Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Richard Bentley (1662-1742)
"I wrote, before I was twenty-four years old, a sort of hexapla, a thick volume in quarto, in the first column of which I inserted every word of the Hebrew Bible alphabetically; and, in five other columns, all the various interpretations of those words in the Chaldee, Syriac, Vulgate Latin, Septuagint, and Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, that occur in the whole Bible. This I made for my private use, to know the Hebrew, not from the late rabbins, but the ancient versions; when, bating Arabic, Persic, Ethiopic, I read over the whole Polyglot. And I made, too, another volume in quarto, of various lections and emendations of the Hebrew text, drawn out of these ancient versions, which, though done in those green years, would make a second part to the famous Capellus's Critica Sacra."
Wow! He did all that before he was 24 and I've never heard of him before!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like Bentley was trying to get a Fulbright scholarship.
ReplyDeleteWhat did he do when he was 24 plus? Tell us ponas B.
ReplyDelete