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The above are given as specimens of the material which the Editor of the text of the
Greek Bible has to use. We have neither time nor space for further details, and for our
present purpose we do not need more information on this subject.
Passing from the ancient manuscripts that are at our disposal, we will conclude this
survey by referring to some of the outstanding printed editions of more recent times.
The first printed edition of the LXX was produced in Spain under the direction of
Cardinal Ximenes from 1502 to 1517. It is known as the Complutensian Polyglott, and
presents the O.T. in three columns:--
(1)
The Hebrew text with the Targum of Onkelos.
(2)
The Latin Vulgate.
(3)
The Septuagint, with an interlinear Latin Version.
Eight months after the printing of the Polyglott, Andreas Asolanus issued a complete
Greek Bible, now known as the Aldine edition. And in 1587 there was published at
Rome, under Sixtus V, the third great edition of the Greek O.T. known as the Sixtine.
This is based mainly upon the Codex Vaticanus B, although it has been estimated that it
differs from Codex B in over 4,000 places. The Preface shows that the publishers had
resolved to give as pure a text as could be found.
In the eighteenth century, an edition based upon the Codex Alexandrinus was
published by J. E. Grabe. Like the Sixtine, it is mainly based upon one important
Codex.
These four great editions of the Septuagint, however, did no more than supply the
text either of a single manuscript or of a related group. In 1788 Robert Holmes began
his colossal work, in which "the Roman Text (i.e., that of Sixtus) is reprinted
without variation, but in the critical notes are given the various readings of no less than
325 manuscripts" (F. G. Kenyon). Holmes died in 1805 and was succeeded in 1807 by
James Parsons:--
"The work is an almost unequalled monument of industry and learning, and will
perhaps never be superseded as a storehouse of materials; but it left abundant room for
investigations conducted on other lines and among other materials, which were not
accessible to Homes and his associates" (F. G. Kenyon).
Tischendorf issued a text of the Septuagint in 1850--a revised Sixtine edition. Field
edited the rest of the Hexapla in 1875. Paul de Lagarde commenced an edition of the
Greek O.T., and a beginning was made by the appearance of the first half of the text of
the Lucianic recension in 1883. He died, however, in 1891 with the work unfinished.
In 1883 the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press issued a notice that they had
undertaken "an edition of the Septuagint and Apocrypha with an ample apparatus
criticus intended to provide material for a critical determination of the text". The plan
originated with Dr. Scrivener, but was actually undertaken by Dr. Swete. This edition