Ebook The Psalter of the Great Bible of 1539

HE Hebrew text of the Psalter was already strange to the generality of Christians even in New Testament times. For the first fifteen centuries it was explored only by a solitary student here and there. It was the Reformation that caused Hebrew to be taken up as a continuous study among Protestant divines. The general use of the Psalter in Christendom has from the first depended on Versions; and mainly on three, the Greek, the Latin, and the English. Each of these has its own several title to pre-eminence. The Greek is pre-eminent as having been the first in date; and with this fact 'is connected its high dis tinction as an external independent witness of the state of the Hebrew text before Christianity. Down to the sixteenth century, this translation had almost the honours of an original.