Ebook The Bible of Every Land

It is remarkable that, among all the branches of history, religious, political, social, literary, and scientific, which have from time to time obtained such numerous and such able exponents, the history of the Oracles of God, until the publication of the first edition of this Work, remained unwritten, at least in the form of an unbroken and complete narrative. The materials for such a work had, it is true, been accumulating from century to century; and fragmentary portions of this history enter into the composition of many profound and learned treatises; while facts and incidents connected with the subject or illustrative of it have been supplied even to profusion by writers of almost every age, creed, and nation. But that mass of information remained as yet unavailable to the generality of readers. The "Bible of Every Land," then, for the first time brought together from all sources, ancient and modern, the many details bearing on that history which above all others involves the temporal and eternal interests of mankind, and thus produced a clear and condensed account of the means by which the Scriptures were transmitted from generation to generation. It investigated the circumstances under which they have been translated into the principal languages of every land; - and the agencies by which copies of the inspired writings in these languages have been multiplied and dispersed among the nations, tribes, and kindreds of the earth.

In the preparation of this new and enlarged edition these investigations have been pursued, and the greatest care has been taken to furnish the latest accessible information on every point.

The Arrangement of the whole work is in strict conformity with the latest discoveries in ethnology. For, although the Editors have not departed from the one great object of displaying in these pages, the history of the Holy Scriptures, they have carefully reviewed the origin and condition of the nations to which special versions have been given, as well as the distinguishing characteristics of the languages into which the Divine Oracles have been transferred.