Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum cum variis lectionibus... Tomus primus [-secundus]... Dissertatio generalis in Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum (The Old Testament with Various Readings... A General Dissertation on the Old Testament)
Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1776. First edition. Hardcover. Two volumes, folio, published in 1776 and 1780. xxiii (title and subscribers' list), [1, blank], VIII (preface), 684, [1, catalogue of manuscripts], [1, blank]; [4, title and subscribers' list], 732, 129, [1, blank], [6, indices]pp. Expertly rebound in modern quarter vellum over marbled boards, spines titled in gilt. Titles darkened and dusty; very occasional light foxing or oxidation spots; dampstain at bottom quarter of the first twenty and final four leaves in the first volume, else a nearly fine, wide-margined set, crisp and uncut.
First edition, and the "earliest attempt to provide a critical edition [of the Hebrew Scriptures] on a large scale” (D&M), and a notable early example of a large-scale scholarly project which attracted international financial and scholarly support. The biblical scholar Benjamin Kennicott (1718-1783) was educated at Oxford and "instructed in Hebrew by Professor Thomas Hunt, and the greater part of his life was spent in the collation of Hebrew manuscripts with the object of producing a definitive original text of the Old Testament. Robert Lowth, always his major patron, first inspired him with a desire to test the accuracy of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. With his formidable knowledge of Syriac, early Latin, the Septuagint, and the Samaritan Pentateuch it was recognized that he was very well qualified for the task. His critical examination of manuscripts, initially in the British Museum and the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, began in 1751, and when Thomas Secker, then bishop of Oxford (and also a member of Exeter College), urged him in March 1758 to undertake their collation he agreed to the request. In return Secker, when archbishop of Canterbury, gave Kennicott his unstinting support and friendship when for a time he nurtured a project for producing a revised Authorized Version of the Bible. Meanwhile in 1753 Kennicott issued The State of the Printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament Considered: a Dissertation, and in 1759 he brought out a second dissertation on the same subject. He identified his object thus: to compare Scripture with itself, to explain a difficult phrase or passage by a clear one, that bears some relation to it, to consider the natural force of the Original Words, the tendency of the Context, and the Design of the Writer; to compare the most ancient editions of the Original, with one another, and with the best copies of the most celebrated versions (vol.1, p.12). These volumes were translated into Latin by W. A. Teller and published at Leipzig, the first in 1756, the second with additions in 1765.
Kennicott's scholarly endeavours attracted support in Britain and beyond. In England subscriptions amounted to £9119 7s. 6d.; in France the duc de Nivernois (a former French ambassador to the court of St James) patronized him and helped him to gain access to Parisian manuscript collections in 1767; the king of Denmark offered him the use of six ancient manuscripts; four quarto volumes of variant readings were sent to him on the king of Sardinia's orders; and the stadholder of the Netherlands made an annual donation of 30 guineas. His first report, On the Collation of the Hebrew Manuscripts of the Old Testament, was forwarded to the subscribers in December 1760 and a similar statement appeared each year until 1769. This annual summary afforded him an opportunity to defend the accuracy of his own collations, the Hebraic scholarship of the staff assisting him, and to print lists of subscribers. A copy of the entire work was personally presented by Kennicott to George III. Lowth called the 1776 variorum Old Testament 'a work the greatest and most important that has been undertaken and accomplished since the Revolution of Letters' (B. Hepworth, Robert Lowth, p. 145)" (Nigel Aston, ODNB). An early judgement on this seminal edition is provided by William Orme in his 1824 Bibliotheca Biblica: “This is, beyond all comparison, the most splendid edition of the Hebrew Scriptures ever published. It was patronized by most of the crowned heads of Europe... It occupied its learned editor in preparation or actual labour more than thirty years. More than six hundred MSS. and editions were collated for it, in all parts of Europe. The text is that of Vander Hooght, without the points. The Samaritan Pentateuch, where it differs from the Hebrew text, is printed in parallel columns in the Hebrew character. The various readings are almost innumerable, and occupy in general the largest half of every page. The Dissertatio Generalis, annexed to the second volume, is invaluable for the information which it contains respecting the state of the original text, and the sound principles of criticism which it exhibits." The final leaf lists 312 manuscripts (and some printed editions) which provided the various readings noted throughout the apparatus. The concluding Dissertatio Generalis was republished separately at Braunschweig in 1783 by professor Paul Jakob Bruns who assisted Kennicott in his collations.
Provenance: Engraved bookplate of the Parochial Library of St Phillips Birming[ham] in the County of Warwick at front endleaf in both volumes. Near fine. Item #53321
References: N. Aston, "Benjamin Kennicott" [in:] ODNB. Darlow & Moule 5160. ESTC T147508. Orme, Bibl. Biblica, 238. For a notable recent discussion see J. Turner, Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities (Princeton Univ. Press, 2014), 77f. An earlier assessment of the critical endeavors of Kennicott and De Rossi appears in N. P. Wiseman's 1836 Twelve Lectures on the Connexion between Science and Revealed Religion, pp.368-371 (ed. Dublin, 1866).
Price: $2,000.00