Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... INTRODUCTION. i. The Title. The two books are one book in Hebrew manuscripts. The division into two was first made by the Greek translators or by the Greek copyists. As we know from classic writers, the rolls on which Greek and Latin works were written were of certain conventional sizes. Biblical books (Samuel, Kings, Chronicles) were divided into two in order to conform to this rule of the trade. The division passed over into the Latin Bible, but invaded the Hebrew copies only with the first Rabbinical Bible of Bomberg.* The original state of the case is still indicated, in editions of the Hebrew, by the Massoretic summary which gives the number of verses only at the end of the second book, thus treating the two as one. In this summary we find also the phrase Book of Samuel used, and are told that the middle verse is the one numbered by us i S. 28M. Origen is quoted by Eusebiust as affirming specifically that the first and second Books of the Kingdoms form one book among the Hebrews, and that this bears the name of Samuel. A Greek MS. also remarks at the close of i S. that Aquila. following the Hebrews does not divide but makes the two one book. Jerome in the Prologus Galeatus (printed in the authorized editions of the Vulgate) names as third in the list of the Prophets, Samuel, quern nos Regum primum et secundum dicimus. With this agrees the Talmud, which names Judges, Samuel, Kings, as though each were but a single book. Published at Venice, 1516. Cf. Ginsburg, Introduction to the MassoreticoCritical Edition of the Hebrew Bible (1897). t Hist. Eccles. VI. 23, as cited by Kl. X Field, Hexap. Orig. I. p. 543. The passage (Baba Bathra, 14a) is translated in Briggs, Biblical Study (1883), p. 175 ff., and..."
