t before the days of Ezra and his associates we have but a
few brief notices in the historical books. But in the fidelity and skill
of Ezra, who was "a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God
of Israel had given," as well as in the intelligence and deep
earnestness of the men associated with him, we have a reasonable ground
of assurance that the sacred books which have come down to us through
their hands contain, in all essential particulars, the primitive text in
a pure and uncorrupt form.

7. As to the _age_ of Hebrew manuscripts, it is to be noticed that not
many have come down to us from an earlier century than the twelfth. In
this respect there is a striking difference between them and the Greek
and Latin manuscripts of the New Testament, a few of which are as old as
the fourth and fifth centuries, and quite a number anterior to the
tenth. The oldest known Hebrew manuscript, on the contrary, is a
Pentateuch roll on leather, now at Odessa, which, if the subscription
stating that it was _corrected_ in the year 580 can be relied on,
belongs to the sixth century. One of De Rossi's manuscripts is supposed
to belong to the eighth century, and there are a few of the ninth and
tenth, and several of the eleventh. Bishop Walton supposes that after
the Masoretic text was fully settled, the Jewish rulers condemned, as
profane and illegitimate, all the older manuscripts not conformed to
this: whence, after a few ages, the rejected copies mostly perished. The
existing Hebrew manuscripts give the Masoretic text with but little
variation from each other.

Earnest effort has been made to find a reliable ante-Masoretic text, but
to no purpose. The search in China has thus far been fruitless. When Dr.
Buchanan in 1806 brought from India a synagogue-roll which he found
among the Jews of Malabar, high expectations were raised. But it is now
conceded to be a Masoretic roll, probably of European origin. Respecting
the manuscripts of the _Samaritan_ Pentateuch, see below, No. 9.

(A synagogue-roll has recently been discovered in the Crimea of the date
answering to A.D. 489. See Alexander's Kitto, vol. 3, pp. 1172-5.)

8. In respect to _form_, Hebrew manuscripts fall into two great
divisions, _public_ and _private_. The public manuscripts consist of
_synagogue-rolls_ carefully written out on parchment, as already
described, without vowel-points or divisions of verses. The Law is
written on a single roll; the sections from t