Volume 1

The Jewish encyclopedia : a descriptive record of the history, religion, literature, and customs of the Jewish people from the earliest times to the present day / prepared ... under the direction of ... Cyrus Adler [and others] Isidore Singer ... managing editor.

Date:
1901-1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Jewish encyclopedia : a descriptive record of the history, religion, literature, and customs of the Jewish people from the earliest times to the present day / prepared ... under the direction of ... Cyrus Adler [and others] Isidore Singer ... managing editor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    206/752 (page 158)
    Accident THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA 158 himself. It should, of course, be remembered that the deviations from the accentual interpretation which are met in rabbinical commentaries were not always conscious transgressions. The minutite of the ac- centuation were not always present to the mind of the commentators. But there are cases where the Ac- cents are avowedly disregarded (see Kimhi on Ho- sea, xii. 12: Pi:' “ininterpreting Scripture we are not always bound by the accents see also Luzzatto, “Prolegomeni,” pp. 187 et seq.). In Isa. xl. 3 there is a famous case where the ac- centuation is unquestionably right. Accordingly the Revised Version (text) translates: “ The voice of one that crieth, ‘In the wilderness, ’ ’’etc. The quotation of the verse in Mark, i. 3 connects “in the wilderness ” with “ the voice of one crying ” (im- plying the accentuation '^’P). The New Testament accentuation (hardly invented for the oc- casion; the punctuation in the Septuagint is due to New Testament influence) is probably nothing more than a haggadic interpretation of the kind so often met with in midrashic works. A puzzling accentu- ation which goes with the rendering of the Septu- agint and Vulgate may be found in Isa. vii. 3: ■JIP isD'i (et qui derelictus e»t, Idsiib flliiis tuus; see Baer’s edition, “ Additamenta,” p. 67). The Accents in the ordinary editions of the Bible are frequently unreliable. Baer’s and Ginsburg’s Bible editions (where also important variants are noted) are indispensable to one interested in Biblical accentuation. Bibliography : The oldest rules on the subject of the Bib- lical Accents maybe found in Ben Asher’s treatise, ''P''''p.i edited by Baer and Strack, §§ lfi-28, 30-35, 41, 42, 47, Leipsic, 1879. A treatise falsely ascribed to Judah ben Bil’am (N')ipn n’Hn, ed. Mercerus, Paris, 1.5(15) deals with the subject at greater length (the same treatise in Arabic may be found in Wickes, Poetical Accentuation, pp. 102 et seq.). In Hayyuj’s 'ipip ■’.?■?. (ed. Nutt, pp. 126-129, London, 1870) there is found a chapter on the Accents, which, however, was not written by the famous grammarian himself. Manuel du Lecteur is the name given by J. Derenbourg to a treatise on points of grammar and Masorah, edited by him (Paris, 1871) from a Yemen manuscript; it contains rules on the Accents. A useful compilation from the works of early Jewish writers on the prose Accents is Wolf Heidenheim’s work, Rbdelheim, 1808. A few other treatises are men- tioned in Wickes. To Christian writers of the seventeentii and eighteenth centuries (Bohiius, Wasmuth, Spitzner, and others) belongs the merit of formulating tlie principle of halving (see § 4). The paragraphs devoted to the subject in the current Hebrew grammars are more or less superfleial (be- ginners will find the chapter on Accents in Driver’s Hehrew Temes, Oxford, 1892, very serviceable). An elaborate dis- cussion is found only in the grammars of Luzzatto (§§ 69-164; compare also his Prolcqomeni, 177-191), Ewald (§§ 9.5-100; Ewald rejects the principle of halving, in the place of which he puts his own principle of tripartition; the discussion is quite abstruse) and Olshausen (§8 41-.53; compare the dia- gram for the prose Accents on pp. 98 and 99, which resembles the diagram given above, § 4). Baer’s treatise, niin, Riidelheim, lk53, deserves notice (compare also Baer in De- litzsch, Commentar]! on the Pxalms, 1800). The most thor- ough works on Biblical accentuation (from which