possibilities of easy mistakes were
catalogued. The invention of the signs for vowels and accents --
about the seventh century -- facilitated a faithful preservation
of the text. Incorrect separation and connection of syllables and
words was henceforth all but excluded.

Textual criticism was employed by the Massoretes very moderately,
and even the little they did, shows that as mush as possible they
left untouched all that had been handed down. If a reading proved
untenable, they did not correct the text itself, but were
satisfied with noting the proper reading on the margin as "Qer�"
(read), in opposition to "Keth�bh" (written). Such corrections
were of various kinds. They were first of all corrections of real
mistakes, whether of letters or of entire words. A letter or a
word in the text had, according to the note on the margin, either
to be changed, or inserted, or omitted by the reader. Such were
the so-called "Tiqqun� Sopher�m", corrections of the scribes. The
second group of corrections consisted in changing an ambiguous
word, -- of such eighteen are recorded in the Massorah. In the
Talmud no mention has as yet been made of them. But its compilers
were aware of the " Ittur� Sopher�m", or erasures of the
connecting Waw, which had been made in several places in
opposition to the Septuagint and the Samaritan Versions. When
later the Massoretes speak only of four or five instances, we must
say with Ginsburg that these are merely recorded as typical. Cases
are not rare when consideration for religious or moral feeling has
led to the substitution of a more harmless euphemism for an ill-
sounding word. The vowels of the expression to be read are
attached to the written word of the text, whilst the consonants
are noted on the margin. Well known is the ever-recurring "Qer�"
Adonai instead of Jahv�; it seems to date back to the time before
Christ, and probably even the first Greek interpreters were
acquainted with it.

The fact that the Massoretes did not dare insert the changes
described in the Sacred Text itself shows that the latter was
already fixed. Other peculiarities point to the same reverence for
tradition. We repeatedly find in the text a so-called inverted Nun
(e.g., Num., x, 35-36). In Isaiah 9:6, there is a final M�m within
the word. A Waw is interrupted or letters are made bigger, whilst
others are placed higher up -- the so-called suspended letters.
Not a few of these oddities are already recorded in the Talmud,
and therefore must be of great age. Letters with points are
mentioned even in the "Mishna". The counting of the letters also
probably belongs to the older period. Records serving for textual
criticism are extant from the same time. In its essentials the
work is completed with the post-Talmdic treatise "Sopher m". This
treatise, which gives a careful introduction to the writing of the
Sacred Text, is one of the most conclusive proofs of the
scrupulosity with which at the time of its origin (not before the
seventh century) the text was generally treated.

B. Older Witnesses

The condition of the text previous to the age of the Massoretes is
guaranteed by the "Talmud" with its notes on text-criticism and
its innumerable quotations, which are however, frequently drawn
only from memory. Another help are the "Targums", or free Aramaic
versions of the Sacred Books, composed from the last centuries
B.C. to the fifth A.D. But the state of the text is chiefly
evidenced by the Vulgate Version made by St. Jerome at the end of
the fourth and the beginning of the fifth centuries. He followed
the Hebrew original, and his occasional remarks on how a word was
spelt or read enable us to arrive at a sure judgment on the text
of the fourth century. As was to be expected form the statements
of the Talmud, the consonant-text of the manuscripts tallies
almost in every respect with the original of St. Jerome. There
appear greater discrepancies in vocalization, which is not to be
wondered at, for at that time the marking of vowels was not known.
Thus the reading is necessarily often ambiguous, as the saint
expressly states. His comment on Is., xxxviii, 11, shows that this
statement is not only to be taken as learned note, but that
thereby the interpretation might often be influenced practically.
When St. Jerome occasionally speaks of vowels, he means the
quiescent or vowel letters. Nevertheless, the opinion that in the
fourth century the pronunciation was still fluctuating, would be
erroneous. For the saint knew how, in a definite case, ambiguous
word was to be vocalized; he appealed to the custom of the Jews
standing in opposition to the interpretation of the Septuagint. A
fixed pronunciation had already resulted from the practice, in
vogue for centuries, of reading the Holy Writ publicly in the
synagogue. There might be doubt in particular cases, but, on the
whole, even the vowel-text was secured.

The letters in which the manuscripts of that time were written are
the "square characters", as appears from St. Jerome's remarks.
This writing distinguished the final forms of the well-known five
letters (Prologus galeatus), and probably supposed the separation
of words which, excepting a few places, is the same as in our
Massoretic Text. Sometimes the Vulgate alone seems to have
preserved the correct separation in opposition to the Massoretes
and the Greek Version.

