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single word may do more than whole pages of laboured reasoning to determine the particular period ^ hen a work was written . The name David supplies ,, us with an argument of the latter kind , the novelty of which may intere | lji wlrile its successful application to the subject in hand may serve to convince the reader . This name is sometimes written with 9 and sometimes without thes I , in the Hebrew copies of the Old Testament ; and , as we find the same letter arbitrarily omitted or inserted in other
words , this variation in the mode of spelling the name David passed without any particular notice on the part of critics and commentators , till Dr . Kennicott undertook to collate the Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament , and was led to observe , in the course of his labours , that the omission or insertion of this letter in the name of David did not originate with the transcribers of the different books in which the name occurs , but with the authors themselves . On examination it was found that , in the books which were composed after the return o £ the Jews from the Babylonish captivity , whenever
this name occurred , it was written TH ; but that , in those which profess to have been composed before or during the captivity , whenever this name was introduced , it was written * TVr . * Here , then , an infallible test unexpectedly presented itself for ascertaining whether any particular book of the Old Testament , in which the name of David occurs , was written before or after the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity . In the application of this test , however , Dr . Kennicott was less fortunate than he was in its discovery . He employed it as an argument against the antiquity of the
" Song of Solomon , " because in this book ( iv . 4 ) the name of David is written with a yod , whereas it was the constant practice in and near the time of Solomon to write it without a yod . f But for this change a particular motive may have existed in the mind of the transcriber who first made it ; a motive , however , which , though exceedingly obvious and natural , does not appear to have presented itself to the mind of Dr . Kennicott . The word 1 ) 1 signifies beloved , and is found in that sense far more frequently in the
Song of Solomon , than in all the remaining books of the Old Testament put together . It is by no means improbable , therefore , that the name of David was originally written without a yod , in this passage , and was intended as a play upon the word 1 ) 1 , which occurs so frequently in the course of the poem ; but that some scribe , after the captivity , ventured to insert a yod , with the intention of removing a supposed ambiguity , whence it has happened that all our present copies read T ) l .
Of the books which constitute the present Jewish canon , the first and second of Chronicles , Ezra , Nehemiah , Esther , and Malachi , are said to have been last added ; and this addition is supposed to have been made in the time of Simon the Just , who succeeded his father , Onias , as high-priest , B . C . 300 , and retained that office nine years * $ Now , all the above-mentioned books , except Nehemiah and Malachi , are , upon good grounds , attributed to Ezra , though not inserted in the canon till about a century and a half
after his time . We find , accordingly , that the name of David , whenever it occurs in these books , is invariably spelt with a yod ; but that , in the historical Kooks of an earlier date , it is with the same undeviating regularity spelt without a yod . It seems impossible , therefore , to avoid the conclusion that the authors themselves adopted the mode of spelling the name which prevailed in their own times , and that the transcribers , faithfully copying
* Kenw . Diss . I . p . 20 . f P . 22 , X Prid . Conn . Vol . I , Part i . Book viii .
Untitled Article
Canonical Authority of the Boqks of the PropJiets . 659
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1827, page 659, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1800/page/27/
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