former passed through many stages of cultivation. They appropriated to themselves Greek science, and were compelled to borrow many scientific terms, and thus endanger the purity of their language. The Arabians, too, entered on a career of conquest subjugating the nations from Spain almost to China. How different was the condition of the Hebrews from the days of Joshua to Josiah, and how almost infinitely less exposed to change was the Hebrew language than its sister dialect!

ARTICLE VIII.

NOTES ON BIBLICAL GEOGRAPHY.

By E. Robinson.

THE CITY EPHRAIM, JOHN 11:54.

AFTER the raising of Lazarus, the Sanhedrim at the instance and counsel of Caïphas, determined to seize Jesus and cause him to be put to death. To avoid their machinations, our Lord withdrew from Jerusalem "unto a country near to the wilderness, into a city called Ephraim, and there abode with his disciples;" John 11: 54. This place has never yet been identified with any modern site; nor has any attempt been made, so far as I know, to ascertain anything more than its general position. The following comparisons and combinations may perhaps throw some light upon the subject.

This city Ephraim ( Epqaïu, 'Epo̟éμ) has been correctly assumed as being the same with the Ephraim or Ephron of 2 Chr. 13: 19, Heb. 1793 in Keri, 7 in Chethib, Sept.' Eqpoor, which place Abijah king of Judah, after his great battle with Jeroboam, took from the latter along with Bethel and Jeshanah. It lay therefore not far remote from Bethel. So too Josephus relates, that Vespasian marched from Cesarea to the hill-country, subdued the toparchies of Gophna and Acraba with the small cities (л0Aizvia) Bethel and Ephraim (Eqgaiu), and then proceeded to Jerusalem; Jos. B. J. 4.9.9. This also is doubtless the Ephron (Eqgov) of Eusebius and Jerome, which the former places at eight, and the latter (correcting Eusebius) at nearly twenty Roman miles north of Jerusalem; Onomast. art. Ephron.

There was another similar name in the Old Testament, viz. Ophrah in Benjamin, Josh. 18: 23. 1 Sam. 13: 17, Heb. 7, Sept.' Eqqaά. This was apparently the Aphra ('Aqçá) of Eusebius and Jerome, situated five Roman miles east of Bethel; Onomast. art. Aphra.

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The City Ephraim, John 11: 54.

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The question suggests itself: Were perhaps Ophra and Ephron (i) merely different forms of the same name, belonging to one and the same place? This would seem not improbable, as both forms have the same general signification, fawn, fawn-like, from the noun fawn; one receiving simply the feminine ending, and the other taking the very common termination . The same idea is favored, too, by the like analogy in the Hebrew forms for Shiloh, viz. rib and ; this latter being found in the gentile noun by Shilonite, and in the Zidov of Josephus; see Gesen. Heb. Lex. art. rib no. 2. So likewise in the forms iba Giloh and Gilonite. Further, the great laxness and variety of manner with which Hebrew names are written in Greek, leaves ample room for such a position. Thus another Ophrah (p) in Manasseh is written by the LXX, 'Eqçavá, Judg. 6: 11. 8: 27, 32. 9: 5; and by Josephus 'Eggáv, Antiq. 5. 6. 5. Hence for Heb. we have 'Epgavά and 'Expoάr; and for Heb. i we have 'Eqpoor and 'Eqqaïu. If now we admit the probable identity of Ephraim (or Ephron) and Ophra in the Old Testament: and that of Ephraim in the New Testament with both; and follow out this suggestion; we shall find it giving still further confirmation from several circumstances. According to John 11: 54, the place in question was situated near the desert; according to the Old Testament and Josephus it was not far from Bethel; according to Eusebius and Jerome it lay five Roman miles from Bethel in the eastern quarter, and nearly twenty Roman miles (Jerome says "in the twentieth mile") north of Jerusalem. Now, taking all these specifications together, they apply with great exactness to the lofty site of the modern Taiyibel, two hours northeast of Bethel, and six hours and twenty minutes north-northeast of Jerusalem, (reckoning three Roman miles to the hour,) adjacent to and overlooking the broad tract of desert country lying between it and the valley of the Jordan, and also along the western side of the Dead Sea; a position so remarkable, that one cannot suppose it to have been left unoccupied in ancient times; see Bibl. Res. in Palest. II. p. 121–124. The striking coincidence of all these circumstances would seem to leave little room for doubt, that we have here, in the modern Taiyibeh, the ancient Ephraim to which Jesus thus withdrew.