The loss of Origen's hexapla is very much to be regretted. This
work in its first two columns would have handed down to us both
the consonant-text and the vocalization. But only a few scattered
remnants of the second are left. They show that the pronunciation,
especially of the proper names, in the third century disagrees not
infrequently with the one used later. The alphabet at the time of
Origen was the same as that of a century and a half afterwards. As
regards the consonants there is little change, and the text shows
no essential transformation

We are led still further back by the Greek versions originating in
the second century. The most valuable is Aqulia s, as it was based
upon the Hebrew text, and rendered it to the letter, with the
greatest fidelity, thus enabling us to draw reliable conclusions
as to the condition of the original. The work is all the more
valuable, as Aquila does not care about the Greek position of
words and the peculiar Greek idiom. More over, he consciously
differs from the Septuagint, taking the then official text for his
norm. Being a disciple of Rabbi Aqiba he presumably maintains the
views and principles of the Jewish scribes in the beginning of the
second century. The two other versions of the same period are of
less importance for the critic. Theodotion depends upon the
Septuagint, and Symmachus allows himself greater liberty in the
treatment of the text. Of the three versions only very small
fragments have come down to us. The form of the text which we
gather from them is almost the one transmitted by the Massoretes;
the differences naturally became more numerous, but it remains the
one recension we know of from our manuscripts. It must, therefore,
be scribed at least to the beginning of the second century, and
recent investigations in fact assign it to that period.

But that is not all. The perfect agreement of the manuscripts,
even in their critical remarks and seemingly irrelevant and casual
peculiarities, has led to the assumption that the present text not
only represents a single recension, but that this recension is
even built upon one archetype containing the very peculiarities
that now strike us in the manuscripts. In favour of this
hypothesis, which, since the time of Olshausen, has been defended
and based upon a deeper argument especially by de Lagarde,
evidence has been brought forward which seems overwhelming. Hence
it is not surprising that, of late, the assertion was made that
this view had long since become an admitted fact in the textual
criticism of the Old Testament. Yet, however persuasive the
argument appears at first sight its validity has been constantly
impugned by authorities such as Kuenen, Strack, Buhl, K�nig, and
others distinguished by their knowledge of the subject. The
present state of the Hebrew text is doubtless the outcome of
systematic labour during the course of several centuries, but the
question is whether the supposed archetype ever existed.

At the outset the very assumption that about A.D. 150 only a
single copy was available for the preparation of the Bible text is
so improbable as scarcely to deserve consideration. For even if
during the insurrection of Bar-Cocheba a great number of Scripture
rolls perished, there nevertheless existed enough of them in Egypt
and Persia, so that there was no need to rely on one damaged copy.
And how could this copy, the defective peculiarities of which
could not have been overlooked, attain to such undisputed
authority? This could have happened only if it had much greater
weight than the others, for instance, for its being a temple
scroll; this would imply further that there existed official texts
and copies, and so the uniformity goes further back. On the
supposition that it were but a private scroll, preserved merely by
chance, it would be impossible to explain how the obvious mistakes
were retained. Why, for instance, should all copies have a closed
Qoph, or a letter casually made larger, or a final Mem within a
word? Such improbabilities arise necessarily from the hypothesis
of a single archetype. Is it not much more likely that the
supposed mistakes are really not erroneous, but have some critical
signification? For several of them a satisfactory explanation has
already been given. Thus the inverted Nun points to the
uncertainly of the respective passages: in Prov., xvi, 28, for
instance, the small Nun, as Blau rightly conjectures, might owe
its origin to a textual emendation suggested by the feeling
prevalent later on. The larger letters served perhaps to mark the
middle of a book. Possibly something similar may have given rise
to the other peculiarities for which we cannot at present account.
As long as there exists the possibility of a probable explanation,
we should not make chance responsible for the condition of our
text, though we do not deny that here and there chance has been at
play. But the complete agreement was certainly brought about
gradually. The older the witnesses, the more they differ, even
though the recension remains the same. And yet it might have been
expected, the more ancient they were the more uniform they should
become.

Besides, if one codex had been the source of all the rest, it
cannot be explained why trifling oddities were everywhere taken
over faithfully, whilst the consonant-text was less cared for. If,
again, in later times the differences were maintained by the
Western and Eastern schools, it is clear that the supposed codex
did not possess the necessarily decisive authority.

