Asiatic Quarterly Review (Full Title: The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review, and Oriental and Colonial Record): Volume XIII, No. 26 [‎490v] (105/238)

318 Quarterly Report on Semitic Studies and Orientalism.
The Old Testament—Hebraic and Aramean Languages—
Talmud.
Under the title of “ Hebraisches Vokabular,”* Kraetzschmar has
published for the use of students an excellent alphabetical index (Hebrew-
German) of the roots and words of the Old Testament. This work, which
is very clear and compact, is well executed. Words and roots are arranged
in the logical style of grammar: pronouns, nouns with unchangeable
vowels, hard triliteral verbs, guttural verbs, 3 5 verbs, etc., masculine
nouns with changeable vowels on the penultimate, etc., feminine nouns,
with changeable vowels on the penultimate, etc., irregular nouns (called
primitive), nouns of number, and particles. The work, which is a very
practical one, deserves to be recommended.
We note a third edition, revised, of the biblical Aramean grammar, by
Strack.f which we noticed when it first appeared.
Bacher has published a curious Hebrew-Persian dictionary of the four
teenth century,]: the vocabulary of which is taken from the Bible, Targum,
Talmud and Midrash. The author who spoke a Jewish-Persian jargon,
has made use of Persian and Aramean, and sometimes of Arabic and
Turkish for his explanations of Hebrew and Aramean terms.
My trip to Morocco prevented my calling attention to two publications
of very great value, both published in England.
The first, edited by Carpenter and Harford-Battersby is entitled : “ The
Hexateuch according to the Revised Version, arranged in its constituent
documents.Ӥ The aim of the work is to introduce to the English public
the principal results of modern criticism on the Pentateuch and Joshua.
The first volume treats of the construction of the Hexateuch, the second
contains the text with notes. It is a very remarkable work.
The second is “An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek” by
H. Barclay Swete.|| For a long time the publication of a complete and
scientific treatise on the Version of the Septuagint has been a desideratum.
The work of Swete rewards the patience of scholars. It is divided into
three parts: (i) the history of the Greek Old Testament, and of its trans
mission (the Alexandrian Greek Version, later Greek Versions, the Hexapla,
ancient versions based upon the Septuagint, manuscripts and printed texts
of the Septuagint); (2) the contents of the Alexandrian Old Testament;
(3) literary use, value, and textual condition of the Greek Old Testament
(Appendix : the letter of Pseudo Aristeas). The version of the Septuagint
is of great utility for the study of the Old Testament, and for the reconstruc
tion of the Hebrew text, so often obscure and mutilated. As Swete so well
puts it, “as the oldest version of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint claims
special attention from Old Testament scholars. It represents a text, and
to some extent, an interpretation earlier than any which can be obtained
* Tubingen und Leipzig, Mohr, 1902.
* 1 " Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramaischen, Leipzig, Hinrichs, 1901.
] Strassburg, Triibner, 1900.
§ Two vols. gr. in 8vo., London, Longmans, 1900.
||. Cambridge, University Press, 1900.