In the Gospels B lacks the Ammonian sections and Eusebian canons, and presents a division into sections which appears besides only in E (Codex Zacynthius) an 8th cent. MS of St. Luke. In Acti, besides the system already referred to, there is an earlier (?) one, making 36 chapters. The Cath. Epp. also show an earlier and a later system of division into chapters. From the earlier system
2 P was ajiparently excluded. The system m the Pauline Lpp. is remarkable. They are treated as a single book, and the sections numbered continu- ously throughout, the sequence of the numbers showing that in the source from wliich this system of division was derived, Hebrews stood between Galntiant and Ephesians.
The birthplace of the MS is still obscnre. Hort suggested Rome ; Amiitage Robinson's work on Kutlialius gives some plausibility to Rendel Harris' suggestion of Cirsarea. The Text of the MS was revised soon after it had been written, with the helii of a fresh MS, by a corrector who is quoted as B» in the NT and B' by Swele in the OT. Six centuries later another scribe (B'' = B') retraced the faded original writing throughout. In consequence, the work of the original scribe is almost entirely hidden from siglit except in the case of isolated woias or letters which the restorer, for one reason or another, omitted to retrace.
The text of the OT section of this MS has been generally accessible since it was taken as the basis VOL. I. — 14
of the Roman edition of the LXX in 1587. Its NT text, on the other hand, during the first half of the present century, was to be ascertained only by a comparison of three more or less imperfect collations, — one made by Bartolocci in 1669, pre- served in Paris ; one made for Bentley by Mico about 1720 (supplemented by Rulotta 1730), preserved in Trin. Coll., Cambridge ; and one by Birch, pub- lished in 1788, 1798, and 1801. The MS was taken to Paris by Napoleon, and there carefully exam- ined, though not collated, by Hug in 1809. After its restoration to the Vatican it was inspected at various times by Tischendorf, Tregelles, and Alford, but under conditions that precluded thorough collation. Since 1850 three editions, purporting to give the text of the MS, l;?ive been published at Rome. The first, under the names of Alai and Vercellone, in 1857 ; the second, under the same names, in 1859 ; the third, under the names of Vercellone and Cozza, at various dates between 1868 and 1881. These editions are now superseded by a magnificent reproduction in photo- graphic facsimile of the entire MS. Its readings in the or are most readily accessible in Swete's Camb. edition, 1887-1889. They are recorded in the NT in the critical editions of Tregelles and Tischendorf.
Note.— The same Bymbol, In critical notes on Rev, denotes an
8th cent. MS of Rev, also preserved in the Vatican. It is to be carefully dit^tin^ished from the MS described above, and it would preveut coufujsioD ii this latter MS were referred to as B,.
J. O. F. Murray. B. — A symbol used in criticism of Hex. by DUlmann to signify the work of the Elohist (E) ; by Sehultz for that of the JahwLst (J). See Hexateuch. F. H. Woods.
BAAL Cji'S, BdaX or BodX). — The word means omier or lord, and is used both of men and gods. When used of men it implies possession, so owner of house, land, cattle, etc. ; then it comes to mean husband. When applied to gods it also means owner, not sovereign, possessor of the land rather than ruler of men. Thus we have the B. of Tyre, the B. of Peor, etc., and, by an extension, B. of other objects, e.g. B.-berith ; sometimes B. is prefixed to the name of a god, so possibly in the case of Baal- gad. The name was so obnoxious to the Jews in later times that nya (bCsketh, shame) was freq. sul)8tituted for it (see I.SHliOSHETH). Thus we get Ishbosheth, Mephibosheth for Ishbaal, Meribbaal ; and Dillmann has shown that this is the origin of the fem. ^ lidaX (^ afcrxi'i") being the kcrr) that we find in the prophetic books (LXX) and Ro 11*.
The origmal conception is a problem of great dilficulty and obscurity, the more so on account of the misconceptions that have gathered about it. It is commonly held that there was a supreme deity known as Baal, who is frequently identified with the sun. It will be convenient to examine first the alleged solar character of Baal. The evidence may be thus summarised. We find on inscriptions fjaal llammon, and on a Carthagnninn monument Baal Hammon ia represented with a crown of rays. The Hammnnim are sun-pillars, and used in idolatrous worship. The root means 'to be hot.' P'urther, Baalbek was called by the Greeks Heliopolis (sun-city). At Beth-shemesh (house of the sun) tliere was a temple to B. But this evidence is far from cogent, and much too slender to bear the identification of B. with the sun ; at the most it will show only that the sun was
sometimes regarded as a B. This is all that can be inforred from the temple of B. at Beth-shemesh ; and the (Jr. name of Baalbek is even loss weighty, since evidence of that kind is necessarily somewhat late. And, on the other hand, B. and the sun are distinguished, 2 K 23°. It was perfectly natural for suu-worshippers to speak of the sun as a B., but it does not follow tliat the converse is true, and that B.-worshippers identified the object of their worship with the sun. It is not probable that B. was even a sky-god. It is true that the Baalim were regarded as the producers of fertility, and to thera were ascribed the corn and wine and oil (Hos 2'"*). We think of the sun and rain as givers of fertility. But much of the district where li. worship prevailed was not fertilised by rain, but by natural and artificial irrigation. The land that was thus naturally watered and made fruitful was said in Arabia to be ' watered by the Ba'l' ; and in the plirase ' what the sky waters and what the Ba'l waters,' the latter is expressly distinguished from the former. So the Mishna and Talmud draw a distinction between land artificially irrigated and land naturally moist, calling the latter the ' house of B. ' or ' field of the house of B ' ( W. R. Smith, ES' 97). It is true that in Pal. the cultiva- tion of com depended on rain, and com was cer- tainly regarded as a gift of the Baalim. But analogy would make the transition possible from the idea of the BaalLm as givers of fertility through the springs of the oa.sis to the idea that they gave it through the rains of heaven. It is true that analogy may have worked the other way, and that they may first have been conceived as givers of rain, and then as givers of the fertilisino^ streams and underground waters. If, as Niildeke and Wellhausen think, B. -worship originated in Arabia, the former view would be more probable. W. R. Smith, however, arjjues that ' cults of the B. type and the name of B. itself were borrowed alon^ with agriculture from the Northern Semites, and entered Arabia with the date-palm. At the same time, he argues forcibly that B.'s land is not origin- ally land watered by the sky, but by ' springs, streams, and underground flow,' although later the Baalim were regarded as fertilising the land watered by rain.