The present text on the contrary seems to have resulted from the
critical labour of the scribes from the first century B.C. to the
second century A.D. Considering the reading of the Bible in the
synagogue and the statements of Josephus (Contra Apionem, I, viii)
and of Plato (Eusebius, "Pr p. Evang.", VIII, vi) on the treatment
of the Scriptures, we may rightly suppose that greater changes of
the text did not occur at that time. Even the word of Jesus in
Matt., v, 18, about the jot and tittle not passing away, seem to
point to a scrupulous care in the preservation of the very letter;
and the unconditional authority of the Scripture presuppose a high
opinion of the letter of Holy Writ.

How the work of the scribes was carried out in detail, we cannot
ascertain. Some statements of Jewish tradition suggest that they
were satisfied with superficial investigation and criticism, which
however, is all that could have been expected at a time when
serious textual criticism was not even thought of. When
difficulties arose, it is said that the witnesses were counted and
the question decided according to numerical majority. However
simple and imperfect his method was, under the circumstances an
objective account of the actual state of the question was much
more valuable than a series of hypotheses the claims of which we
could not now examine. Nor is there any reason for supposing, with
some early Christian writers, conscious changes or falsifications
of the text. But we are, perhaps, justified in holding that the
disputes between the Jews and Christians about the text of the
Scriptures were one of the reasons why the former hastened the
work of unifying and fixing the text.

The manuscripts of that period probably showed little difference
from those of the subsequent epoch. The consonant-text was written
in a more ancient form of the square characters; the so-called
final letters presumably came into use then. The Nash Papyrus (the
Ten Commandments) would give some information if it were only
certain that it really belongs to the first century. The question
cannot be decided, as our knowledge of Hebrew writing from the
first to the third century is quite imperfect. The papyrus is
written in well-developed square characters, exhibits division of
words throughout., and always uses the "final letters". As in the
Talmud, the memory of the relatively late distinction of the
double forms of the five letters is still alive, their application
in Holy Writ cannot be dated back too far. Even the Massorah
contains a number of phrases having final letters which are
divided differently in the text and on the margin, and must,
therefore, belong to a period when the distinction was not as yet
in use. From the Nabat n and Palmyrian inscriptions we learn that
at the time of Christ the distinction already existed, but it does
not follow that the same usage prevailed in the land west of
Jordan and, in particular, in the Sacred Books. The Palmyrian
inscriptions of the first to the third century apply the final
form of only one letter, viz., Nun, whilst the Nabat an go beyond
the Hebrew and use, though not consistently, double forms also for
Aleph and H�. The time when the Jewish copyists began to
distinguish the double forms must then remain an open question.
Moreover, the term "final letters" does not seem very appropriate,
considering the historical development. It is not the final forms
then invented, but rather the others, that seem to be the product
of a new writing. For, with the single exception of M�m, the so-
called final forms are those of the old characters as exhibited
partly at least even in the oldest inscriptions, or at any rate in
use in the Aramaic papyri of the fifth century B.C.

C. The Bible Text before Christ

As regards the preceding centuries, we are relatively well
informed. In place of the missing manuscripts we have the ancient
Greek Version of the Old Testament, the so- called Septuagint, or
Alexandrian, Version. The Pentateuch was translated in the first
half of the third century, but it cannot be determined in what
order and at what intervals the other books followed. Yet in the
case of the majority of the books the work was probably completed
about the middle of the second century B.C. Of primary importance
for us is the question of the state of the text at the time of the
translation. As the version is not the work of one man -- not even
the Pentateuch has only one translator -- nor the work of one
period, but is extended over more than a hundred years, it cannot
all be judged by the same criterion. The same holds good of its
Hebrew original Some of the Old-Testament Scriptures and, at the
time of the translation, existed for about a thousand years,
whilst others had just been composed. Considering this historical
development, we must, in judging the texts, not simply oppose the
whole of the M. T. (Massoretic Text) on the one hand to the whole
Septuagint on the other. Results of any practical value can be
obtained only by a separate study of the different books of the
Holy Scripture.

