Page "Richard Simon" Paragraph 10

The Histoire critique du Vieux Testament consists of three books.

The first deals with the text of the Hebrew Bible and the changes which it has undergone, the authorship of the Mosaic writings and of other books of the Bible, with an exposition of Simon's theory of the existence during early Jewish history of recorders or annalists of the events of each period, whose writings were preserved in the public archives.

The second book gives an account of the main translations, ancient and modern, of the Old Testament, and the third discusses biblical commentators.

The book had a complicated early development.

It appeared, with Simon's name on the title page, in the year 1685, from the press of Reinier Leers in Rotterdam.

This Dutch edition, in fact the second, superseded the suppressed French first edition, but differed from it in a number of ways.

Simon had hoped to overcome the opposition of Bossuet by making changes ; these negotiations with Bossuet lasted a considerable time, but finally broke down.