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around him; and that if any bird happened to pass over him, or a fly alighted on his paper while writing, they were immediately consumed by fire from heaven, without any injury being sustained either by his person or his paper!! The whole of this Targum was translated into Latin by Alfonso de Zamora, Andrea de Leon, and Conrad Pellican; and the paraphrase on the twelve minor prophets, by Immanuel Tremellius.

V. The Targum on the Cetubim, Hagiographa, or Holy Writings, is ascribed by some Jewish writers to Raf Jose, or Rabbi Joseph, surnamed the one-eyed or blind, who is said to have been at the head of the Academy at Sora, in the third century; though others affirm that its author is unknown. The style is barbarous, impure, and very unequal, interspersed with numerous digressions and legendary narratives; on which account the younger Buxtorf, and after him Bauer and Jahn, are of opinion that the whole is a compilation of later times: and this sentiment appears to be the most correct. Dr. Prideaux characterises its language as the most corrupt Chaldee of the Jerusalem dialect. The translators of the preceding Targum, together with Arias Montanus, have given a Latin version of this Targum.

VI. The Targum on the Megilloth, or five books of Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations of Jeremiah, Ruth, and Esther, is evidently a compilation by several persons: the barbarism of its style, numerous digressions, and idle legends which are inserted, all concur to prove it to be of late date, and certainly not earlier than the sixth century. The paraphrase on the book of Ruth and the Lamentations of Jeremiah is the best executed portion: Ecclesiastes is more freely paraphrased; but the text of the Song of Solomon is absolutely lost amidst the diffuse circumscription of its author, and his dull glosses and fabulous additions.

VII, VIII, IX. The three Targums on the book of Esther.This book has always been held in the highest estimation by the Jews; which circumstance induced them to translate it repeatedly into the Chaldee dialect. Three paraphrases on it have been printed: one in the Antwerp Polyglott, which is much shorter, and contains fewer digressions than the others; another, in Bishop Walton's Polyglott, which is more diffuse, and comprises more numerous Jewish fables and traditions; and a third, of which a Latin Version was published by Francis Taylor; and which, according to Carpzov, is more stupid and diffuse than either of the preceding. They are all three of very late date.

X. A Targum on the books of Chronicles, which for a long time. was unknown both to Jews and Christians, was discovered in the library at Erfurt, belonging to the ministers of the Augsburg confession, by Matthias Frederick Beck; who published it in 1680, 3, 4, in two quarto volumes. Another edition was published at Amsterdam by the learned David Wilkins (1715, 4to.) from a manuscript in the university library at Cambridge. It is more complete than Beck's edition, and supplies many of its deficiencies. This Targum, how

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ever, is of very little value: like all the other Chaldee paraphrases, it blends legendary tales with the narrative, and introduces numerous Greek words, such as οχλος, σοφιςαι, αρχών, &c.

XI. Of all the Chaldee paraphrases above noticed, the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel are most highly valued by the Jews, who implicitly receive their expositions of doubtful passages. Shickhard, Mayer, Helvicus, Leusden, Hottinger, and Dr. Prideaux, have conjectured that some Chaldee Targum was in use in the synagogue where our Lord read Isa. Ixi. 1, 2, (Luke iv. 17— 19.); and that he quoted Psal. xxii. 1. when on the cross (Matt. xxvii. 46.) not out of the Hebrew text, but out of a Chaldee paraphrase. But there does not appear to be sufficient ground for this hypothesis: for, as the Chaldee or East Aramaan dialect was spoken at Jerusalem, it is at least as probable that Jesus Christ interpreted the Hebrew into the vernacular dialect in the first instance, as that he should have read from a Targum; and, when on the cross, it was perfectly natural that he should speak in the same language, rather than in the biblical Hebrew; which, we have already seen, was cultivated and studied by the priests and Levites as a learned language. The Targum of Rabbi Joseph the blind, in which the words cited by our Lord are to be found, is so long posterior to thé time of his crucifixion, that it cannot be received as evidence. So numerous indeed are the variations, and so arbitrary are the alterations occurring in the manuscripts of the Chaldee paraphrases, that Dr. Kennicott has clearly proved them to have been designedly altered in compliment to the previously corrupted copies of the Hebrew text; or, in other words, that "alterations have been made wilfully in the Chaldee paraphrase to render that paraphrase, in some places, more conformable to the words of the Hebrew text, where those Hebrew words are supposed to be right, but had themselves been corrupted." But notwithstanding all their deficiencies and interpolations, the Targums, especially those of Onkelos and Jonathan, are of considerable importance in the interpretation of the Scriptures, not only as they supply the meanings of words or phrases occurring but once in the Old Testament, but also because they reflect considerable light on the Jewish rites, ceremonies, laws, customs, usages, &c. mentioned or alluded to in both Testaments. But it is in establishing the genuine meaning of particular prophecies relative to the Messiah, in opposition to the false explications of the Jews and Antitrinitarians, that these Targums are pre-eminently useful. Bishop Walton, Dr. Prideaux, Pfeiffer, Carpzov, and Rambach, have illustrated this remark by numerous examples. Bishop Patrick, and Drs. Gill and Clarke, in their respective commentaries on the Bible, have inserted many valuable elucidations from the Chaldee paraphrasts. Leusden recommends that no one should attempt to read their writings, nor indeed to learn the Chaldee dialect, who is not previously well grounded in Hebrew: he advises the Chaldee text

