Keunicott, Benjamin, D.D., one of the most emi- nent Biblical scholars, was born of humble parents at Totness, in Devonshire, England, Apr. 4, 1718. At quite a youthful age he succeeded his father as master of a charity school in his native place, and here continued imtil 1744, when, having previously given proof of pos- sessing superior talents, he was, through the kindness of several gentlemen in the neighborhood who inter- ested themselves in his behalf, and opened a subscrij)- tiou to defray his educational expenses, eiiabled to go to the University of Oxford. He entered at AVadham Col- lege, and applied himself to the study of divinity and •Hebrew with great diligence, and while yet an under- graduate published Ta-o Dissertations: 1. On the Tree of Life in Paradise, n-ith some Ohsercations on the Fall of Man ; 2. On the Oblations of Cain and A hel (Oxf. 8vo), which came to a second edition in 1747, and procured him, free of ex])ense, the distinguished honor oi' a bach- elor's degree, even before the statute time. Shortly af- terwards he was elected fellow of Exeter College, and in 1750 took his degree of M.A. By the publication of several sermons at this time he acijuired addit.onal fame, but his great name is due to his elaborate re- searches f(jr the improvement of the text of the Hebrew Bible, for which he laid the foundation in 1763. It was in this year that lie inaugurated his great under- taking by giving to the public the tirst volume of his dissertations, entitled The State of the Printed Hebrew Text of the 0. T. considered (Oxford, 1753-1759, 2 vols. 8vo ). In this work he evinces the necessity of the un- dertaking upon which he had set his heart by refuting the popular notion of the "absolute integrity" of the Hebrew text. In the first volume he institutes a com- parison of 1 Chron. xi with 2 Sam. v and xxiii, followed by observations on seventy Hebrew MSS.,and maintains that numerous mistakes aud interpolations disfigure the sacred Scriptures of the O. T. ; in the second volume he vindicates the Samaritan Pentateuch, proves the cor- ruption of the printed copies of the Chaldee paraphrase (the accordance of which with the text of the O. T. was boasted of as evincing the purity of the latter), gives an account of the Hebrew MSS. supposed at liis day to have b'.'en extant, and closes with tlie proposition to in- stitute a collation of existing Hebrew ^ISS. for the pur- pose of securing a correct edition of the O.-T. Scriptures in the original; extending a very hearty invitation for assistance to the Jews also. This undertaking, as we miglit naturally expect, met with much opposition both in lingland and on the Continent. It was feared by many that such a collation might overturn the received reading of various important passages, and introduce uncertainty into the whole system of Biblical interpre- tation. The ])lan was, however, warmly patronized by the majority of the English clergy; and when, in 1760, he issued his proposals for collecting all the Hebrew MSS. prior to the invention of the art of printing that could be found in Great Britain or in foreign countries,
the utility of the proposed collation w'as very generally admitted, and a subscrijjtion to defray the expense of it, amounting to nearly ten thousand poiuids, was quickly made. Various persons ■were employed, both at home and abroad ; among foreign literati the principal vi'as professor Bruns, of the University of Helmstadt, who not only collated Hebrew MSS. in Germany, but went for that purpose into Switzerland and Italy. In conse- quence of these efforts, more than six hundred Hebrew MSS., and sixteen jVISS. of the Samaritan Pentateuch, were discovered in different libraries in England and on the Continent, many of which were wholly collated, and others consulted in important passages. To this colla- tion of MSS. was also added a collation of the most noted printed editions of the Bible, including those edited by the Kabbins, whose annotations, as well as the Talmud itself, were frequently consulted by the learned Keuni- cott. The collation continued from 1760 to 1769, during which period an account of the progress making was annually published. At length, after sixteen years of unmitigated industry, appeared the first, and four years later the second volume of Kennicott's edition of the He- brew Bible — Vetvs Testamentuni Hebraicum cum rariis Lectionibus (Oxonii, 1776, 1780, 2 vols. fol.). Though the number of various readings was found to be very great, yet they were neither so numerous nor by any means so important as those that are contained in Griesbach's edition of the New Testament. But this is easily ac- counted for from the revision of the Hebrew text by the Masorites in the 7th and 8th centuries, and from the scrupulous fidelity with which the Jews have trans- scribed the same text Jrom that time. '■ The text of Kennicott's edition," says Marsh {Uiriniti/ Lectures, pt. ii), "was printed from that of Van der Hooght, with which the Hebrew manuscripts, by Kennicott's direc- tion, were aU collated. But as variations in the points were disregarded in the collation, the points were not added in the text. The various readings, as in the crit- ical editions of the Greek Testament, were printed at the bottom of the page, with references to the corre- sponding readings of the text. In the Pentateuch the variations of the Samaritan text were printed in a col- umn parallel to the Hebrew ; and the variations observ- able in the Samaritan manuscripts, which differ from each other as well as the Hebrew, are likewise noted, with references to the Hamaritan printed text. To this collation of manuscripts was added a collation of the most distinguished editions of the Hebrew Bible, in the same manner as Wetstein has noticed the variations ob- servable in the principal editions of the Greek Testa- ment. Nor did Kennicott confine his collation to man- uscripts and editions. He further 'considered that as the (piotations from the Greek Testament in the works of ecclesiastical writers afford another source of various readings, so the quotations from the Hebrew Bible in the works of Jewish writers are likewise subjects of crit- ical inquiry." To the second volume Kennicott added a Dissertatio Generalis, in which an account is given of the manuscripts and other authorities collated for the work, and also a history of the Hebrew text from the time of the Babylonian captivity. This dissertation, which the best Biblical scholars regard as able and valu- able, was reprinted at Brunswick, Germany, in 1783, im- der the superintendence of professor Bruns. Tlic faults attaching to this great work of Dr. Kennicott are thus summarized by Dr. Davidson {Biblical Crit. 2d edit., p. 154 sq.): " He (i. e. Kennicott) neglected the ^fasorah (q. V.) as if it Avere wholly worthless. In specifying his sources, he is not always consistent or uniform in his method. Some MSS. are only partially examined. Nei- ther was he very accurate in extracting various read- ings from his copies. ■\Vhere several letters arc want- ing in MSS. there is no remark indicating whether the defect should be remedied, and how. The ^MSS. cor- rected by a different hand are rejected without reason. Old synagogue ]\ISS. are neglected, though they would have contributed to the value of the various rcaduigs.