Our Bible and the ancient manuscripts - being a history of the text and its translations (1895) (14597500490)

Identifier: ourbibleancien00keny (find matches)
Title: Our Bible and the ancient manuscripts : being a history of the text and its translations
Year: 1895 (1890s)
Authors: Kenyon, Frederic G. (Frederic George), Sir, 1863-1952
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Eyre and Spottiswoode
Contributing Library: Princeton Theological Seminary Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive



Text Appearing Before Image:
of their heart (Jer. 17. 1), and it was upon a greattablet (Isa. 8. 1, R.V.) that Isaiah wrote the words For Maher-shalal-hash-baz ; but it was a roll of a book which Jeremiahtook in order that Baruch might write therein with ink the wordswhich the Lord had spoken against Israel, and which Jehoiakimcut with a penknife and burnt in the fire that was in the brasierbefore him (Jer. 36. 2,18, 23).* It was a roll of a book whichwas spread before Ezekiel, written within and without with lamen-tations and mourning and woe (Ezek. 2. 9, 10). The material of * There can be little doubt that the alternative rendering, columns, insteadof leaves, given in the E.V. and the Variorum Bible, is right. The knife■which the king used was, as the note in the Variorum Bible explains, a scribesknife, used for erasing words wrongly written ; and this makes it probable thatthe material of the roll was skin, not papyrus, on which a knife could hardlybe used, on account of its thinness of texture. PLATE I J.
Text Appearing After Image:
Keukew Synagogue-Roll—14tii Cent.(Original height, excluding rollers, 27 in.) THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS OF THE BIBLE. 21 which these rolls were made was not pa))yrus, however, but theprepared skins of sheep and goats. Skins were used in the ancientworld as a material for books wherever papyrus was not obtain-able ; when specially prepared for this purpose they form thematerial known as parchment or vellum. It is possible, indeedprobable, that papyrus was imported into Palestine, as it was intoGreece, and was used concurrently with skins; but the sacredbooks seem always to have been written on the more durablematerial. If, then, we ask the question. Of what form were the originalmanuscripts of the Bible ? the answer will be that the documents „ , . from which the historical books of the Old Testa-Form of the ori-ginal manuscripts ment were composed were very possibly in some of the Bihle. ^^^^g inscribed on clay tablets, but that the booksthemselves were ^ATitten on rolls, possibly