1 Dr. Kennicott's Second Dissertation, pp. 167-193

of Daniel and Ezra to be first read either with his own Chaldee Manual or with Buxtorf's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon; after which the Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan may be perused, with the help of Buxtorf's Chaldee and Syriac Lexicon, and of De Lara's work, De Convenientia Vocabulorum Rabbinicorum cum Græcis et quibusdam aliis linguis Europæis. Amstelodami, 1648. 4to.

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2. ON THE ANtient greek versions of the OLD TESTAMENT. I. History of the SEPTUAGINT; -II. Critical Account of its Execution ; — III. What Manuscripts were used by its Authors; - IV. Account of the Biblical Labours of Origen; -V. Notice of the Recensions or Editions of Eusebius and Pamphilus, of Lucian, and of Hesychius; - VI. Peculiar Importance of the Septuagint Version in the Criticism and Interpretation of the New Testament; VII. Bibliographical Notice of the Principal Printed Editions of the Septuagint Version; — VIII. Account of other Greek Versions of the Old Testament; -1. Version of AQUILA; -2. Of THEODOTION;-3. Of SYMMACHUS ; — 4, 5, 6. Anonymous Versions. IX. References in Antient Manuscripts to other Versions. I. AMONG the Greek versions of the Old Testament, the ALEXANDRIAN OF SEPTUAGINT, as it is generally termed, is the most antient and valuable; and was held in so much esteem both by the Jews as well as by the first Christians, as to be constantly read in the synagogues and churches. Hence it is uniformly cited by the early fathers, whether Greek or Latin, and from this version all the translations into other languages which were antiently approved by the Christian Church, were executed (with the exception of the Syriac), as the Arabic, Armenian, Ethiopic, Gothic, and Old Italic or the Latin version in use before the time of Jerome: and to this day the Septuagint is exclusively read in the Greek and most other Oriental churches. This version has derived its name either from the Jewish account of seventy-two persons having been employed to make it, or from its having received the approbation of the Sanhedrin or great council of the Jews, which consisted of seventy, or more correctly, of seventy-two persons.- Much uncertainty, however, has

1 Walton, Prol. c. ix. (pp. 333-469.); from which, and from the following authorities, our account of the Septuagint is derived, viz. Bauer, Critica Sacra, pp. 243-273. who has chiefly followed Hody's book, hereafter noticed, in the history of the Septuagint version: Dr. Prideaux, Connection, part ii. book i. sub anno 277. (vol. ii. pp. 27-49); Masch's Preface to part ii. of his edition of Le Long's Bibli otheca Sacra, in which the history of the Septuagint version is minutely examined; Morus, in Ernesti, vol. ii. pp. 50-81., 101-119; Carpzov, Critica Sacra, pp. 481 -551.; Masch and Boerner's edition of Le Long's Bibliotheca Sacra, part ii. vol. ii. pp. 216-220., 256-304.; Harles, Brevior Notitia Literaturæ Græcæ, pp. 638 -643.; and Renouard, Annales de l'Imprimerie des Aldes, tom. i. p. 140. See also Origenis Hexapla, a Montfaucon, tom. i. Prælim. Diss. pp. 17-35. A full account of the manuscripts and editions of the Greek Scriptures is given in the preface to vol. i. of the edition of the Septuagint commenced by the late Rev. Dr. Holmes, of which an account is given in a subsequent page.

prevailed concerning the real history of this antient version: and while some have strenuously advocated its miraculous and divine origin, other eminent philologists have laboured to prove that it must have been executed by several persons and at different times.