If we have now succeeded in fixing the position of the city Ephraim, new light is thrown upon the harmony of the Gospels during the six 、months before the Saviour's passion. According to Matt. 19:1 and Mark 10: 1, our Lord's last approach to Jerusalem was by way of Perea and Jericho. At Ephraim he could overlook the whole of Perea, as well as all the valley of the Jordan; and nothing would be more natural for him, than to pass over into that region and there preach the Gospel on his way back to Jerusalem for the last time. Here then John harmonizes with

Matthew and Mark; according to whom great multitudes followed Jesus on this journey. To this journey there may likewise be referred Luke 13: 22; as also the following chapters of Luke, to dispose of which a return of our Lord to Galilee has been usually assumed after the preceding feast of Tabernacles. But of such a return not the slightest hint is found in any of the Evangelists.

ARTICLE IX.

SELECT LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.

Classical and General Literature. A new volume of Prof. Ritter's great geographical work was published in 1844 and forms Vol. 5 of West Asia. It contains the routes of the most recent travellers in Mesopotamia as Grant, Ainsworth and Forbes; examines some points of great interest in biblical geography, as the position of Ur of the Chaldees and Haran, and the river Chebar; and treats at considerable length of the ruins of Babylonia. The transactions of the Philological and Historical class of the Berlin Academy for 1842, published in 1844, form a quarto volume of nearly 500 pages,-quite a contrast to the meagre volume of the previous year. Among the articles the longest is an attempt at a Topography of the products of the Chinese empire by M. Schott. An essay by Prof. Zumpt on the state of the Philosophical schools at Athens will be read with interest by the students of philosophy and classical antiquities.

The learned French scholar Boissonade published during the last year one hundred and twenty-three fables of Balbius written in the Choliambic or Hipponactean measure and discovered a short time since in the convent of St. Laura on Mt. Athos. A few only of these fables had been known in their perfect state, but the notice of Choliambic verses in the prose of the so-called fables of Aesop had led several learned men to attempt to reconstruct them. A lame attempt of that kind is contained in Berger's book entitled Babrii fabularum choliambicarum libri tres, (Munich 1816). Berger gives ninety-three, some of which may be called bad prose made worse. Parts of twenty-two are given, as restored by various scholars, in the Philological Museum. (Cambridge 1832, vol. 1. p. 280). Babrius, who was supposed to belong to or to have lived before the Augustan period, is thrust down to the age of Alexander Severus by Boissonade in consequence of some indications in one of the proems to the fables.

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An edition of Strabo of the highest importance for the very corrupt text of that geographer and founded on a careful examination of the manuscripts is now in progress at Berlin. The editor is Dr. Gustav Kramer. One vol. containing a preface and the text of six books has been published. The Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum of Boeckh has reached the first fasciculus of the Third Volume.-Orelli has published a supplement to his Select Latin inscriptions.—The Anecdota Delphica of Ernest Curtius, (Berlin 1843), contains inscriptions discovered at Delphi by Ottfried Müller, the author and A. Schöll. Müller died immediately after. There are connected with the inscriptions admirable essays on the manumission of slaves in Greece, and on some decrees of the Amphictyonic council.

An edition of Plutarch's Lives, important for the text by C. Sintenis, author of an excellent edition of the life of Pericles, has advanced to the third volume. A fourth will easily finish the original text. We hope Sintenis will add a commentary, which he can do better than any man living.

