THE DOTTED WORDS IN THE HEBREW BIBLE. In the Old Documents and the New Bible, by J. Paterson Smyth, L. L. B., B. D., I read the following: "In the account of Esau's meeting with Jacob, we are told (Gen. xxxiii. 4) that he fell on his neck and kissed him-and the words and kissed him' are marked thus by these mysterious dots, which remain. to this day in our Hebrew Bible." I cannot read Hebrew, but I think the dots mean more than they are supposed to do. May it not mean, Judas kissed the Christ and so betrayed him? We are to search the Scriptures, as they testify of Christ. I wish I had all other words so marked in the Hebrew Bibles, to see if they do not also testify to the signs of knowing Christ. The author of the above book in telling of how an ancient and valuable copy of the Scriptures was effaced by a piece of pumice stone, and the parchment used for St, Ephriam's discourses, says, "en thusiastic admirers are generally ladies," so if a woman effaced the Scriptures years ago, a woman now will do her best to make the Scriptures plain, and clear words to the praise of Christ. Mr. Smythe also says in chapter on " Ancient Criticism": "They attempted, too, a crude sort of Biblical criticism, such as marking in a certain way words about which there was something peculiar. The reader, perhaps, will wonder how this can be known when no one even of our most ancient writers has ever seen one of these vanished copies. He will find, however, in the following period of the history, that the copyists there make notes about certain dots and marks which had been transferred into their manuscripts, from earlier times, and which were so ancient that their meaning had even then become completely lost. "Some of their guesses at the meaning are rather amusing. For instance, in the account of Esau's meeting Jacob, we are told (Gen. xxxiii, 4) that he fell on his neck and kissed him, and the words and kissed him' are marked thus by these mysterious dots. Some of the old commentators were greatly exercised in mind about the explanation of this. One thought they denoted that the kiss was sincere, another that it was not sincere, another that the dots represented Esau's teeth," I agree, therefore, with the scribe who thought the kiss was not sincere-since I think it to point out Judas' kiss given to Christ as a sign, when he betrayed Jesus unto death. And if the ancient Jewish authority attributes the marks to Ezra, and that Ezra when asked about the dots, said: "When Elijah comes, if he asks why I wrote down that word, I will answer, 'I have already dotted it,'" I think he must have answered, that he was inspired to dot the words-so dotted them as we now have them dotted in our Hebrew Bibles to this our day. Though I do not believe every word in our Bible is inspired, I believe the spirit of the Bible, the essence, as it were, of the Bible, is inspired, and these dotted words, if they mean what I have tried to show them to mean, if it is so, then they certainly were inspired, so many years before Christ lived on this earth, if they were written so long ago, then they who wrote the words and dotted them were inspired-and inspired by the Spirit of God. I may have made mistakes, as I do not know one word of the Hebrew, but I have tried to do this much, in hopes that some learned Hebrew scholar will take up the work and perfect it-for there are many more dotted words in the Hebrew Bibledotted with one dot, so far as I can make out. This is only an attempt by a woman, who knows. |