Old Flemings. See Mennonites.
Oldham, Huoir. an English prelate of great learn- ing, was born near Manchester in the 15th centurj'. He became bishop of Exeter in 1504. He founded a free school in IManchester, and added to the endowment of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He died in 1519. See Hook, Eccles. Biog. ^■iii, 457.
Old-Light Antiburghers. See Original Ax-
TIBURGHER SyNOI).
OLD-LIGHT BURGHERS
338
OLD TESTAMENT
Old-Light Burghers. See Original Burgher Synod.
Old and New Light Controversy. See An-
Tim'KGiiKRs; Original Antiblkguilk Synod; Orig- inal Burgher Synod.
Old Lutherans. See Lutherans.
Old Man of the Mountain. See Assassins.
Oldoni, Boniforte and Ercole, two old paint- ers uf the ^Milanese .school, tiourished, according to Delia Vallc, at Vercelli about 14G6, and executed some works for the churches. See Spooner, Biog, Hist, of the Fine A rts, ii, 626.
Oldrin, Edward, a minister of the jMethodist Episcopal Church, was born in WesscU, Suffolk County, England, Feb. 13, 1802. In his youth he became a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Society. He was early licensed as a local preacher, and he labored suc- cessfully in the home work. In 1829 he came to this countrj', and began his labors on the Stamford Circuit. In 1830 he was received on trial in the New York Con- ference, and appointed to the Suffolk Circuit. From that time till the conference of 1863 — a period of thirty- three years — he was uninterruptedly engaged in minis- terial work in the following pastoral appointments: 1830-1, Suffolk Circuit ; 1832-3, Hempstead Circuit ; 183-i-5, Westhampton; 1836-7, King's Bridge and i'onkers; 1838-9, Stamford Circuit; 1840- ], Marl- borough Circuit, N. Y. ; 1842-3, Paltz and Plattekill ; 1844-5, Sugar Loaf; 1846-7, Montgomery Circuit; 1848-9, Marlborough Circuit; 1850-1, Marbletown Cir- cuit; 1852-3, Bloomingburg Circuit ; 1854-5, Southold ; 1856-7, Pound Ridge; 1858, Greenwich; 1859-60, East- chester; 1861-2, Newtown and East Village. In 1863 poor health obliged him to desist from the pastoral re- lation, but he continued preaching until near the time of his death, which took place at Stamford, Conn., Feb. 22, 1874. He was an earnest, faithfid, and successful minister of Christ. He was a man of great faith and much prayer. " During the active portion of his life he was emphatically a man of one work. Whatever his text, his theme always was Christ. His sermons were like huge blocks of^ rugged truth quarried from the Book of God. His gifts were varied and of marked character" (W. C. Hoyt, in Christ. Adv. March 5, 1874).
Olds, Gamaliel Smith, a Congregational minister, was born Feb. 11, 1777, in Tolland, Mass. He gradu- ated at Williams College in 1801 ; held the position of tutor from 1803 to 1805; and in 1806 was elected pro- fessor of mathematics and natural philosophy, but re- signed in 1808, and studied theology, and was ordained co-pastor in Greenfield, Mass., Nov. 19, 1813, where he remained until 1816. In 1819 he was chosen professor of mathematics and natural philosophy in the Univer- sity of Vermont ; and in 1821 profes.sor of the same stud- ies in Amherst College. Some years afterwards he filled the same chair in the University of (ieorgia. He died from the effects of an accident at Circleville, Ohio, June 13, 1848. jMr, Olds published an Jnaur/ui-ul Oration at Williams Collerje (1806) -.— The Substance of several Ser- mons upon the subjects of Episcopac;/ and Preshjterian Puritij {\%\h) •.—Statement of Facts' relative to the Ap- pointment to the Office of Professor ofChemistri/ in Mid- dlebury College (1818).— Spr'ague, i?jHa/s of the Amer. Pulpit, ii, 586.
Old-School Baptists. See Baptists.
Old-School Presbyterians. See Presbyte- rians.
Old Testament (»} naXaia Cia^i'iKi], Vetus Testa- mentiim) is tlie popular designation of the books of the Hebrew Bil)le, in distinction from " the New Testa- ment," or the Christian Scri])tures, which lias been bor- rowed from the title in the Septuagint and Latin Vul- gate. See Tkstajient.
I. History of the Text. — Under this head we shall consider only the successive steps by which the text seems to have reached its present form and condition (using for this purpose what we find appropriate in the article in Smith's Diet, of the Bible). For the subdivis- ions into books, etc., see Bible; for the contents, see the several books (also Pentateuch ; Proi-hets, Ha- giographa, etc.) , and for the hermeneutical principles applied in different ages, see Interpretation. The apparent or real citations from one part of the O. T. in another, and in the N. T., will be discussed under the head of Quotations.
1. .1 nte- Rabbinical Period. — A history ot the text of the O. T. should properly commence from the date of the completion of the Canon ; from which time we must assume that no additions to any part of it could be le- gitimately made, the sole object of those who transmit- ted and watched over it being thenceforth to preserve that which was already written. Of the care, how- ever, with which the text was transmitted we have to judge, almost entirely, by the phenomena which it and the versions derived from it now present, rather than by any recorded facts respecting it. That much scru- pulous pains would be bestowed by Ezra, the •' read}' scribe in the law of Moses," and by his companions, on the correct transmission of those Scriptures which passed through their hands is indeed antecedentlj- prob- able. The best evidence of such pains, and of the re- spect with which the text of the sacred books was con- sequentlj' regarded, is to be found in the jealous accu- racy with which the discrepancies of various parallel passages have been preserved, notwithstanding the temptation which must have existed to assimilate them to each other. Such is the case with Psalms xiv and liii, two recensions of the same hymn, both pro- ceeding from David, where the reasons of the several variations may on examination be traced. Such also is the case with Psalm xviii and 2 Sam. xxii, where the variations between the two copies are more than sixty in number, excluding those which merely consist in the use or absence of the mat res leciionis; and where, therefore, even though the design of all the variations be not perceived, the hypothesis of their having orig- inated through accident would imply a carelessness in transcribing far beyond what even the rashest critics have in other places contemplated.