The oldest, the Pentateuch, presents considerable differences from
the M.T. only in Exodus 36-40, and in Numbers. Greater divergences
appear in Sam., Jer., Job, Prov., and Daniel. The M.T. of the
Books of Samuel has suffered in many places. The Greek Version
often serves to correct it, though not always. In Jeremias text-
tradition is very unsettled. In the Greek Version not less than
2700 words of the M. T., about an eighth part of the whole, are
missing. Additions to the M. T. are inconsiderable. Some of the
parts wanting in Septuagint may be later additions, whilst others
belong to the original text. The transpositions of the Greek text
seem to be secondary. Still the order of the M.T. is not
unobjectionable either, and sometimes Septuagint is right in
opposition to M.T. On the whole, the text of Septuagint seems to
be preferable to the M.T. In Job the textual problem is quite
similar. The Greek text is considerably shorter than the M.T. The
Greek rendering of Proverbs diverges still more from the Hebrew.
Lastly, the Greek Ecclesiasticius, a translation which we must
consider to have been made by the author's grandson, is a
altogether different from the Hebrew recension lately found. These
facts prove that during the third-second century B.C. texts were
circulated which manifest traces of careless treatment. But it
must be remembered that translators, sometimes, may have treated
the text more freely, and that even our Greek Version has not come
down to us in its original form. It is hard to determine how far
we may recognize the official text of the period in the present
form of the Greek text. The legend of the solemn mission to
Jerusalem and the deputation of the translators to Egypt cannot be
treated as historical. On the other hand it is arbitrary to assume
that the original of the Greek Version represents a corrupted text
every time if differs from M.T. We have to distinguish various
forms of the text, whether we call them recensions or not.

For a judgment on the Septuagint and its original, the knowledge
of the Hebrew writing then in vogue is indispensable. In the case
of the Minor Prophets attempts have been made by Vollers to
discover the characters employed. The Books of Samuel have been
investigated by Wellhausen and Driver; Jeremias by K hler;
Ezechiel by Cornill; Job by Beer; Ecclesiasticus by Peters. Full
certainty as to the characters of the Hebrew scrolls of the third-
second century B.C. has not as yet been obtained. According to
Jewish tradition, Esdras brought over the new (Assyrian) writing
when returning from the Exile, in which script the Sacred Books
were thereafter
Transcribed. A sudden change is improbable. It is not possible
that the writing of the fourth century was quite similar to that
of the Nash Papyrus or of the first-century inscriptions. The
Aramaic writing of the fifth century shows an unmistakable
tendency towards the latter forms, yet many letters are still
closely related to the ancient alphabet: as B�th, Caph, M�m,
Samech, Ayin, Tasade. How did this change take place? Did it pass
through the Samaritan alphabet, which clearly betrays its
connection with the Phoenician? We know the Samaritan letters only
after the time of Christ. The oldest inscription belongs, perhaps,
to the fourth century A.D.; another, that of Nablus, to the sixth.
But this writing is undoubtedly decorative, displaying care and
art, and offers, therefore, no sure basis for a decision. Still
there was presumably a time in which the Sacred Scriptures were
written in an ancient form of the Samaritan characters which are
closely related with those of the Hasmon an coin inscription.

Others suggest the Palmyrian alphabet. Some letters, indeed, agree
with the square characters; but Ghimel, H�, P�, Tsade, and Q�ph
differ so much that a direct relation is inadmissible. In short,
considering the local nature of this artificial writing, it is
hardly credible that it exerted a wider influence towards the
west. The Hebrew square characters come nearer to the Nabataean,
the sphere of which is more extended and is immediately adjacent
to Palestine.

As the change of the alphabet probably took place step by step, we
must reckon with transition writings, the form and relation of
which can perhaps be approximately determined by comparison. The
Greek Version offers excellent material; its very mistakes are an
inestimable help to us. For the errors in reading or writing,
occasioned, or already supposed, by the original, will often find
their reason and explanation in the form of the characters. A
group of letters repeatedly read erroneously is a clue as to the
form of the alphabet of the original. For the well-known
possibilities in the square writing of confusing Daleth with R�sh,
Y�dh with Waw, B�th with Caph do not exist in the same way in the
transition writings. The interchanging of H� and H�th, of Y�dh and
Waw, so easy with the new characters, is scarcely conceivable with
the old ones; and the mistaking of B�th for Caph is altogether
excluded. Aleph and Tau on the other hand can easily be mixed up.
Now in Chronicles, in itself recent and translated into Greek long
after the Pentateuch, Waw and Tau, Y�dh and H�, Caph and R�sh have
been mistaken for each other. This can be accounted for only an
older form of writing were employed. Hence we are compelled to
suppose that the old alphabet, or a transition form like it, was
in use up to the second or first century B.C. From Christ's words
about the jot (Matt., v, 18) it has been concluded that Y�dh must
have been regarded as the smallest letter; this holds good with
the square characters. We know otherwise that, at the time of
Christ, the new writing was all but developed; at least the
inscriptions of the Ben� Chez�r and of many ossuaries sufficiently
testify to this. But in these inscriptions Zayin and Waw are as
small as or even smaller the Y�dh.

