THE BRITISH CRITIC, For JULY, 1794. O fommo Dio, come i guidici umani How much too often, ye celeftial Pow'rs, ARIOST. ART. I. The Holy Bible; or the Books accounted Sacred, otherwife called the Books of the Old and New Covenants. Faithfully tranflated from corrected Texts of the Originals; with various Readings, Explanatory Notes, and Critical Remarks. By the Rev. Alexander Geddes, LL. D. Vol. I. 4to. I. Is. 6d. Printed for the Author. Faulder, &c. 1792. THIS volume was published before the commencement of our literary labours, but as it is a part of a large and peculiarly important work, the remainder of which unavoidably will come before us, and our opinion of the whole of which may be particularly expected, we fhall venture to difpenfe with a rule which we meant to have kept invariably, and endeavour to give the readers of this Review, our impartial and unbiaffed fentiments. What are the author's political tenets, or with whom he is connected as a friend or companion, will have no influence upon us. His Profpectus, though we might differ from the Doctor as to fome points, gives us a high idea of his ingenuity and induftry, and we have perufed the translation before us with fome degree of fatisfaction, and certainly with. B BRIT. CRIT. VOL.IV. JULY, 1794. very very minute attention. Every thing relative to the Sacred Scriptures is important. The queftion has often been agitated, whether we fhould have a vernacular tranflation of them for the use of the people. In the mean time, we are much indebted to the learned who have employed their pains upon particular books: to Bishops Lowth and Newcome, to Drs. Blaney and Hodgson, and to Mr. Wintle. We think it has been too much the practice to depreciate the tranflation of James the Firft, of which we fhall fay more hereafter; and Dr. Kennicott was of opinion, that even thofe tranflators had differed from others without material improvement, and fometimes for the worfe. We could produce inftances from the Pfalms, wherein the version read in our Churches, which was Coverdale's, is fuperior to the other incorporated in our common Bibles. There is a circumftance which we ought not to conceal, or to disguise. After the miraculous integrity of the Hebrew text was, in fome measure given up; after it feemed to be acknowledged, that the Maforetical points were of later date, the rage of alteration became fo ftrong that it knew no bounds. Many paffages of Scripture, which, to common understandings, carried a good, plain, edifying fenfe, were pronounced corrupt. If a verfe or two did not come in the regular order, it was tranfpofed; if there was a feeming error in chronology, an eafy remedy was applied by the fuppofition of an interpolation. If hemiftics did not come forward in exact measure, fome MS. was ready to fupply the defect. Our readers will probably remember feveral paffages reflored to their original reading by Bishop Warburton, which Dr. Kennicott wished to alter, and other inftances might be produced refpecting other writers. Dr. Hunt has pointed out a much more fober-minded mode of criticifm to thofe who have leifure to ftudy the Oriental languages. Some fignifications which the Scriptures and Rabbinical books do not point out, are preferved in the Arabic, and we may be permitted by the way to obferve, that though we do not contend for the Maforetical points, yet that the mode of reading the Arabic language is a proof that the Hebrew language was read with points, either expreffed or understood, and confequently that thofe letters, which fome contend were. ufed as vowels must always have been, as they still are confidered in the Arabic language, confonants. Whatever may be the faults or imperfections of the Maforetical editions, we are now too wife to think that they have been fabricated by the Jews, to the injury of Chriftianity. The real pronunciation of the language is loft, but fome refpect is due to those who learned learned it from children, who worship God in it, and who have it not in their power to invalidate one article of the Chrif tian Faith. If Rabbinical writers have refined too much, fo also have certain Chriftian writers. It is our duty to select from all, what is juft and folid. Every fpecies of learning has its drofs. The Philofopher, the Philologift, the Antiquarian, have certain reveries, which ought to be treated with the indulgence due to human infirmity. The work before us is dedicated to Lord Petre, its peculiar patron. The Preface opens with a juft praise of the Five Books of Mofes, which, Dr. G. fays, if the idea of Divine Inspiration be out of the question, and that point is to be difcuffed in a general preface, must be allowed to be an admirable compofition. Notwithstanding this implied doubt as to the doctrine of infpiration, which can only be adverted to with propriety, after we have heard his fentiments at large, a decided preference is given to Mofes over all the writers of antiquity, of Greece as well as Rome, in which opinion we most heartily concur. The Doctor's obfervations on the Hiftory of the Creation appear by far too refined. It was the intention of Scripture to teach us religion and not philofophy; and this purpose is fully anfwered by faying, that a wife and good Creator formed the world, and made ample provifion for every thing in it. The degree of light which exifted for the first three days it is not material to ascertain. Though we are informed from Origen, that no one of a found mind can imagine that there were an evening and a morning three days without a fun, yet we might have fuppofed that Mofes defigned these terms of morning and evening to be rather measures of time, than expreffive of the real state of the world. Care feems to be taken to affure us, that God created the world in fix days, because on this was founded the inftitution of the Sabbath. We cannot well understand why the Doctor fhould adopt the term expanfe intead of firmament. But the Doctor fpeaks out, and fays p. 11, " If we may "fuppofe that the Hebrew Hiftoriographer invented his Hex"ahemeron or fix days creation to enforce more strongly the "obfervance of the Sabbath, which I think much more than "probable, may we not, in like manner confider his History "of the Fall as an excellent Mythologue (a word which he " fays is coined in the fair mint of English Analogy) to ac"count for the origin of human evil and man's antipathy to "the reptile race?" He then, in a ftrain of triumph, goes on to compare this to the Fables of Pilpay or Æfop, and concludes the paragraph thus :-" Reader! doft thou dislike this B 2 "mode |