On Mankind, Their Origin and Destiny. by an M.A. of Balliol College, Oxford [A.D. Thomson]. (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. Thk Masoretic points which we have spoken of were not invented till about 1,000 years after the death of Moses. The original tert is consequently something very different to what it has become since the invention of them by Ezra. An example of the change made by these points may be found in Heb. xi. 21, where the author of that Epistle has interpreted the text he quotes from Gen. xlvii. 31 very differently from the way in which it presents itself in the pointed and accented Hebrew text. The punctists with the assistance of their points read, " And Israel bowed himself upon the bed's head;" but the author of the Epistle reads, " Jacob worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff;" reading ngo male, instead of ntp mita, a difference due entirely to the use of a vowel point. Jacob's death is not spoken of till the next chapter, and consequently, the version in the Epistle is by far the most probable one. This shows how little faith is due to our modern points and accents. The Hebrew alphabet contains twenty-two letters, six vowels and sixteen consonants. But it has not always contained so many letters. The words of the written language being known only to the priests, they became a " learned language," a " language of doctrine and of teaching," and, as it was only read and interpreted in consecrated places or in the temples, and for the priesthood, it was also called, " the holy language," " the sacred language," and "the holy doctrine." The primitive Hebrew alphabet only contained ten letters; as we are informed bylrenseus (Adv. Hser. 1. II.) " Antiquse et primse Hebraeorum litterse et sacerdotales nuncupate, decem quidem sunt numero." He goes on to say that these ten letters are the first ten of the Hebrew alphabet, from A to I. This alphabet is of course much m...