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Bible in Greek ; but they may be all reduced to three or fourprincipal ones; viz. that of Comphituin, or Alcala de Jlenares,that of Venice , that of Borne, ami that of Oxford.—The firstwas published iu 1515, by Cardinal Ximenes , and inserted infhe Polvglot Bible , usuallv called the Complutensian Bible ; thisedition is not just, the Greek of the LXX. being altered inmany places according to the Hebrew text. It has, however,been” reprinted in the Polyglot Bible of Antwerp , in that otParis, and inthe4to. Bible, commonly called \ etabius’s Bible .The 2d Greek Bible is that of Venice , printed by Aldus in1518. Here the Greek text of the stptuagint is reprinted justas it stood in (he MS. full of faults o the copyists, hut easilyamended. This edition was reprinted at Straslnirg in 152(1, atBasil in 1545, at Frankfort in 151)7, and other places, with somealterations to bring it nearer the Hebrew . 1 he most commo-dious is that of l'Vankfort; there being added to this, littlescholia, which shew the different interpretations of the oldGreek translators: the author of this collection has not added hisname, but it is commonly ascribed to Junius. The 3d GreekBible is that of Rome, or the Vatican , in 1587, with Greekscholia collected from the MSS. in the Roman libraries by Pet.Morin. It was first set on foot by Cardinal Montalbo, after-wards Pope. Sixtus V. 'Phis titie edition has been reprinted atParis in 1(128 by J. Morin priest of the oratory, who has addedthe I.atin translation, which in the Roman was printed separately,with scholia. The Greek edition of Rome has been printed inthe Polyglot Bible of London ; to which are added, at bottom,flte various readings of the Alexandrian MS. This has beenalso reprinted in England in 4to. and I into, with some altera-tions. It was again published at Franeker in 1709, by Bos, whohas added all The various readings be could find. The 4thGreek Bible is that done from the Alexandrian MS. begun atOxford by I)r. Grabe in 1707. In this the Alexandrian MS. isnot printed such as it is, hut such as it was thought it should be ;i. e . it is alteied wherever there appeared anv fault of the copyists,or any worn' inserted from any particular dialect: this somethink an excellence, but others a fault; urging, that the MS.should have been given absolutely and entirely of itself, and allconjectures as to the readings should have been thrown into the notes.
Bibles, Latin , however numerous, may be all reduced tothree classes; the ancient Vulgate , called also Italica, translatedfrom the Greek Septuagint ; the modern Vulgate , the greatestpart of which is done from the Hebrew text; and the new Latin translations, done also from the Hebrew text, in the iGth cen-tury. 11c have nothing remaining of the ancient Vulgate , usedin the primitive times in the western churches, but the Psalms ,Wisdom, and Ecclesiastes . Nobilius has endeavoured to retrieveit from the works of the ancient Latin fathers ; but it was impos-sible to do it exactly, because most of the fathers did not keepclose to it in their citations. As to the modern Vulgate , thereare a vast number of editions very different from each other.Cardinal Ximenes has inserted one in the Bible of Complutum,corrected and altered in many places. R. Stephens, and thedoctors of Louvain , have taken great pains in correcting themodern Vulgate. 'Fhe best edition of Stephens’s Latin Bible isthat of 1540, reprinted in 1545, in which are added on the mar-gin the various readings of several Latin MSS. which be hadconsulted. 'Fhe doctors of Louvain revised the modem Vulgate after R. Stephens; and added the" various readings of severalLatin MSS. The best of the Louvain editions are those to whichare added the critical notes of Francis Lucas of Bruges . Allthese reformations ot the Latin Bible were made before the timeof Pope Sixtus V. and ('lenient F ill, since which people havenot presumed to make any alterations; excepting in commentsand separate notes.
Bibie, Malabrian. In 1711, Messrs. Ziegonbald and Grind-lrr, two Danish missionaries, published a translation of the New'Testament in the Malabrian language ; after which they pro-ceeded -to translate the Old Testament .
Bible, Malayan. About 1670, Sir Robert Boyle procureda translation of the. New Testament into the Malayan language,which he printed, ansi rent the whole impression to' the blastIndies ; but as the text was printed in Roman characters it wasof no use to those for whose service it was designed. In 1758 acomplete version of the Old and New Testaments in the Malay tongue, was published under the direction of Jacob Massic, the
vol. 1.—no. 27 .
