But the most valuable part of his labors are the appen- dices to this volume, which are, "1, the Masorah which
RABBINIC BIBLES
868
RABBINIC BIBLES
conlu not be got into the margin of the text in alphabetical order, with Jacob beu-Chajim's directions : •-'. the various readings of Ben-Asher and Ben-Naphlali, and the East- ern and Western codd. : and, 3, a treatise upon the points and accents, containing the work mS^Mrtl Tlpiil ""Sll, or ~"~'l~ ""-. by Moses Nakdan, Jacob ben-Chajim bestowed the utmost labor in amassing the Masorah and in pnrifying and arranging those materials whicb Felix ! hed very incorrectly in the flrsl edition
Rabbinic Bible. He was, moreover, the first who, in his elaborate introduction, furnished the ;. denl With a treatise on the Masorah: and his
edition of the Bible is of great im] criticism
• ;, inasmuch as from it mosl of the lb Kennicotl published a Latin tn of Jacob ben-Chajim*s valuable introduction anonymous MS. in the Bodlei in Library in an abridged form (comp. Dit rtatii h Secoti Oxford, 1759], p. 229- 244), and G osbn ; has ) ab ished an Eog ish I of the whole with expl matory notes in the J Sacred Literature, IS63. In after-life Jacob hi
: Christianity, a circumstance which will accouul for Elias Levita's vituperations again th m tm'::: "~~ ~"~: ~"~li- ilTHX, i.e. ' Lei hi- soul be bound up in a bag with holes ' ."
3. A revised and improved edition of the second Bombergian Bible was published al Venice in 1546 18, undei the supervision of Cornelius Adelkind. The changes made in this edition consist in omitting Aben- Ezra's commentary on Isaiah and the .Minor Prophets, while Jacob ben-Asher's up v.) commentary on the Pentateuch and Isaiah di Trani's (q. v.) commentary on Judges and Samuel are i
1. Bomberg's fourth Rabbinic Bible, by .loan, de Gara, carried through the press and corrected by Isaac ben-Joseph d?0 and Isaac ben-Gershon Treves (Ven- ice, 15G8, 4 vols. fol.). The correctors remark at the end thai they have reinserted in this edition the por- tion of the Masorah which was omitted in the edition of 1546 18. Appended is the so-called Jerusalem Tar- gum on the Pentateuch. Wolf (/;ili/i<>//urn Ihln-, ii. 372) says: "In catalogo quodam MSS. codicum Hebr. BibL Bodlej. observatum vidi, quod h»c editio opera Genebrardi passim sit. castrata in iis qua? contra rem Christianam e( pracipue contra Romanos dicuntur;" bul Steinschneider (in Catalogue Libr. Hebr.") states, "sed exemplar tale in Bodl. non exstat."
5. WWl =--■!•:•- -,- STTin ^looin ftwn ■ ■ ■ V1-" "rx-'i-l lOffl "-•-;. published at Venice in 1617 19 | I vols, fol.) by Pietro and Lorenzo Braga- din, and edited by the celebrated Leon <li Modena (q. v.) and Abraham Chaber-Tob ben-Solomon Chajim Sopher. It contains the whole matter of the foregoing edition, and is preceded by a preface written by Leon di Modena. This edition, however, is of less value to the critical stu- dent, being castrated by the Inquisition, under whose censorship it was published, as may be seen from the remark of the censor at the end : •• Visto per me, Fr. Re- nato da Mod. a. 1626."
6. -rVr-c" ---r — i ban -;rv-i»ia "V-r n ... i. e. God, thy salvation is in thy word, and thy kingdom is from generation to generation], printed al Basle in L618 L9 (2 vols. fol.), and edited by John Bux- torf. This Bibli is divided into four pans, the latter of which, consisting of the later prophets and Hagiog- rapha, i- dated 1619. The title-page i- followed by a Latin preface bj Buxtorf, a table of the number of chap- ters in the Bible, .and a poem of Al.en- L/ra <m the He- brew language. Besides the Hebrew texl and the 1 paraphrases, il contains a- follows: I, Rashi on the wholi Old b-i.; 2, ^ben-Ezra on the Pentateuch, Isaiah, the Minor Prophets, Psalms, dob. the Five Me- gilloth, and Daniel; •".. Moses Kimchi on the Proverbs, Ezra, and Nehemiah; I. 1>. Kimchi on Chronicles; 5,
0 the earlier prophets and Proverbs; 6, Saadia-
on Daniel; 7, Jacob ben-Asher on the Pentateuch; 8, Jachja on Samuel ; 9, the Masorah Finalis and Buxtorfs Tiberias, etc; 10, the various readings of Ben-Asher
and lieu-Xaphtali: ii. the variations between the East-
ern and Western codices: 12, a treatise on the accents. The whole is formed after Jacob ben-Chajim's second
edition ( 1.0 It; IS), with soin in etioiis and alterations
by Buxtorf. Buxtorf, in editing this Bible, has erected to himself a lasting monument. 01 course, like every human work, it i- imperfect ; but, in spite of its defi- ciencies, the -indent luu-t still thank the (alitor for this work, and Richard Simon, in his Histi V. T. p. 513, certainly doe- great injustice when he says: "Bien qu'il pretende que son edition est plus exacte que les autres, les Juifs c< pendant ne I'i stimenl pas beaucoup, a can- des fautes qui s'y rencontrent, surtoiit dans les commentaires des rabbins, oil il a laisse les erreurs des copistes, qui etoient dans tions prece'dentes, el il y en a ajoute de nouvelles. II seroil ne"cessaire d'avoir de bons exemplaires manuscrits
immentaires d. - rabbin-, pcur les c< une iniinite d'eridroits; el c'esl a quoi Buxtorfe devoit plutol s'appliquer, qu'§ reformer la punctuation du texte Caldaique."