a ladder, or at least an expert climber. None are so high as to suggest the necessity for ropes or scaffold- ing.
Prof. Beer, of Leipsic, has examined them with great care and constructed an alphabet. The results of the researches of this distinguished scholar are as follows : 1. The alphabet is independent; some of the letters are unique, others like the Palmyrene, Estrangelo, and Cufic. They are written from left to right. 2. The con- tents of the inscriptions, so far as examined, consist only of proper names preceded by some such words as C t>U, "peace," 1"'3'1, "in memory," and "jna, "blessed." The word "(tlD, " priest," is sometimes found after them. The names are those common in Arabic ; not one Jew- ish or Christian name has yet been found. 3. The lan- guage is supposed to be the Nabathajan, spoken by the inhabitants of Arabia Petrrea. 4. The writers were pil- grims. The great number around Serbal leads to the supposition that it was once a holy place. That some of the writers were Christian is evident from the cross- es. 5. The age of the inscriiitions he supposes to be not earlier than the 4th century. Had they been later, some tradition respecting them would probably have existed in the time of Cosmas.
Prof. Tuch, of Leipsic, while agreeing with Beer in his alphabet and translations, differs from him in regard to the history of the inscriptions. He says the language is Arabic ; the authors of them were ancient inhabitants of these mountains, in religion heathens. Pilgrimages were the occasions of the inscriptions. Their date he fixes not later than the 2d centurj' B.C.
Dean Stanley, in his careful resume, states that there is a great difference of age manifested both in the pict- ures and letters; that they are intermixed with Greek, Arabic, and even one or two Latin words, apparently of the same date; that crosses are very numerous, and of such form as to show their Christian origin. He con- cludes that they are, for the most part, the work of Chris- tian pilgrims.
It will be seen from the above statements that these singular inscriptions chiefly' occur in the wadies, and on the roads leading to particular spots, such as mounts Sinai and Serbal, and the Deir at Petra. They seem to have been the work of idle loiterers, rude in their
J
Sinaitic Inscriptions in Wady Mokatteb.
SIXAITIC MANUSCRIPT
U
SINCERITY
ideas of art, and ruder still in their morals; for the fig- ures of animals are generally ludicrous, and occasionally obscene. Many of the inscri|itions are evidently of re- mote antiijuity, while others are jilainly not older than our own ivra. That they are of Israelii ish origin, as Mr. Forster maintains, no satisfactory evidence has as yet heen producetl. The letters are not Hebrew. Some of them resemble i'luenician characters, others are dif- ferent from those of any known language. And yet it would seem they were the symbols of a language at one period miiversally known throughout tlie whole penin- sida. It does seem strange that all knowledge of these characters and the people who used them has been en- tirely lost, and it seems stranger still that it was already lost in the 4th century. The researches of the greatest sch<)lars of our age have been miable to solve the mys- tery of these inscriptions, or afford any satisfactory clue to their origin, authors, and object (^ Porter, Handbook fur Palest, p. 17).
Prof. Palmer has carefully investigated those inscrip- tions in the Ordnance Survey of Sinai, and his conclu- sions are thus summarily expressed: "They are mere scratches on the rock, the work of idle loungers, consist- ing, for the most part, of mere names interspersed with rude figures of men and animals. In a pliilological point of view they do possess a certain interest, but otherwise they are as worthless anil imimportant as the Arab, Greek, and European gniffiti with which they are in- terspersed. The language employed is Aramiean, the Shemitic dialect which in the earlier centuries of our aera held throughout the East the place now occupied by the modern Arabic, and the character differs little from the Xabatluean alphabet used in the inscriptions of Idum;ea and Central Syria" (Desert (ftlie Exodus, p. IGO). See, in addition to the al)ove,and travellers in the region. Beer, Inscrip/iones ad Montem Sinai, etc. (Lips. 1840); Lenormant, L'Oriyine Chretienne des Inscr. Sin. (Paris, 185(j); Schulmann, Ueber sinnit. Inschriften (Wilna, 18.5G); Ebers, Durch Gosen und Siuiii (Leips. 1872); Sharpe, lleb. Inscriptions between Ki/i/pt and Sinai (Lond. 1875); Jour. Sac. Lit. July, 18oo; C/i. of Engl. Recieic, April, 1857. See Inscriptions.
Sinaitic Manuscript {Codex Sinaiticus, desig- nated as X), a M.S. of the Septuagint and Greek New Test., brought from the Convent of St. Catherine, on Mount Sinai, by Tischendorf in 1859. It consists of 345 leaves and a half, 1!)9 in the Old Test, and 147 in the New Test. The Codex Sinaiticus contains the following portions of the Old Test, and Apocrypha in the order here given: 1 Chron. ix, 27-xi, 22; Tohit ii, 2 to the end; .Judith i, 1-xi. KJ: xiii, 9-xvi; 1 Mace; 4 iMacc. ; Isaiah; .ler. i, 1-x, 25 ; .Joel; Obadiah; Jonah; Nahum; Habakkuk; Zephaniah; Ilaggai; Zechariah; Malachi; Psalms; Proverbs; Ecclesiastes; Canticles; Wisdom of Solomon; Ecclesiasticus; .lob. Of the missing portions the following are supplied by the Codex Friderico-Au- ffustanus, and the fragments afterwards published bj' Tischendorf, which were originally parts of the Sinaitic MS.: a few verses of Gen. xxiii, xxiv, and of Numl). v- vii; also 1 Chron. xi, 22 xix, 17; Ezra ix, !) to the end; Nchemiali; Esther; Tohit i, 1-ii, 2; Jer. x, 25 to the end; Lam. i, 1-iii, 20. This codex contains the entire New Test., together with the epistle of Barnabas and parts of the .Shepherd of llermas. There are./r';/r col- umns in each page. The character of the letters, the inscriptions and sui)Scriptions to different books, the ab- sence of the Ammonian sections and Eusebian canons, the nature of I lie readings, and other pecidiarities, agree in a remarkable manner with B, or the Vatican. Tischendorf supposes that it is somewhat older than B, belonging to the 4th century. Probably it is of the <ilh century, though maile from a text older than that of B. The copyist, writing perhaps from dictation, has made many blunders. The value of this acipiisiiion to the critical aiijiaratus of the Bible can hardly lie overesti- mated. In Tischendorf's Xolilia Edilionis CuJicis Biblio-