According to one account, Ptolemy Philadelphus, king of Egypt, caused this translation to be made for the use of the library which he had founded at Alexandria, at the request and with the advice of the celebrated Demetrius Phalereus, his principal librarian. For this purpose it is reported, that he sent Aristeas and Andreas, two distinguished officers of his court, to Jerusalem, on an embassy to Eleazar then high priest of the Jews, to request of the latter a copy of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that there might also be sent to him seventy-two persons (six chosen out of each of the twelve tribes,) who were equally well skilled in the Hebrew and Greek languages. These learned men were accordingly shut up in the island of Pharos : where, having agreed in the translation of each period after a mutual conference, Demetrius wrote down their version as they dictated it to him: and thus, in the space of seventy-two days, the whole was accomplished. This relation is derived from a letter ascribed to Aristeas himself, the authenticity of which has been greatly disputed. If, as there is every reason to believe is the case, this piece is a forgery, it was made at a very early period for it was in existence in the time of Josephus, who has made use of it in his Jewish Antiquities. The veracity of Aristeas's narrative was not questioned until the seventeenth or eighteenth century; at which time, indeed, biblical criticism was, comparatively, in its infancy. Vives,1 Scaliger,2 Van Dale, Dr. Prideaux, and above all Dr. Hody, were the principal writers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who attacked the genuineness of the pretended narrative of Aristeas; and though it was ably vindicated by Bishop Walton,5 Isaac Vossius, Whiston,7 Brett, and other modern writers, the majority of the learned of our own time are fully agreed in considering it as fictitious.

Philo the Jew, who also notices the Septuagint version, was ignorant of most of the circumstances narrated by Aristeas; but he relates others which appear not less extraordinary. According to him, Ptolemy Philadelphus sent to Palestine for some learned Jews, whose number he does not specify: and these going over to the island of Pharos, there executed so many distinct versions, all of which so exactly and uniformly agreed in sense, phrases, and words, as proved them to have been not common interpreters; but men

1 In a note on Augustine de Civitate Dei, lib. viii. c. 42.

2 In a note on Eusebius's Chronicle, no. MDCCXXXIV.

3 Dissertatio super Aristea, de LXX interpretibus, &c. Amst. 1705, 4to.

4 De Bibliorum Græcorum Textibus, Versionibus Græcis, et Latinâ Vulgatà, libri iv. cui præmittitur Aristee Historia, folio, Oxon. 1705.

5 Prol. c. ix. 3-10. pp. 338-359.

6 De LXX Interpretibus, Hag. Com. 1661., 4to.

7 In the Appendix to his work on "The Literal Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies," London, 1724, 8vo.

8 Dissertation on the Septuagint, in Bishop Watson's Collection of Theological Tracts, vol. iii. p. 20. et seq.

prophetically inspired and divinely directed, who had every word dictated to them by the Spirit of God throughout the entire translation. He adds that an annual festival was celebrated by the Alexandrian Jews in the isle of Pharos, where the version was made, until his time, to preserve the memory of it, and to thank God for so great a benefit.1

Justin Martyr, who flourished in the middle of the second century, about one hundred years after Philo, relates a similar story, with the addition of the seventy interpreters being shut up each in his own separate cell (which had been erected for that purpose by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus); and that here they composed so many distinct versions, word for word, in the very same expressions, to the great admiration of the king; who, not doubting that this version was divinely inspired, loaded the interpreters with honours, and dismissed them to their own country, with magnificent presents. The good father adds, that the ruins of these cells were visible in his time. But this narrative of Justin's is directly at variance with several circumstances recorded by Aristeas; such, for instance, as the previous conference or deliberation of the translators, and above all the very important point of the version being dictated to Demetrius Phalereus. Epiphanius, a writer of the fourth century, attempts to harmonise all these accounts by shutting up the translators two and two, in thirty-six cells, where they might consider or deliberate, and by stationing a copyist in each cell, to whom the translators dictated their labours: the result of all which was, the production of thirty-six inspired versions, agreeing most uniformly together.

It is not a little remarkable that the Samaritans have traditions in favour of their version of the Pentateuch, equally extravagant with those preserved by the Jews. In the Samaritan Chronicle of Abul Phatach, which was compiled in the fourteenth century from antient and modern authors both Hebrew and Arabic, there is a story to the following effect: - That Ptolemy Philadelphus, in the tenth year of his reign, directed his attention to the difference subsisting between the Samaritans and the Jews concerning the law; the former receiving only the Pentateuch, and rejecting every other work ascribed to the prophets by the Jews. In order to determine this difference, he commanded the two nations to send deputies to Alexandria. The Jews entrusted this mission to Osar, the Samaritans to Aaron, to whom several other associates were added. Separate apartments in a particular quarter of Alexandria, were assigned to each of these strangers; who were prohibited from having any personal intercourse, and each of them had a Greek scribe to write his version. Thus were the law and other Scriptures translated by the Samaritans ; whose version being most carefully examined, the king was convinced that their text was more complete than that of the Jews. Such is the narrative of Abul Phatach, divested however of numerous marvellous circumstances, with which it has been decorated by the Sa

1 De Vita Mosis, lib. ii.

2 Cohort. ad Gentes.

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