Dutch governor of Batavia, by Mawrits 'Mohr, and Van deWorth. 'Fhe work is in live vols. 8vo. and was printed at Batavia,in ihe above year, in the proper Malay character.
Bible, Bohemian. The Bohemians have a Bible translatedby eight of their doctors, whom they had sent to the schools ofWirtemberg and Basil , on purpose to study the original lan-guages. It was printed in Moravia in 1539.
Bible, Croatian. A translation of the New Testament intothe Croatian language, was published by Faber Creim, andothers, in 15(12 and 15lj3.
Bible, Georgian. '1 lie inhabitants of Georgia, in Asia , havelong had a translation of t lie Bible in their ancient k nguagi; but thatlanguage having now become almost obsolete, and the Georgian !in general being very ignorant, lew of them can either read orunderstand it.
Bible, Gkison. A translation of the Bible into the languageof the Orisons, in Italy, was completed at Coir , and publishedin 1720.
Bible, Icelandic. The inhabitants of Iceland have a versionof the Bible iu their language, widen was translated by Thovlak,and published in 1584.
llnu.E, Swedish , hi 1534, Glaus and Laurence published aSwedi h Bible from the German version of Martin Luther . Itwas revised in 1017, by order of king Gustavus Adolphus , andwas afterwards almo.t universally received.
Biri.es, Danish . The first Danish Bible was published bvPeter Palladios, Claus Chrysostom, John * vmiingius, and JohnMaceabieus, in 1550, in which they followed Lulher’s first Ger-man version. 'There are two other ver-iens, the one bv JohnPaul Resenies bishop of Zealand, in 1605; the other, of dieNew 'Te.stame.nl only, bv John Michel, in 1(554.
Bibles, F’lemish. 'The Flemish Bibles of the Romanists are.very numerous, and for the most part have no author’s name pre-lixedtothem, till that of Nicholas Vinck, printed at Louvain in1548. The llemish versions, made use of by the Calvinists till1637, were copied principally from that of Luther . But these nodof Dort having in i6lS appointed a new translation of the Bible into Flemish, deputies were named for the work, which was notfinished till 1637.
Bibles, German . The first and most ancient translation ofthe Bible in the German language is that of Ulphilas bishop of theGoths , about the year 360. This bishop left out the book of Kingswhich treats chiefly of war, lest it should too much encourage tbsmartial humour of the Goths . An imperfect MS. of this versionwas found in the abbey of Verden near Cologn, written in lettersof silver, for which reason it is called Codex Argenteus; auditwas published by I’rancis Junius in 1665. 'The oldest German printed Bibib extant, is that of Nuremberg , in 1447 ; but who wasthe author of it is uncertain. John Emzer, chaplain to GeorgeDuke of Saxony published a version of the New '1 estament in op-position to Luther. There is a German Bible of John Eckius in15.37, with EInzer’s New' Testament added to it; and one byUlembergius of Westphalia , procured by F’erdinand Duke of Ba-varia, and printed in 1630. Martin Luther having employed 11years in translating the Old and New Testament, published thePentateuch and the New Testament in 1522, the historical booksand the Psalms in 1524, the books of Solomon in 1527, Isaiah in1529, the prophets in 1531, and the other books in 1530. ’Fhelearned agree that his language is pure, and the version clear andfree from intricacies. It was revised by several persons of quality,who were masters of all the delicacies of the German language.'The German Bibles which have been printed in Saxony , Switzer-land, and elsewhere, are for the most part the same as that ot Lu-ther , with little variation. In 1604, John Piscator published a ver-sion of the Bible in German , taken from that of Junius and Tiesmellhis': but his turn of expression is purely Latin , and not at allagreeable to the genius of the German language. '1 he Anabaptists have a German Bible printed at Worms in 1529. Johi^Crellius published his version of the New 'Testament at Racoviu in 1630,and Felbinger his at Amsterdam in 1660.
For an account «f Polyglot Bibles we beg to refer our readersto Dr. Clarke’s Bibliographical Dictionary, vol. I. p. 241.&C.where there is the most complete and activate description of Poly-glot Bibles , that ever appeared in our language, or to Dibdin’sIntroduction to the knowledge of rare and valuable editions ofthe olassics, where Dr. Clarke is closely copied.
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Bibu*