Professor Dobschütz summarizes the history of the versions and translations of the Bible, throughout the centuries to the invention of printing, as follows: "In the first period we found the Bible translated from the Greek into Latin, Syriac, Coptic; in the next period Gothic, Armenian, Georgian, Libyan, and Ethiopic were added, not to mention several revisions of former translations. About 600 A. D. the Bible was known in eight languages; in each of these there had been several attempts at translating. There were different dialects, too; in Coptic no less than five. The spread of Christianity in the next period is shown by the fact that the Bible is translated--and this again several times--into Arabic and Slavonic from the Greek, and into the German, Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, and French from the Latin--rather should I say, parts of the Bible, for it was only parts which people at this period tried to translate."[15] And he shows us how this movement to give the Bible to the people in their own vernacular spread--from the thirteenth century on until the invention of printing--into south-eastern France, over Italy and Germany, into England and Bohemia, and, possibly, into Scandinavia; and declares, truly, "it is like a net thrown all over Europe." V THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN LITERATURE The Bible even as literature--and both in its origin and history--is a human as well as a divine book. It is _human_ in that it is _to_ man and _for_ man, and not to and for supernatural intelligences or the conceived populations of other planets; it is _divine_ in that it is _of_ God and _from_ God. There is a real sense in which the definition of the Bible as given by Frederick W. Robertson is correct, "The Bible is the thoughts of God in the words of men." And we would hold that the Bible must be studied, if in a scientific, intelligent, and reverent spirit, under the two-fold conception that it is both a human and a divine book. And we believe also that nothing can ever be gained for the Bible, considering it a supernatural book, by setting up any erroneous or untenable hypotheses concerning its origin, character, or history on its behalf. And, moreover, the Bible nowhere and never makes any such an appeal on its own behalf, or pleads for exemption from the accepted principles of historical criticism. "The written word of God, like the Word which became flesh," says Professor G. F. Wright, "must be human in its manward aspect; for the written word is divine thought manifest in human language as Christ was God manifest in human flesh. As the compound personality of Christ was conditioned by the flesh, so the compound character of a written revelation is conditioned by the nature of language. As God in becoming incarnate did not take upon Himself the form of angels but the seed of Abraham, so a written revelation is not sent in a form adapted to heavenly beings but in a form suited to men."[16] And if the Bible, while it is from God, is