364 Solomonic Literature. and without attempting to found on the unique any argument which it ספר דברי שלמה phrase .ספר דברי הימים monic phrase cannot bear, the fact may be reiterated as a noteworthy one, that Solomon is the only person to whose name the words " are prefixed— these words being peculiar to I Kings II. 41, and the passages (between thirty and forty in number) which contain the technical post-SoloNow if Solomon was the author of the three canonical books ascribed to him, and also of the miscellaneous literature specified in 1 Kings 5. 12-13 (4.32-33), it is not surprising that, while one volume was sufficient for the annals of his royal successors, his own words and works and wisdom should have required for themselves a DD of unusual dimensions. in ספר דברי שלמה Accordingly the reference to a 1 Kings 11. 41, like the 'nana declaration in Proverbs 22. 19-21, and the mention of a nohy in 2 Chronicles 35. 4, illustrates the statement MON " in Ecclesiastes 12. 10, and thus confirms the Solomonic authorship of Ecclesiastes. It may be further observed also that, while the testimony of such passages as Ecclesiastes 1. 1 and 12. 10 is abundantly explicit, the fact of Solomon's authorship, so far from depending exclusively on two or three verses, permeates the whole Book of Ecclesiastes as an autobiography, in which Koheleth is rehearsing what he saw, and what he knew, and what he said, and what he experienced. The naming of Authors. 365 The Witness of the New Testament to the The New Testament contains many and widely diversified references to the authorship of various parts of the Old Testament, seven or eight men being named as the authors of certain specified portions of the Hebrew Scriptures. These men are Moses, David, Elijah, Isaiah, Hosea, Joel, Jeremiah, and Daniel; and the following lists exhibit the relative particulars. Hosea 2. 1, 25 (1. 10; 2. 23); Romans 9. 25-26. JEREMIAH. A voice in Ramah-Matthew 2. 17-18; Jeremiah 31. 15. DANIEL. The abomination of desolation. Daniel 9. 27; 11. 31; 12. 11; Matthew 24. 15; Mark 13. 14. Ancient uncial Manuscripts. 367 As the note of authorship in the received text of Mark 13. 14 is not contained in some of the most ancient Manuscripts (N B D L), it is omitted from several critical editions of the New Testament. Yet it is found in the twelve uncials, A E F G H KM SUV Xr. Since, however, the genuineness of the similar note (7ò ¿ŋlèv dià ▲avinλ TOû πρоPýrov) in Matthew 24. 15 is undisputed and indisputable, the text of Mark 13. 14 need not be here discussed. Note on Mark 1. 2. There does not seem to be sufficient authority for superseding ἐν τοῖς προφήταις in Mark 1. 2 by ἐν τῷ Ησαΐᾳ τῷ προφήτῃ, as Tischendorf, Scrivener, Alford, Tregelles, and some other critics propose to do. The name of Esaias indeed appears in the four uncial Manuscripts NBDL, and also in A, and in between twenty and thirty cursive manuscripts. But the thirteen uncials AEFGHKM PSU VгII have the reading of the received text, ἐν τοῖς προφήταις : and in this they are supported by a large majority of cursive manuscripts, and by the Peshito, the Armenian, the Ethiopic, and the Arabic Version. In the Speaker's Commentary it is observed that the four manuscripts B LA 'belong to one school of recension; [and though] of high authority, are not, strictly speaking, independent witnesses.' Even Tischendorf, who maintained that the famous Codex Sinaiticus (N) bears traces of having been written by four copyists, maintained also that one of the four was the writer of the Codex Vaticanus (B). Yet notwithstanding his unmeasured praise of Codex N, he says of certain errata in a print of Codex B, 'tamen hæc quoque satis cum universâ scripturæ Vaticanæ vitiositate conveniunt.' Mr. Burgon, also, has shown conclusively that the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus, though pre-eminently ancient, are not superlatively accurate, and are sometimes so much at one in their very mistakes as, when not corroborated by other evidence, to be of little or no authority. He writes, 'Discrepant as the testimony of these two MSS. is throughout, they yet, strange to say, conspire every here and there in exhibiting minute corruptions of such an unique and peculiar kind as to betray a (probably not very remote) common corrupt original. These coincidences in fact are so numerous and so extraordinary as to establish a real connexion between those two codices; and that connexion is fatal 368 Inaccuracies in Manuscripts. ... to any claim which might be set up on their behalf as wholly independent witnesses. Codex B comes to us without a history: without recommendation of any kind, except that of its antiquity. It bears cases of careless transcription in every page. The Codex Sinaiticus abounds with " errors of the eye and pen, to an extent not unparalleled, but happily rather unusual in documents of first-rate importance." On many occasions, 10, 20, 30, 40 words are dropped through very carelessness. In this way 14 words have been omitted from Cod. N in S. Mark xv. 47-xvi. 1 :-19 words in S. Mark i. 32-4-20 words in S. John xx. 5, 6:-39 words in S. John xix. 20, 21. "Letters and words, even whole sentences, are frequently written twice over, or begun and immediately can. celled: . . In Codex N, we find the name of "Isaiah" (noacov) thrust into S. Matthew xiii. 35, in defiance of authority and of fact. Among all our Manuscripts of a thousand years old and upwards, there is not a solitary example containing the name of Esaias in the text referred to,—except the Sinaitic, to which a few of less than a thousand years old may be added.' This strange ascription of Psalm 78. 2 to Esaias, viewed in connection with the occurrence of Isaiah's name in Matthew 3. 3 and Luke 3. 4, may help to account for the introduction of the same name at a very early date into the text of Mark 1. 2. The paraphrastic Codex Cantabrigiensis (D) is notorious for its inaccuracy. 'That venerable copy of the Gospels [says Mr. Burgon] is of the vith century. It is, in fact, one of our five great uncials. No older MS. of the Greek Text is known to exist, excepting always A, B, C, and N. And yet no text is more thoroughly disfigured by corruptions and interpolations than that of Codex D.' 'No known manuscript contains [says Scrivener in his 'Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament'] so many bold and extensive interpolations (six hundred, it is said, in the Acts alone), countenanced, where they are not absolutely unsupported, chiefly by the Old Latin and some of the Syriac versions.' The Codex Parisiensis Regius (L), assigned to the eighth century, is so closely related to the Codex Vaticanus as to be of little value as a separate witness to the text of the New Testament. As for the scribe who executed Codex L, [says Mr. Burgon,] he was evidently incapable of distinguishing the grossest fabrication from the genuine text. Codex L exhibits an exceedingly vicious text.' |