Another sort of oven, or rather mode of baking, is much in use among the pastoral tribes. A shallow hole, about six inches deep by three or four feet in diameter, is made in the ground ; this is filled up with dry brush- wood, upon which, when kindled, pebbles are thrown to concentrate and retain tlie heat. Jleanwhile the dough is prepared, and when the oven is sufficiently heated the ashes and pebbles are removed, and the spot well cleaned out. The dough is then deposited in the hol- low, and is left there over night. The cakes thus baked are about two lingers thick, and are very palatable. There can be little doubt that tliis kind of oven and mode of baking bread were common among the Jews. Hence Hezel very ingeniously, if not truly, conjectures {Real-Lexikon, s. v. Brod) comes the "'lin "i^D {salley choi-'iij, Sept. Kava xovSpirwv, Vulg. canisti-a farinn), hole-head baskels, of Gen. xl, IG, which he renders, or rather paraphrases, "baskets full of bread halved in holes," not "white baskets" [see Basket], as in the A. v., nor " baskets full of holes," as in our margin ; nor " white bread," as in most of the Continental versions, seeing that all bread is white in the East. As the process is slower and the bread more savory than any otlier, tliis kind of bread might certainly be entitled to the distinction implied in its being prepared for the ta- ble of the ICgyptian king.
There is a baking utensil called in Arabic tnjen, which is the same word Qniycivov) by which the Sept. renders the Heb. r^ri'? {machahhuth), "pa?!," in Lev. ii, .5, etc. This leaves little doubt that the ancient He- brews had this tajen. It is a sort of pan of earthen- ware or iron (usually the latter), tlat, or slightly convex, which is put over a slow fire, and on which the thin flaps of dough are laid and baked with considerable ex- pedition, although only one cake can be baked in this way at a time. This is not a household mode of pre- paring bread, but is one of the simple and primitive processes employed by the wandering and semi-wander- ing tribes, shepherds, luisbandmen, and others, who
have occasion to prepare a small quantity of daily bread in an easy, off-hand manner. Bread is also baked in a manner which, although ajiparently very different, is but a modification of the principle of the iajen, and is used chiefiy in the houses of the peasantrj'. There is a cavity in the fire-hearth, in which, when required for baking, a fire is kindled and burned down to hot embers. A plate of iron, or sometimes copper, is placed over the hole, and on this the bread is baked. See Bread.
Anotlier mode of baking is in use chiefly among the pastoral tribes, and by travellers in the open country, but is not unknown in the villages. A smooth, clear spot is chosen in the loose ground, a sandy soil — so common in the Eastern deserts and harder lands — beuig preferred. On this a fire is kindled, and when the ground is sufficiently heated the embers and ashes are raked aside, and the dough is laid on the heated spot, and then covered over with the gloiving embers and ashes which had just been removed. The bread is sev- eral times turned, and in less than half an hour is suffi- ciently baked. Bread thus baked is called in Scripture rijij' (iigc/uh), "cake" (Gen. xviii, 6; 1 Kings xvii, 13; Ezek. iv, 12, etc.), and the indication 1 Kings xix, 6 is very clear, "cake baken on the coals" (coal-cakes), i. e. cakes baked under the coals. The Sept. expresses this word very fairly by tyKpixpiai, j)anis suhcinericius (Gen. xviii, 6; Exod. xii, 39). According to Busbe- quius (Itin. p. 36), the name of Hiigcdh, which he in- terprets f/.«/;-cakes, or «5/i-bread, was in his time still applied in Bulgaria to cakes prepared in this fashion; and as soon as a stranger arrived in. the village the women baked such bread in all haste, in order to sell it to him. This conveys an interesting illustration of Gen. xvi, 6, where Sarah, on the arrival of three stran- gers, was required to bake "quickly" such ash-bread — though not for sale, but for the hospitable entertain- ment of the unknown travellers. The bread thus pre- pared is good and palatable, although the outer rind, or crust, is apt to smell and taste of the smoke and ashes. The necessity of turning these cakes gives a satisfactory explanation of Hos. vii, 8, where Ephraim is compared to a cake not turned, i. e. only baked on one side, while the other is raw and adhesive. See Ash-cake.
Overall, Joiix, an English prelate, was born in 1559, and, after a proper preliminary training, was ed- ucated successively at St. John's College, Cambridge, and at Trinity College, of which he was chosen fellow. In 1596 he was appointed regius professor of divinity, when he took the degree of D.D., and about the same time was elected master of Catherine Hall in the same university. In 1601 he was preferred to the deanery of St. Paul's, London, by the recommendation of his pa- tron. Sir Fulk Greville, and queen Elizabeth ; and in the beginning of James's reign was chosen prolocutor of the lower house of convocation. In 1612 he was appointed one of the first governors of the Charter- house Hospital, then just founded by Thomas Sutton. In April, 1614, he was made bishop of Lichfield and Coventry ; and in 1618 was transferred to Norwich, where he died in May, 1619. He was buried in that cathedral, where he lay unnoticed till some time after the restoration of Charles II, when Cosin, bishop of Durham, wbo had been his secretary, erected a monu- ment in 1669 to his memory. Overall is characterized by Wood as being the best scholastic divine in the Eng- lish nation ; and Cosin, who perhaps may be thought to rival him in that learning, calls himself his scliolar, and expressly declares that he derived all his knowl- edge from him. Bishop Overall is also extolled by Smith for his distinguished wisdom, erudition, and pi- ety. In the controversy which in liis time divided the Reformed churclies about predestination and grace, he held ground inclining rather to Arminianism ; and seems to have paved the way for the reception of that doctrine in England, where it was generally embraced a few years afterwards, chiefly by the authority and in-