The second volume of the second edition of Matter's Histoire de

l'Ecole d'Alexandrie appeared in 1844. This edition has been very much altered from the first which came out twenty-three years since. The second volume treats of the sciences pursued at Alexandria, particularly of the mathematics, astronomy and geography.

Works on Hebrew Grammar, Biblical Interpretation, etc. Dr. Gustav Brückner has published a "New Hebrew Reading Book with Notes and a Glossary." The author belongs to the school of Gesenius, and was employed by him in preparing Indexes, etc. for the Thesaurus. Gesenius bore testimony to his intimate acquaintance with Hebrew, to his exact grammatical knowledge, etc. "Brückner differs from his teacher," says a writer in Tholuck's Anzeiger, Sept. 1844, "by a fundamental insight into the religious and theological contents of the Old Testament, Gesenius recognizing in the sacred writings only the products of oriental literature." Dr. B. published, in 1842, a "Practical Help for methodical Exercises in Hebrew Grammar." The New Reading Book embraces three courses, the first designed for exercises in the forms of the grammar, and the other two in the Syntax. The selections from the historical, prophetical and poetical books of the Old Testament, are said to be excellent. The Notes explain some of the more difficult passages.

Dr. Hupfeld of Halle has published a little work "On the Idea and Method of the so-called Biblical Introduction, with an outline of its history and literature." The title of Ewald's new Hebrew grammar, mentioned p. 192 of this Journal, is "Auführliches Lehrbuch der Hebraischen

Sprache des Alten Bundes."

In this work the two grammars, before published by the author, are amalgamated. The price is 24 Rthlr.

The sixth edition of Tholuck's Commentary on John, published in 1844, is thoroughly revised and somewhat enlarged. It has references to the late writings of Neander, Krabbe, and Bauer, the third edition of Lücke's Commentary, De Wette, Ebrard's Critique on the Evangelical History, to Mau on Death as the Wages of Sin, etc.

Semisch, pastor at Trebnitz, and author of a recent and valuable work on Justin Martyr, has been appointed ordinary professor of theology at Greifswald.-The first complete edition of the works of the great Swiss Reformer, Ulric Zuingli, has appeared at Zürich, under the charge of Melchior Schuler and J. Schultess. The first part contains the writings published in German, viz. I. homiletic, didactic and apologetic, 1. relating to the transition in the views of the author from Roman Catholicism to evangelical truth and freedom, 2. relating to baptism and the famous sacramentarian controversy; II. writings of a miscellaneous character, 1. poetical, 2. pedagogical, 3. political, all arranged chronologically. An appendix contains an explanation of the peculiarities in the formation of words and the syntax so far as is necessary to the understanding of Zuingli's writings. The second part embraces the Latin works; I. those of the same nature with the German productions, in similar order; II. exegetical on the Old and New Testaments; III. Letters. Four large Indexes complete the work. We shall embrace an early opportunity to give an account of the life and labors of Zuingli, who was in some respects, the most interesting of the great Reformers, and to whom, amid the splendor that has surrounded Luther's name, full justice has never been accorded.

The long expected work of Julius Müller on Sin was published at Breslau, in 1844, in two vols. 8vo. of 517 and 590 pages. The title is "Die Christliche Lehre von der Sünde." The author is professor at Halle, and brother of the celebrated Ottfried Müller. The work is divided into five Books, which discuss the actual existence of sin, the principal theories which have been propounded in explaining it, the possibility of sin, the extent of sin, and the increase of sin in the development of the individual. These subjects are subdivided into a great number of chapters and sections. The analysis in the table of contents occupies twenty-eight closely printed pages. A mere glance at this will show the scientific and comprehensive character of the discussion.

A new edition of the work of Sartorius, "Die Lehre von der heiligen Liebe oder Grundzüge der evangelisch-kirchlichen Moraltheologie," has just appeared at Stuttgard in two thin volumes. The motto of the work,