RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bibles, Annotated, and [Bible Summaries
4. John
Canne's
Notes,
1647.
cases they specify variant readings in the original text, and, in other cases, they give brief explanations of words or expressions. Not a few of the alternative renderings they present have been adopted, either verbatim or substantially, in the revised version of 1881-85. The headings of chapters in the translation of 1611 were new. In the Bishops' Bible, the Geneva Bible, and the Great Bible, all the chapters were headed with a short table 'of contents; but the King James translators prepared tables of their own. And these tables, drawn up in 1611, appear in many editions at the present day unaltered, save in some twelve instances.
Other Bibles with notes from the pen of annotators appeared and in course of time became very popular. These annotators did not write so much for the learned as for the common people, and their Bibles became household and family books, laying stress more or less on the devotional side. John Canne, a Baptist minister (d. 1667?), was the author of three sets of notes which accompanied three editions of the Bible. His great ambition was " to make the Bible its own interpreter." His first authenticated version appeared in 1647 at Amsterdam, under the title, The Bible, with Marginal Notes, Sheviing Scripture to be the Best Interpreter of Scripture. The work was often reprinted (9 editions, between 1662 and 1754). Orme, in his Bibliotheca Biblica (Edinburgh, 1824), says of it, " The marginal references of Canne are generally very judicious and apposite. They still retain a considerable reputation, though most of the latter editions which pass under the name of Canne's Bible are full of errors, and crowded with references which do not belong to the original author."
In 1657 there was published Annotations upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament. Wherein the text is explained, doubts resolved, Scriptures paralleled, and various readings observed by the labor of certain learned divines thereunto appointed and therein employed, as is expressed in the preface, 2 vols., London, 1657. This work is usually oalled the "Assembly's Annotations," from the circumstance of its having been composed by members of the Westminster Assembly. — Another popular work of the same character was Annotations upon the Holy Bible wherein the sacred text is inserted, and various readings annexed,- together with the parallel Scriptures. The ^ more difficult terms explained ; seeming contradictions reconciled ; doubts resolved, and the whole text opened. By the Rev. Matthew Poole, London, 1863, 2 vols., fo. The work was published in many editions. Poole, an eminent non-conformist divine (1624-79), did not finish it; but it was completed after his death.— Not less popular was a work entitled, The Old and New Testament, Wft Annotations and parallel Scriptures. By Samuel Clarke, A.M., London, 1690. Bishop woyd s Bible (London, 1701) was the first to incorporate Archbishop Ussher's chronology, in 1708 appeared the first volume of Matthew
5. Other Works
to 1701.
Henry's well-known Exposition of the Old and New Testament ; four other volumes (to the end of the Gospels) were published in 1710, and a sixth volume (the Book of Acts) from Henry's manuscript after his death (1714); the work was completed by various non-conformist clergymen (see Henry, Matthew). It long enjoyed a high and 6. Matthew deserved reputation, and is distin- "other ' guisned» not Ior depth of learning or Works oiginality of views, but for sound to 1750. practical piety, and the large measure of good sense which it discovers. — Dr. Edward Wells edited between the years 1709 and 1728, An Help for the more Easy and Clear Understanding of the Holy Scriptures, after the following method : 1. The common English translation rendered more agreeable to the original. 2. A paraphrase wherein the text is explained, and divided into proper sections, and lesser divisions. 3. Annotations. 4. Preface, 8 vols. — Patrick, Lowth, Whitby, and Arnold's Commentary on the Bible, a. work of a similar character, appeared in London, 1727-60, 7 vols., and was reprinted as late as 1821. According to Orme, Patrick was " the most sensible and useful commentator on the Old Testament. He had a competent measure of learning for the undertaking, of which he never makes any ostentatious display. The elder Lowth completed the work on the Old Testament, and Whitby commentated on the New Testament. Neither Patrick nor Lowth has so much Arminianism as Whitby, though they all belong to the same theological school. Whitby was superior to both in acuteness and research, but if the reader do not find in them the same talent, he will be exposed to less injury from specious and sophistical reasonings against some important doctrines of Christianity." — John Gill published An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, in which the sense of the sacred text is given ; doctrinal and practical truths are set in a plain and easy light ; difficult . passages explained ; seeming contradictions reconciled ; and whatever is material in the various readings, and the several Oriental versions, is observed. The whole illustrated by notes from the most antient Jewish writings. By John Gill, D.D., 9 vols, fo., London, 1748-63; 9 vols. 4to, London, 1809. Gill gives a summary of each chapter. Orme says of him, " Had Dr. Gill fulfilled the promise of his title page, no other commentary on the Bible could have been required. But he moves through his exposition like a man in lead, and overwhelms the inspired writers with dull lucubrations and rabbinical lumber. He is an ultra-Calvinist in his doctrinal sentiments; and often spiritualizes the text to absurdity. If the reader be inclined for a trial of his strength and patience, he may procure the burden of Dr. Gill. He was, after all, a man of undoubted learning, and of prodigious labour."— A very popular work was an English translation of Jean Frederic Osterwald's Argumens et reflexions sur Vecriture sainte (Neuchatel, 1709-15 and often; see Osterwald, Jean Frederic), which appeared under the title, The Arguments of the Books and Chapters of the Old and New Testaments, with practical observations. Translated by John Chamberlayne ,,
Bibles, Annotated, and [Bible Summaries