xiv down, it is believed, by word of mouth only. The word means either 'taught,' i.e. the traditional law, or 'second,' i.e. added to the written law of the Pentateuch. h;, The Gemaras are Rabbinical commentaries on the Mishnah) the word means 'supplement,' or 'study.' Each covers about threequarters of the Mishnah only; nearly one half of its treatises are 'commented on by both together, of the rest some are dealt with in one Gemara only, some in the other only. The Babylonian Gemara, though covering not quite so much of the Mishnah as the Jerusalem Gemara, is more than four times as large, and is looked on as having higher authority. The Mishnah and Gemaras together make up the Talmud (a word meaning 'study'), the 'fundamental code of Jewish civil and canonical law.' The Talmud is in great part very much older even than the time when its earliest section, the Mishnah, was arranged, much of its tradition being attached to the names of Rabbis who lived in or before the lifetime of Jesus. The Talmud is in fact the tradition of the elders' as received by the scribes' ('lawyers, doctors of the law') and Pharisees' of the Gospels, enlarged, and handed down by them to their successors and by those successors in turn. It is therefor of the highest value in throwing light on the Gospel-story. The Midrashim are early Jewish commentaries on Scripture; the date of every Midrash quoted accompanies the quotation. 1. Gradually adopted the (language / the "Heborn" of the New Testament; ', the old THE CHIEF AUTHORITIES FOR THE TEXT. Language of the New Testament. The entire New Testament is written in Greek. 人人町 During the Babylonish Captivity (about 605-536 B.C.) the Jews Hebrew people Syro Chaldean or (as it is usually called Aramaio Homeowas their common speech Hebrew becoming a dead language studied only by theologians. But the conquests of Alexander spread 972 207 Greek over all countries between the Black Sea the Euphrates and from/to/ the African desert; and a connexion of several centuries with the Greekish kingdoms round so familiarized the Jews with it that in the time of Jesus they not only employed it by the side of Aramaic but commonly used the Septuagint for Greek version of their own Hebrew Scriptures. Greek, being at this time spoken through a great part of the Roman empire and understood more or less in every part, was naturally adopted by the New Testament writers-wishing to evangelize the entire world rather than the more national Aramaic. It is, indeed, a moot question whether the Gospel according to Matthew, addressed chiefly (if not solely) to Jews, was not first written in Aramaic; and on the faith of a slender tradition some have thought that Mark, speaking mainly to Italians, wrote first in Latin. But, if they ever had a being, the Aramaic Gospel according to Matthew and the Latin Gospel according to Mark have been lost. And, so for us at least the New Testament is written throughout in one language Greek, the common Greek of the day, differing from classical Greek by its colloquialism and provincialism, and affected in the case of the New Testament writers by their familiarity with Jewish idioms, but so affected much less than was once generally thought and certainly less than the Greek version of the Old Testament had been affected some centuries earlier. Our Authorized' Version. From the Greek our Authorized' Version, just now revised, has been directly rendered. But, though in the main a most praiseworthy translation, it fails very often indeed to give us what, so far as we can judge, were the exact words of the New Testament writers, and often, though less often, to reproduce their full meaning. For: (1) Where the Greek text translated from and the translation itself are both accurate, a wrong meaning is, nevertheless, sometimes con May 11.81 vi veyed to the modern reader, owing to the changes of meaning which many English words and phrases have undergone in the last 270 years. The language of our version, taken altogether, dates indeed from the publication of Tyndale's New Testament in 1525. James I. instructed the translators to keep as far as might be the text of the Bishops' Bible of 1568,' which in turn was built on earlier versions. (2) Where the text translated from is accurate, the translation is often inaccurate. For (i.) words and sentences are sometimes misrendered, (ii.) the same Greek word repeated is sometimes rendered by different English words, (iii.) different Greek words, expressing somewhat different ideas, are sometimes rendered by the same English word repeated. But, when we think that the study of Greek had been brought into England little more than a hundred years, and that the translators were hampered by the King's commands to depart as little as might be from former versions, we may be thankful that the English New Testament was not far more faulty in these respects. (3) Where the translation, as a translation, is accurate, the Greek text from which it was made is very often indeed inaccurate. That text had been formed from only a few manuscripts, and those of very late origin; no old version save the Latin Vulgate had been compared with them; and, lastly, the principles which should guide us in choosing between the conflicting readings of different manuscripts and versions were then unknown. Authorities for the Text of modern editors. New Testament textual criticism has now reached, it may fairly be said, the rank of a distinct science. Much thought has been spent in settling rules to be followed, much toil in getting fresh materials: within the last generation the