The Vulgate Old TestamentSource: The Old and New Testament Student, Vol. 12, No. 6 (Jun., 1891), p. 376Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3157569 .

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376 Biblical Notes. [June,

The Vulgate Old Testament. Prof. H. P. Smith, in the Pres. and Ref. Revi'ew for April i891, subjects the Vulgate of First Samuel to a critical ex- amination with a view to determining the value of that Version in textual crit- icism. His conclusions are that (1) Jerome's Hebrew Bible was of the same general type with ours. It is clear that at some period subsequent to the work of the Seventy a single copy of the Old Testament was adopted as authentic by the Synagogue. This was probably before the time of Jerome, for his copy in its general features agrees with our Hebrew text. (2) Nevertheless the Hebrew of Jerome was not yet settled in all points in the stereotyped form to which it was brought by the Massoretes. His copy preserves various readings which in many cases are independent of the Greek, as, in other cases, of the Syriac also. (3) While the results of the collation of the Vulgate cannot be compared in importance with those gained from the Septuagint, yet they are sufficient to enable us to say that for a really critical text the Vulgate is an indispensable authority. In order to its adequate use, however, it must itself first be pub- lished in a critical edition.

The Common Language of Palestine in our Lord's Time. An informing article in the Exfository Times, by Rev. G. H. Gwilliam, discusses this im- portant and difficult question. He argues for a Semitic dialect, though stating clearly the opposing view that in Palestine it is supposed that all classes used Greek (debased and corrupted, no doubt) as a vernacular, while the knowledge of Hebrew was the possession of the few, or at most, that its use was confined to the synagogue and the schools. But in Acts I : 19 we are informed on good authority that the Semitic name lately given to a certain field was in the char- acteristic or common dialect of Jerusalem. Certainly the onus frobandi lies on those who declare that the Jews of Palestine had adopted the alien speech of Greece as their own. It is improbable & friori: for the Jews were not traders, to whom the language of the Mediterranean littoral would be an ad- vantage. It is inconsistent with the admitted distinction between the Jews, or Hebraei of Palestine (Acts 6: i), and the Hellenists, who used the Septua- gint version. It is opposed to the universal judgment of writers in different parts of the ancient Church. It is contradicted by the indirect evidence of facts of the Gospel story. Peter was recognized as a Galilean by his accent. There is evidence that the inhabitants of Northern Palestine pronounced their Semitic letters somewhat barbarously, but it is not known that a Galilean and a Jerusalemite would accent Greek differently. The threefold inscription on the Cross is inexplicable, if those who could not understand the official Latin could read the Hellenistic version without requiring a Hebrew interpretation. Again, the words of Josephus in Antz'i. xx. ii afford the clearest evidence that not Greek, but some form of Hebrew, was the language of the educated Jews; much less, therefore, is it likely that Greek was the language of the peasants and fishermen of Galilee, amongst whom our Lord dwelt and labored, and from whom He chose His apostles. It must therefore be assumed, in spite of the warm advocacy of an opposite opinion, that the vernacular of Palestine was Semi'z;ic during the last century of the national existence. The particular dialect he would regard as " Aramaized Hebrew."

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