has
come down to us in manuscripts which are of no very great antiquity, and
which all belong to the same family or recension. That other recensions
were at one time in existence is probable from the variations in the
Ancient Versions, the oldest of which, namely, the Greek or Septuagint,
was made, at least in part, some two centuries before the Christian era.
But as the date of knowledge on the subject is not at present such as to
justify any attempt at an entire reconstruction of the text on the
authority of the Versions, the Revisers have thought it most prudent to
adopt the Massoretic text as the basis of their work, and to depart from
it, as the Authorised Translators had done, only in exceptional cases."

That in this decision the Revisers had exercised the sound judgement
which marks every part of their work cannot possibly be doubted by any
competent reader. The Massoretic text has a long and interesting
history. Its name is derived from a word, Massora (tradition), that
reminds us of the accumulated traditions and criticisms relating to
numerous passages of the text, and of the manner in which it was to be
read, all which were finally committed to writing, and the ultimate
result of which is the text of which we have been speaking. That the
formation of the written Massora was a work of time seems a probable and
reasonable supposition. A very competent writer {50} tells us that this
formation may have extended from the sixth or seventh to the tenth or
eleventh century. From the end of this Massoretic period onward the same
writer tells us that the Massora became the great authority by which the
text given in all the Jewish manuscripts was settled. All our
manuscripts, in a word, are Massoretic. Any that were not so were not
used, and allowed to perish, or, as it has been thought, were destroyed
as not being in strict accordance with the recognized standards. Whether
we have sustained any real critical loss by the disappearance of the
rejected manuscripts it is impossible to say. The fact only remains that
we have no manuscript of any portion of the Old Testament certainly known
to be of a date prior to A.D. 916. The Massora, it may be mentioned,
appears in two forms--the _Massora parva_ and the _Massora magna_. The
former contains the really valuable portion of the great work, viz., the
variation technically named K'ri (_read_), and placed in the margin of
the Hebrew Bibles. This was to be substitu