In addition to the form of the characters, orthography is of
importance. The unpointed consonant-text can be made essentially
clearer by writing "plene", i.e., by using the so-called quiescent
letters (matres lectionis). This means was often absent in the
original of the Septuagint. In the text of the Minor Prophets
Aleph seems not to have been written as a vowel-letter. Thus it
came about that the translators and the M.T. diverge, according as
they suppose the Aleph or not. If the vowel-letter was written,
only one interpretation was possible. The same applies to the use
of Waw and Y�dh. Their omission occasions mistakes on the one or
other side. The liberty prevailing in this regard is expressly
testified even for a much later period. But it is going too far to
consider the omission of the vowel-letters as the rule commonly
observed. The oldest inscriptions (Mesha, Siloah) and the hole
history of Semitic writing prove that this practical device was
known.

In particular cases the possibility of connecting or separating
the letters differently must be considered as another source of
divers interpretations. Whether the division of the words was
expressed in the ancient manuscripts or not cannot be shown by
direct testimonies. The Mesha and Siloah inscriptions and some of
the oldest Aramaic and Phoenician divide the words by a dot. The
later monuments do not abide by this usage, but mark the division
here and there by a little interval. This custom is universal in
the Aramaic papyri from the fifth century downwards. The Hebrew
fragments make no exception, and the Syriac writing applies the
word-division in the earliest manuscripts. Therefore the
conjecture that word-division was used in the old scrolls is not
to be rejected at the outset. Still the intervals must have been
so small that wrong connections easily came about. Instances are
not wanting, and both the Massorah and the Greek Version testify
to that. Thus Gen., xlix, 19-20, is correctly divided in the Greek
and in the Vulgate, whilst the M.T. erroneously carries the M�m,
that belongs to the end of verse 19, over to the following word
"Asher". The passage, moreover, is poetical and a new stanza
begins with verse 20. Hence in the archetype of our M.T. the
stichic writing, known perhaps at an earlier period and used in
the later manuscripts, was not applied.

The mistakes occurring in consequence of interchanging of letters,
of wrong vocalization or connection, show how text-corruption
originated, and thus suggest ways of repairing the damaged
passages. Other slips which always occur in the handing down of
manuscripts, such as haplography, dittography, insertion of
glosses, transposition, even of entire columns, must also be taken
into consideration whilst estimating the text of the Sacred Books.
In books or passages of poetical nature, metre, alphabetical order
of verses and stanzas, and their structure, supply a means of
textual emendation, which ought nevertheless, to be sued with
great prudence, especially where the manuscripts seem disarranged.

We must, however, beware of comparing the Septuagint as a unit
with the Massorah. In textual criticism we must distinguish
between the questions: What is the relation of the Greek Version
of the Scriptures in general to the Hebrew? and, How far in a
particular case may one text be corrected by the other? The
Septuagint may on the whole differ considerably from the M.T., and
yet often clear up an obscure passage in the Hebrew, while the
reverse happens just a frequently. Apart from the Septuagint there
is but little to assist us. The Samaritan Text throws light on the
Pentateuch, at least up the fourth century, perhaps up the time
before Esdras. Yet until the critical edition, announced a couple
of years ago, appears it must remain an open question whether the
Samaritan Text was not influenced by the Septuagint at a later
period. Regarding shorter passages, the parallel texts allow of
comparison. The deviations observed in them show that changes have
taken place, which betray carelessness or intentional or
accidental variations. Jewish tradition tells of a restoration of
the Sacred Scriptures by Esdras. Underlying this narrative may be
recollection of historical events that proved disastrous both to
the political and religious life of the people of Israel and to
its Sacred Books. The consequences do not everywhere manifest
themselves as much as in the books of Samuel and Jeremias, for
instance, but often enough are such that the application of all
critical means is needed to come to a readable text. Sometimes in
spite of all nothing can be done and the passage is irremediably
disfigured. It will be impossible to make the M.T. agree entirely
with the Septuagint until we are favoured by some unexpected
discoveries. However, all these discrepancies do not alter the
Sacred Texts to such a degree as to affect in any way the
religious content of the Old Testament.

AUGUST MERK
Transcribed by Augustine Chau

From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc., P.O. Box 281096, Denver, Colorado, USA, 80228.
([email protected]) Taken from the New Advent Web Page
(www.knight.org/advent).

This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an
effort aimed at placing the  entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
edition on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
editor of the New Advent Catholic Website. If you would like to
contribute to this  worthwhile project, you can contact him by e-
mail at (knight.org/advent). For  more information please download
the file cathen.txt/.zip.

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