[11] About the same time, and at Bologna, there appeared an edition of the Five Scrolls, with Rashi above and below the text and with the commentary of Ibn Ezra on Esther.
[14] It was this same printing-house that brought out on February 23, 1488, the first complete edition of the Bible, the text provided with vowels and accents, in two columns to the page.
[17] In 1487 (June 30) an edition of the Pentateuch without commentary appeared at Faro in Portugal, upon the basis of Spanish manuscripts, in Spanish-Hebrew characters, with vowel-points—at times incorrectly applied—and with no accents.
In 1490 an edition of the Pentateuch without vowel-points or accents was published by Abraham ben Isaac ben David at Ixar (Hijar) in Spain, together with the Targum Onkelos in small square type and Rashi in Spanish-Rabbinic type;[19] and one of the Psalms was issued at Naples (December 12), together with Proverbs and Job.
It is declared by Le Long and De Rossi,[24] to be the most celebrated and beautiful Hebrew print of the 15th century.
[30][31] Gerson seems to ignore most of the peculiarities of the Masoretic text as laid down; e.g., by Jacob ben Hayyim ibn Adonijah.
[32] The idea seems to have originated with Origen of Alexandria (c.185-253), who drew up in parallel columns the Hebrew text, its transliteration into Greek, and various other Greek recensions in fifty scrolls or books which were then deposited in the library of Pamphilus at Cæsarea (this Hexapla was preceded by a Tetrapla).
The idea was not revived until the 16th century, when the first edition of the Hebrew text by Christians appeared in the Complutensian Polyglot (printed at Alcalá de Henares, 1514–17, 6 vols.).
Renouard believes that the plan originated with Aldus Manutius, who, in the preface to the Psalter of 1497, speaks of the probability of his publishing a Hebrew-Greek and Latin Bible in one.
The honor of being first in the field belongs to Cardinal Ximenes; though among those who helped him were the Marranos Alfonso of Zamora and Paul Nuñez Coronel.
Ximenes had to cast his own Hebrew type for this work: ḥaṭefs are sparingly used; of the accents, only athnaḥ and sof-pasuḳ.
The Masoretic divisions are discarded; and the text for the first time is arranged after the model of the Vulgate, the chapter-numbering of which is printed in the margin.
The polyglot of Elijah Hutter (Nuremberg, 1599–1601) contains, besides the older versions, a number in modern European languages; and it is peculiar from the fact that the radical letters of the Hebrew text are printed in full characters, and the servile letters in hollow ones.
Still more ambitious than the Paris was the London Polyglot edited by Brian Walton (1654–57, 6 vols., and Lexicon Heptaglotton, 1669, 2 vols.).
), which contains the Hebrew (with Masoretic notes), the Greek, Latin, and Luther's German version; that of E. Hutter (Hamburg, 1599), of which only the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth were published; and that of S. Bagster (London, 1821), in which the Hebrew text is that of Van der Hooght, the Samaritan that of Kennicott, need no further mention.
Polyglot Psalters containing the Hebrew text were published at Saint-Germain-des-Prés in 1509 and 1513 by the elder Henry Stephen, at Genoa in 1516 by Agostino Justinian, and at Cologne in 1518 by Johannes Potken.
The most recent polyglots are those of Stier and Thiele (Leipsic, 1847–63; 3d ed., 1854–64) with Hebrew, Septuagint, and Vulgate, and of R. de Levante (London, 1876, 6 vols.).
To these were added the Jerusalem Targum to the Pentateuch; Targum Sheni to Esther; the variant readings of Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali; the thirteen "articles of faith" of Maimonides; the 613 precepts according to Aaron Jacob Ḥasan; and a table of the parashiyot and Hafṭarot according to the Spanish and German rites.
The fifth edition was a reprint of De Gara's (Venice, 1617–19, by Pietro Lorenzo Bragadini, and revised by Leo di Modena).
It contains, besides the Hebrew text, the Targum on the whole Bible; Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Levi ben Gershon, Obadiah Sforno, Jacob b. Asher, Ḣizkuni, and 'Imre No'am on the Pentateuch; David Ḳimḥi on the Prophets and the Chronicles; Isaiah di Trani on Judges and Samuel; "Keli Yaḳar" on the Former Prophets, and "Keli-Paz," by Samuel Laniado, on the Later Prophets; Meïr Arama on Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Song of Solomon; Jacob Berab on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and some other Later Prophets; Samuel Almosnino on the Later Prophets; Isaac Gershon on Malachi; "Torat Ḥesed" by Isaac ben Solomon; Ya'bez on Psalms, Job, Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles; Joseph ibn Yaḥya on the Hagiographa; "Mizmor le-Todah," by Samuel Arepol, on Psalm cxix.
; "Ḳaw we-Naḳi" on Proverbs; Menahem Meïri on Proverbs; Moses Ḳimḥi on Proverbs, Ezra, Nehemiah; Naḥmanides, Farissol, and Simon ben Zemaḥ Duran on Job; Saadia Gaon on Daniel; Yalḳut Shim'oni on Chronicles; Moses of Frankfurt's annotations, entitled "Ḳomaz Minḥah," on the Pentateuch; "Minḥah Ḳeṭannah" on the Former Prophets; "Minḥah Gedolah" on the Later Prophets, "Minḥat 'Ereb" on the Hagiographa; the introduction of Jacob b. Ḥayyim of Tunis; and the tract on the accents by Moses ha-Naḳdan.
The latest Biblia Rabbinica, with thirty-two commentaries, is that published at Warsaw by Levensohn (1860–68, 12 vols., small fol.).
Of commentaries it contains that of Rashi on the whole Bible; Aaron Pesaro's "Toledot Aharon"; Asheri's commentary and Norzi's notes on the Bible; Ibn Ezra on the Pentateuch, the Five Megillot, the Minor Prophets, the Psalms, Job, and Daniel; Moses Ḳimḥi on the Proverbs; Naḥmanides on the Pentateuch; Obadiah Sforno on the Pentateuch, the Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes; Elijah Wilna on the Pentateuch, Joshua, Isaiah, and Ezekiel; S. E. Lenczyz and S. Edels on the Pentateuch; J. H. Altschuler on the Prophets and Hagiographa; David Ḳimḥi on the Later Prophets; Levi ben Gershon no Joshua, Kings, Proverbs, and Job; Isaiah di Trani on Judges and Samuel; S. Oceda on Ruth and Lamentations; Eliezer ben Elijah Ashkenazi on Esther; Saadia on Daniel.
Jablonski's, in turn, became the foundation of that of J. H. Michaelis (Halle, 1720), for which the latter compared five Erfurt manuscripts and nineteen printed editions.
The text of D. H. Opitz (Kiel, 1709) seems to be a mixed one; three manuscripts, a number of the earlier editions, and the polyglots having been laid under contribution.
But still the Van der Hooght was considered to be a sort of "textus receptus," the first edition of Max Letteris (Vienna, 1852) showing very few changes.
In 1866, Letteris produced a revised edition for a Christian missionary organization, the British and Foreign Bible Society.
It is probably the most widely reproduced text of the Hebrew Bible in history, with many dozens of authorised reprints and many more pirated and unacknowledged ones.
The 1901-5 Jewish Encyclopedia summarized the then state of scholarship as follows: No serious attempt was made to issue a text of the Bible after the best manuscripts and the Masorah until S. Baer commenced his publications with the help of Franz Delitzsch (1861 et seq.).
Of quite a different character is the polychrome edition of the Bible, now (1902) nearly completed, published by Paul Haupt (Leipsic and Baltimore, 1893 et seq.)