oldest manuscript now known of the New Testament and perhaps the oldest version now known of the Gospels have been first brought to light, and some weighty results have followed their discovery. The sources from which the text is to be drawn are: i. Manuscripts. The nearer we go back to the age when the New Testament was written, the less the interval for mistakes to creep in. It may happen that a MS. of the 9th or 16th cent. has escaped errors into which a 4th cent. MS. has fallen; but the reverse is far more often the case. Or the lost exemplar of the former may have been an older MS. than that of the latter; but presumption is to the contrary. Modern editors of the text rely, therefor, almest solely on the earlier MSS. ' And they were to recur to the following earlier versions when those were more faithful to the Greek-Tyndale's (1525-34), Coverdale's (1535), Matthew's (1537), Cranmer's (1539), Geneva (1557). ii. Versions. Many translations into various languages were made during the first few centuries of our era. These are valuable as showing what Greek text the translators probably had before them. iii. Quotations from early writers. It has been said, a little loosely, that if the New Testament had been lost it might have been compiled again in its entirety from the works of Origen alone. But the Fathers often quoted from memory or paraphrased; while in not a few cases it can be shown that copyists have changed the writer's quotations to agree with the text familiar to themselves-whence we may guess that they have done so in some other cases where we have no proof of the change. When, however, a Father cites the same passage in the same words in different parts of his works, or when his accompanying remarks prove what was the reading which he followed, then his testimony must be duly valued, as that of one who had access to many more early MSS. than we now possess, and, if he lived before the middle of the 4th cent., who read his New Testament from MSS. older than any now known to exist. The MSS. quoted in this commentary are the 5 oldest and chiefest: 81 (commonly called N, Aleph '), the Sinaitic, discovered by Tischendorf in St. Katharine's monastery on Mt. Sinai in 1859now in the Imperial Library at St. Petersburg. It was clearly written not later than about 350 A.D.; there are some grounds for thinking that it may have been one of 50 copies which Constantine ordered to be made in 331 A.D. Its text is entire. This MS. was corrected in places by another writer of about the same date, whom I shall call the corrector of S.' His corrections, whether right or wrong, are of course equal to the witness of a second MS. Vi (commonly called B), the Vatican, in the Vatican Library at Rome. It is of about the same age as S. The text of the Gospels and Acts is entire. In this MS. also there are alterations by another writer of the time, whom I shall call 'the corrector of V.' A, the Alexandrine, in the British Museum. It was probably written between 400 and 450 A.D. It has been mutilated in places : of Matthew only xxv. 6 to the end is left. C, the Codex Ephraemi ('MS. of Ephraem'), in the National Library at Paris, a MS. so called because it had been written over 1 For the convenience of English readers I have given these two MSS. the symbols used by Tischendorf in the Tauchnitz edition of the English New Testament. They help the memory (S= Sinaitic, V = Vatican), and S does not frighten the tiro like N. 1 viii in the 12th cent.) with some of the works of Ephraem Syrus, the [Of these 4, Sand are the most valued.] D, the Codex Bezae ('Beza's MS.'), in Cambridge University Library. It was probably written between 500 and 600 A.D Its text is not entire: of Matthew there are wanting i. 1-20, vi. 20–ix. 2, xxvii. 2-12. Λ A later hand has added iii. 7-16 and some leaves in Mark and John, but seemingly from the original MS. His work I shall call 'D-copied.' D has on every other page a Latin translation of its Greek text, and sometimes where the Greek has been torn away the Latin is left. In such cases I shall still quote it among the Greek MSS. as 'DLatin.' It has some gaps filled by a later copyist, who, according to Tischendorf, did not follow the original MS.: as in the passages question the Greek is left there is no need to mark him in any way. in The text of D is remarkable, and is noted for its additions to the ordinary text. Among the Greek MSS. now known it stands alone in this latter respect: but it represents a text current in the 2nd cent. from which the First Latin version and Cureton's Syriac were rendered. In my note to Matt. xx. 28 will be found the longest of D's additions, supported by both these versions. In my textual notes each of the above MSS. is always cited except it wants the passage in question. The Versions quoted are the following 8: The First Latin, made in N. Africa, probably not later than the middle of the 2nd cent. The translation is so literal as to violate the Latin for the sake of keeping the Greek idiom, and yields witness even for the order of words in the original. Text complete for the Gospels. Oldest MS. 4th cent. The Second Latin,' a 4th cent. revision of the First Latin, made in N. Italy. The text is nearly complete for the Gospels, quite so for ' Commonly combined with the First Latin in the citations of textual editors and critics. Wherever ƒ and q are agreed I quote their witness as that of the Second Latin, wherever they disagree I do not name it, wherever one has a gap, or its rendering is not indieated Tischendorf, I give the reading of the other as 'Second Latin (?).' |