Scripture

Scripture (כּתָב, kethtab, Da 10:21, writing, as elsewhere rendered; in the New Test. γραφή, of the same signification, but always rendered "Scripture"). The chief facts relating to the books to which, individually and collectively, this title has been applied, will be found under see BIBLE; see CANON; and see SCRIPTURES, HOLY. It will fall within the scope of this article to trace the history of the word, and to determine its exact meaning in the language of the Old and New Tests., with whatever elucidation modern researches and speculations have thrown upon the subject.

1. It is not till the return from the Captivity that the word meets us with any distinctive force. In the earlier books we read of the law, the book of the law. In Ex 32:16, the commandments written on the tables of testimony are said to be "the writing of God" (γραφὴ Θεοῦ), but there is no special sense in the word taken by itself. In the passage from Da 10:21 (בִּכתַּב אֶמֶת, Sept. ἐν γραφῆ ἀληθείας), where the A.V. has "the Scripture of truth," the words do not probably mean more than "a true writing." The thought of the Scripture as a whole is hardly to be found there: the statement there given was certainly not a quotation from any Biblical book. The allusion doubtless is to the divine purposes, which are figuratively represented as a book of destiny (comp. Ps 139:16; Re 5:1). See BOOK. This first appears in 2Ch 30:5,18 (כַּכָּתוּב, Sept. κατὰ τὴν γραφήν, — A. V. "as it was written"), and is probably connected with the profound reverence for the sacred books which led the earlier scribes to confine their own teaching to oral tradition, and gave therefore to "the writing" a distinctive pre-eminence. See attunes. The same feeling showed itself in the constant formula of quotation, "It is written," often without the addition of any words defining the passage quoted (Mt 4:4,6; Mt 21:13; Mt 26:24). The Greek word, as will be seen, kept its ground in this sense. A slight change passed over that of the Hebrew, and led to the substitution of another. The כּתוּבִים(kethublm =writings), in the Jewish arrangement of the Old Test., was used for a part, and not the whole, of the Old Test. (the Hagiographa [q.v.]), while another form of the same root (kethib) came to have a technical significance as applied to the text, which, though written in the MSS. of the Hebrew Scriptures, might or might not be recognised as keri, the right intelligible reading to be read in the congregation. Another word was therefore wanted, and it was found in the Mikra (מִקרָא Ne 8:8). or "reading," the thing read or recited, recitation. (The same root, it may be noticed, is found in the title of the sacred book of Islam [Koran=recitation].) This, accordingly, we find as the equivalent for the collective γραφαί. The boy at the age of five begins the study of the Mikra, at ten passes on to the Mishna (Pirke Aboth, v, 24). The old word has not, however, disappeared, and הַכָּתוּב, '" the writing,'' is used with the same connotation (ibid. iii, 10).

2. With this meaning the word γραφή passed into the language of the New Test. Used in the singular, it is applied chiefly to this or that passage quoted from the Old Test. (Mr 12:10; Joh 7:38; Joh 13:18; Joh 19:37; Lu 4:21; Ro 9:17; Ga 3:8, et al.). In Ac 8:32 (ἡ περιοχὴ τῆς γραφῆς) it takes a somewhat larger extension, as denoting the writing of Isaiah; but in ver. 35 the more limited meaning reappears. In two passages of some difficulty, some have seen the wider, some the narrower, sense.