Greek

readings are often valuable; but the Greek text is as imperfect as the Hebrew, and also often altered for religious reasons; while mistranslations which make no sense frequently -oceur, with other corruptions.—EpD. | With exception of fragments (including the “ unpointed” Harkavy MS. of the Prophets, thought by some to be as old as 800 4.c.) the oldest Hebrew MS. of the Old Testament is that of St Petersburg, dating from 916 a.c. It is substantially the same with the text of the Masorab, though including some interesting readings. But the following were the leading texts used for the Authorised Version: (1) that called the copy of Aaron ben Asher (1034.c.), or belonging to the great Maim on ides, the “Second Moses” (1200 a.c.), the source of most western MSS.; and (2) that of Jacob ben Naphtali—a copy also of about our 11th century, adopted by the eastern Jews. Dr Kennicott claimed to have “gathered, arranged, and criticised ” no le than 630 MSS.; and Ro i of Parma “added various readings from +79 MSS., and 288 printed editions”; leaving us to imagine how many more must be examined in order to determine the exact text of the Word of God. The canon (or “rule”) of the Old Testament was only established in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (about the 5th century B.C.) receiving additions at least as late as 330 B.c. and about 160 Bo., if not 37 B.c.