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Untitled Article
present paper , therefore , to Bnter into any examination of their evidence , or the respective merits of the alleged discoveries , but merely to collect whatever may serve to illustrate the history and ehrcmology of the Old Testament , or the customs and ideas by which its phraseology has been influenced - Gen . i . 6 , " And God said , Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters . " On the true meaning of the word yp"i in this passage much has been written , and many persons , unwilling to admit that the author entertained so erroneous a notion of the structure of the heavens as to suppose that
a solid arch was extended above the earth , have strenuously argued for rendering it " expanse . " It appears , however , from M . Champollion that the Egyptians , from whom the Jews are mostiiikely to have derived what little knowledge they might possess of the system of tlie universe , conceived of the heavens as a real firmament , The sky is represented as a real ceiling of a temple , sometimes covered with stars ; " and he adds in a note , " such was the popular idea of the firmament in Egypt , as we are warranted in believing from the homily of a Coptic Father , who tells his audience ' that they must not suppose that the heavens were placed over the earth like a roof upon a house . ' " Precis , p . 277 .
Gen * x . 1—4 . The sons of Japhetb , Javan , &c . ; and the sons of Javan , Elishah , &c . It is generally agreed among commentators that this curious document is to be understood as exhibiting a table of national rather than individual genealogies . The name Javan is givea throughbirt the Old Testament to the Greeks , Is . bcvi . 19 , Ezek . xxvii . 13 , Dan . viii . 21 , and it appears to have been used by the S yrians and Arabs , probabfy by the Persians too , ( JSsch . Pers . 183 , Blomf . ) in the game sense . The Kosetta stone contains a resolution that the honours decreed to Ptotemy should be recorded to % re tepoZ ; kou \ ey % tapioi <; * teati 'BXKrjvtKoT ; ypstfApao-tv' and the hieroglyphic
UlChampollion , ) " the third , on the contrary , suggests them by means of certain allegorical enigmas * " But what contrariety can there be between a tropical and an allegorical representation , when the latter is nothing but the former pushed to excess ? " AvriKpv *; is here used in a sense in which it may be found in Homer and many other authoifs—plane , omnino : "the second is expressed in a certain degree tropically j
the third runs into downright allegory ;* ' tM qualifying Qa-veg and the absolute cLvriKpvz fcave now their proper contrast . Most unfortunate of all is the Reviewer ' s rendering of . the concluding words tccv patrihiav kirabovq $£ oXoyovf / . £ v < ii <; fAvftoiq irapo&lbovTEq , dva , ypdi ( pQV ( rt did ray dvary \ v ( j ) W " they describe them by means of anaglyphs ( that is , by transpositions or transformations of the hieroglyphs ); " aud in his tabular view of the different modes of Egyptian writing , he giyes the anaglyphic
as a species of toe tropic . Now a . vaykvtyv \ is neither more nor less than a basrelief , and the passage describes the monuments of Egypt most exactly ; they are praises of their kings ,, conceived in theological fables , ( Son of the Sun , Beloved of Ptha , Guardian of the Upper and Lower Regions , &c . &c 9 ) and recorded in basreliefs . The origin of the Reviewer ' s translation appears to be this . M . Latronuey to whom Charilpollioa applied for a version , renders dvay \ v < pcov , basreliefs alUgoriques ; on this
Champollion founds the supposition that the anaglyphs contained mystical doctrines of theology , morals and physics ,. ( Precis , pp > 360 , 361 , ) contrary to the express declaration of Clemens ,, that it was the praises-of their kingsxwhich they recorded ; and last of all , the Edinburgh Reviewer , dropping the word sbasrelie / s altogether , creates an anaglyphic writing with the same propriety a * he might attribute to the English a lithographic or a chakographk made of writing as a distinct species .
* Dr , Young , though he has much cause to complain of M . Champollion , blames bin * without neaeon ( p . 9 ) for calling the character in common use in Egypt demotic , Wad not , after . hi » own example , enchorial . Enchorial , native or vernaculary is evitteatty used as a contrast to Greek > and therefore when the sacred writing is to be distinguished from the popular * demotic U the more proper word ..
Untitled Article
314 Biblical Gleanings .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1827, page 314, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1796/page/2/
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