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Coppee, Henry

"English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History Designed as a Manual of Instruction"

The Septuagint. The Vulgate. Wiclif; Tyndale.
Coverdale; Cranmer. Geneva; Bishop's Bible. King James's Bible.
Language of the Bible. Revision.

EARLY VERSIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES.

When we consider the very extended circulation of the English Bible in the
version made by direction of James I., we are warranted in saying that no
work in the language, viewed simply as a literary production, has had a
more powerful historic influence over the world of English-speaking
people.
Properly to understand its value as a version of the inspired writings, it
is necessary to go back to the original history, and discover through what
precedent forms they have come into English.
All the canonical books of the Old Testament were written in Hebrew. The
apocryphal books were produced either in a corrupted dialect, or in Greek.

THE SEPTUAGINT.--Limiting our inquiry to the canonical books, and
rejecting all fanciful traditions, it is known that about 286 or 285 B.C.,
Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, probably at the instance of his
librarian, Demetrius Phalereus, caused seventy-two Jews, equally learned
in Hebrew and in Greek, to be brought to Alexandria, to prepare a Greek
version of the Hebrew Scriptures.


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