BIBLES, ANNOTATED, AND BIBLE SUMMARIES.
I. German.
The Ernestine and Tubingen Bibles
(§ 1). Wiirttemberg Bibles (§ 2). The Marburg, Berleburg, and
Ebersdorf Bibles (§ 3). The Wertheim Bible (§ 4). Later Works (§ 5).
II. English.
Matthew's and the Geneva Bible
(§ 1). The Bishops' Bible (§ 2). The Authorized Version (§ 3). John Canne's Notes, 1('«47 (§ 4). Other Works to 1701 (§ 5). Matthew Henry. Other Works to
1750 (§ 6).
Various Works after 1750 (§ 7). Thomas Scott and Others to 1 S10 (§ S'j, Adam Clarke, D'Oyly and Mant, and
Bellamy, 1810-34 (§ 9). Other Works 1816-3S (§ 10). Republication in America (§ 11). Original American Works (§ 12). Later Works, English and American
(§ 13).
[Under this title certain works are mentioned which give the text of the Bible with annotations aiming to promote its proper use and understanding. They are of the nature of commentaries, and a distinction is not to be sharply drawn. The annotated Bible, however, will always include the text, to which the helps are strictly subordinate; the commentary is published for the sake
of the comments and frequently does not include the text.]
I. German: When the Reformation made the Bible the common property of the people, it was not only the source of their faith and piety, but the only literature, the whole intellectual world, of the uneducated classes. The more Luther's Bible was cherished as the compendium
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bible Versions Bibles, Annotated
of religious and ethical truth and became the dailyreading of the people, the more it needed explanatory notes. As early as 1531-33 Luther published his " Summaries of the Psalms," which were incorporated by Bugenhagen in his North Saxon Bible (Lubeck, 1534). In the High German Bible, " summaries and brief contents of all the chapters " are found first appended to the Augsburg edition of 1535. Real annotations appeared as parts of the book only after Luther's death, first as marginal notes or in smaller type under the text (the Wittenberg editions of Lufft, 1551, and Krafft, 1572, the latter containing the arguments and notes of Veit Dietrich, the Nuremberg preacher).
It would be a mistake to imagine that the Reformation early brought the Bible into every house. There were no small cheap editions, and the Thirty Years' War made the earlier ones still scarcer. J)uke Ernest the Pious of Saxe- Weimar (d. 1675; fee Ernest I, the Pious) brought about the publication of the famous Ernestine Bible, on which, after plans laid out by him, nearly thirty prominent theologians worked. Every community was to
possess a copy; if they were poor, the
1. The duke provided it wholly or in part.
Ernestine The actual work of preparation began
Eubineen 'n 1^36, and was completed in 1640.
Bibles. It contained, besides pictures and
maps, and a running commentary, rJhles of weights, coins, etc., the topography of Jerusalem, and the creeds and Augsburg Confession. It was originally sold at six thalers, but the price gradually rose with later improvements and additional illustrations, until its general circulation was impeded. The Tubingen Bible (1730) is an adaptation of this, less firm in its dogmatic stand, by Christoph Matthaus Pfaff (q.v.), professor at Tubingen, and his brother-in-law, Johann Christian Klemm.
The same spirit that actuated Duke Ernest
induced Eberhard III of WTiirttemberg to publish
.. the " Wiirttemberg Summaries " in
temberg" 1669' tne ^rst attempt to give a clear,
Bibles. precise, and connected paraphrase
of the whole Scriptures. A revised and enlarged edition appeared at Leipsic in 1709, followed by others. The complete revision published in 1787 by Magnus Friedrich Roos, Karl Heinrich Rieger, and others of the school of Bengel was less clear, obj ective, and orthodox. Another Wiirttemberg edition which deserves mention is the New Testament published
a 1-7°1 by the court Preacner Johann Reinhard Hedinger (q.v.); it was marked by Pietistic deviations from traditional theology, and attracted attention by its sharp rebukes of the sins of the people at large and especially of the clergy.
The new spirit of mystical Pietism which influenced the last-named work was fully revealed in the Marburg Bible (1712), as might be inferred from the mam title, " Mystical and Prophetic Bible." the interpretation of type and prophecy in this lollows the federal theology of Cocceius, that of Canticles and Revelation Madame Guyon. It was the forerunner of a larger work in the same spirit, the Berleburg Bible of 1726-42 (8 vols, folio), Projected and prepared chiefly by Johann Heinrich
Haug (q.v.). The text is a revision of Luther's, with comparison of the English and French versions ; the commentary reflects the views of the Phila- 3. The delPhian communities, and quotes Marburg, tne mystical books current among Berleburg, them, especially Madame Guyon's, but
Eberld rf itS teachinS §oes back beyond Dippel BiblesT an<^ Petersen to Jakob Bohme, or even
to Origen in some points. It lacks unity of belief and of treatment; it is the work not of a single mystic, giving voice to his inner convictions, but of a propagandist sect with practical tendencies. It is not without value, however, from different points of view; it edifies by its continual application of Scriptural words to the spiritual life, and it prepares the way for historical criticism by an appendix containing apocrypha (Old and New Testament), pseudepigrapha, and postapostolic writings. In the same year (1726) appeared the Ebersdorf Bible, in the preparation of which Zinzendorf shared. Its commentaries are altogether in his spirit, and it was received with favor only by the friends of the Herrnhut community.
When the emotional mysticism of the Pietists gave way to the prosaic, commonplace conceptions of the age of Enlightenment (q.v.), attempts were made to replace the older commentaries by works conceived in the new spirit. The Wertheim Bible (1735) aroused great excitement in its day, both in Church and State, though its interest now is purely historical. This was only the first part of a projected whole, and contained merely the Pentateuch. The gist
of the long, involved preface is that
*• The the traditional ideas about the Scrip-
heim tures rested on prejudice and un-
Bible. scientific conceptions, and that the
attempt was now made to found an exposition of their real meaning on adequate grounds of reason and historical evidence. It proposes to give a free translation, adapted to modern comprehension, though faithful in substance, and supplemented by the necessary explanations. The translation is hopelessly bald and commonplace to our taste; the editor showed some originality, however, as for example in venturing to discard the traditional division of chapters and verses. The general philosophical principles, as well as the critical and historical, are those of Wolf; in spite of many blunders, a fair knowledge of Hebrew is displayed. The editor's name is not given, but it was soon known. He was Johann Lorenz Schmidt, a graduate of Jena, personally much respected, who was then tutor to the young Count von Lowenstein at Wertheim in Franconia. He was arrested at the beginning of 1737 and the book was confiscated by the imperial authorities. After a year's close imprisonment, he was allowed more liberty, and escaped to Holland. The literary war which raged around the Wertheim Bible was fierce and not uninteresting. In 1738 Schmidt published a collection of reviews and polemical pamphlets, with his own replies. His work found imitators; another of a similar nature, with modern deistic explanations, appeared in 1756, but had little success; and the excitement over the frankly rationalistic commentary of Nicolaus Funk (Altona,
Bibles, Annotated, and [Bible Summaries