by the eye or the ear, and yet the truth conveyed by the former to an Englishman, or by the latter to a Welshman, is essentially the same. And although one who had learnt to prize that truth under either of the forms here given would naturally cherish also the very words by which it had been taught him, his reverence for the truth would impel him to adopt the other form in preference whenever that might be the better instrument for conveying it to another. Changes, therefore, in the form of Scripture may be lawful and right.

Moreover, as a matter of history, the form of Scripture has, from the very beginning, been passing through a continued succession of changes, and with this fact it is most important that the Bible student should familiarize himself. These changes may be arranged under two general classes.

One class of changes has arisen out of the perishable nature of the documents, of which the Bible at the first consisted.

It is scarcely needful to state that we do not now possess the original copies of any of the books of the Old or the New Testament. Even while these were still in existence it was necessary to transcribe them in order that many persons in many places might possess and read them. In the work of transcription, however careful the transcriber might have been, errors of various kinds necessarily arose; some from mistaking one letter for another; some from failure of memory, if the scribe were writing from dictation; and some from occasional oversight, if he were writing from a copy before him; some from momentary lapses of attention, when his hand wrote on without his guidance; and some from an attempt to correct a real or fancied error in the work of his predecessor. If any of my readers will make an experiment by copying a passage of some length from any printed book, and then hand over his manuscript to a friend with a request to copy it, and afterwards pass on the copy so made to a third, and so on in succession through a list of ten or a dozen persons, each copying the manuscript of the one before him in the list, he will, on comparing the last with the printed book, have a vivid and interesting illustration of the number and kind of variations that arise in the process of transcription. In the case, therefore, of even very early copies of any of the books of the Scriptures, some sort of revision would become necessary, and the deeper the reverence for the book, the more obligatory would the duty of making such a revision be felt to be, and the more earnestly and readily would it be undertaken. So long as the original copies were in existence and accessible this work of revision would be comparatively easy and simple. It would call only for the ability to make careful and patient comparison. But when the originals could no longer be appealed to, and when, moreover, successive transcription had gone on through many generations, the work would become much more complex and difficult, calling for much knowledge and much persevering research, for a mind skilled in the appreciation of evidence, and able to judge calmly between conflicting testimony. At the same time, the need for revision would to some extent be greater than before. I say to some extent, because the natural multiplication of errors arising from successive transcription through many centuries, has in the case of the Scriptures been very largely checked. The special reverence felt for this book beyond other books led to the exercise of special care in the preparation of Biblical manuscripts, and special precautions were taken to guard them as far as possible from any variation. Owing to these and other causes a larger measure of uniformity is found in the later than in the earlier manuscripts now extant.

A second class of changes in the form of the Scriptures has arisen from the natural growth and development of language.

The earliest Bible of which we have any historical knowledge was in the form of a roll, made probably of skins, containing the five books of Moses, and written in the Hebrew language. This was described as “the Book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses” (2 Chron. xxxiv. 14); more briefly as “the Book of the Law of Moses” (Joshua viii. 31; 2 Kings xiv. 6; Neh. viii. 1), or as “the Book of the Law of God” (Neh. viii. 8); and more briefly still as “the Book of the Law” (2 Kings xxii. 8), or as “the Book of Moses.” (Ezra vi. 18; Mark xii. 26.) Two other collections of sacred books were subsequently added, known respectively as the Prophets and the Holy Writings, the former comprising Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets; the latter comprising the Psalms, Proverbs, Job, the Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles. It is in this order, we may note in passing, that the books of the Old Testament are still arranged in our Hebrew Bibles.

Before the completion of the canon of the Old Testament the language of the Jews began to exhibit evidences of change, and through their intercourse with the various peoples of Mesopotamia (or Aram) the later books show a distinct tendency towards Aramaic forms and idioms. This tendency, already apparent at the time of the return from the Captivity, was accelerated by the political events which followed. During the hundred and eighty years and more which intervened between the Restoration of the Temple, B.C. 516, and the overthrow of Darius Codomannus, B.C. 331, Judæa was a portion of that province of the Persian empire, in which the Aramaic was the prevalent dialect. The ancient Hebrew gradually ceased to be the language of the Jews in common life, and, before the time of our Lord, had been supplanted by the language of their Eastern neighbours.

With the decline of the Hebrew language there arose amongst the Jews the class of men known as Scribes, whose primary function was that of preparing copies of the Scriptures, and of guarding the sacred text from the intrusion of errors. Owing to their great zeal for the preservation of the letter of Scripture, and to their natural tendency to hold fast to the honour and influence which their special knowledge and skill gave to them, they did not, when Hebrew ceased to be intelligible to the common people, set themselves to the task of giving them the Bible in a form which they could understand; but, magnifying their office overmuch, assumed the position of authoritative teachers and expounders of the Law. Scholars might still study for themselves the ancient Bible, but for the people at large the form which the Scriptures now practically assumed was that of the spoken utterances of the Scribes.

How imperfect and unsatisfactory this must have been is obvious; and the more so as these teachers did not content themselves with simply rendering the ancient text into a familiar form, but intermingled with it a mass of human traditions that obscured and sometimes contradicted its meaning. It would have been a great gain for the people of Judæa if their regard for the outward form of their Scriptures had been less extreme and more enlightened, and if competent men amongst them had ventured so to revise the ancient books that their fellow countrymen might read in their own tongue the wonderful works and words of God.

This wiser course was adopted in that larger Judæa which lay outside of Palestine. The Jews scattered through Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt, and other parts of the empire of Alexander and his successors, were less rigidly conservative than were the residents of Judæa, and for their use a translation into Greek was made in the latter part of the third century before Christ. This is the version known as the Septuagint.