much of the material available for § 4 has been taken, with the neces- sary simplification) are the ones by William Wickes, Poetical Accentuation, Oxford, 1881; idem. Prose Accentuation, Oxford, 1887, Compare also Japhet, nuc. Die Accente tier Heiligcn Schrift, Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1896; Konig, Oedanke. Laut, und Accent als die Drei Factoren dcr Sprachhildung. Weimar, 1874; Grimme, Ahriss dcr Biblisch- HehrUischen Metrik, in Z. D. M.G. li..529 et seq., 683 et seq.; idem, Grundzllgc der Hehriiisehen Accent-und VokalUhre, Freiburg (Switzerland), 1896; idem. Collectanea Friburgen- sia, fasc. V.; Prmtorius, Ueber den Rllckweichenden Accent im HebrUischen, Halle-on-the-Saale, 1897; Ackermann, Das Hermeneutische Element dcr Biblischen Accentuation, Berlin, 1893; Nathan, Die Tonzeichen in der Bihel, in Pro- grammder TalmucPTora-Realschule, Hamburg, 1893; Fried- lander, Die Beiden Si/steme dcr Hchriiischen Vohal- und Accentzeichcn, in Monatsschrift, xxxviii, 311 et seq. ACCENTS, MUSICAL VALUE OF. See Cantillation. ACCEPTANCE : In law, the assent by one party to an otter made by another, or to any act which becomes operative only by such assent; in commerce, the question whether the assent has been given before the withdrawal of the offer or incom- plete act arises most frequently over “time con- tracts,” when two parties seek to agree upon buy- ing, by quality or quantity only, at a future time goods or effects not identified; as, so many bushels of red wheat, so many pounds of mess beef. This class of contracts is void according to Talmudic law: no one may sell what he does not own at the time, for instance, a fisherman may not sell his next haul, nor a son his share in a dying father’s succession, nor may one who is still bargaining for the purchase of a field sell the field to a third person (B.M. 16rf, b). Exceptions to the rule are allowed only on the score of a pre.ssing cmergenc}'. The Mohammedan law annuls all such sales or contracts as a species of gambling; but the Talmud seems to proceed only on the technical ground that the ojvnership can not be transferred in the way which the law points out for each species of property. But however helpless to enforce agreements of this kind human law might have been deemed by the old sages, they assure us that “ He who punished the generation of the Flood and the genera- tion of the Dispersion will punish the man who does not stand by his word ’’ (Mishnah B. M. iv. 2). Even where a specific thing, whether land or chattel, is the subject of a bargain, the Talmudic law does not seem to distinguish between a sale and an “executory contract,” that is, an agreement to sell and to buy, though there are “ purchases on con- dition. ” The question as to when the minds of buyer and seller have so far met that neither of them “can go back ” can be treated under the head of Ai.ien.y- TiON only; for it is merely a question of change of title (Kintan), that is, as to jvhat precise moment the title in the thing sold or exchanged vests in the buyer. The older Roman law similarly did not recognize executory sales; for empiio et venditio was a real not a consensual contract; that is, it became binding not by consent of the parties alone, but by tlie bodily de- livery of the thing sold according to prescribed forms. The question of the acceptance by the jvife of a bill of divorce written by the husbancl is extensively discussed in the Talmud. Strictly, delivery only is necessary. Scripture says, and he shall “give it in her hand ” (Dent. xxiv. 1), which, according to the oldest authorities, is complied with by putting it “ on her roof, in her yard, or on her shed, ” even with- out her consent. For the requisites of delivery, and how the wife can hasten it by a voluntary accept- ance through her agent, see Dn'ORCE. A discussion very much like that about the bill of divorce is found in the Talmud, concerning the moment at which a deed of manumission becomes final; but the rules in the two cases differ somewhat, because the principle adopted in the Halakah as- sumes that the deed of manumission is in its nature wholly beneficial to the slave; while the delivery of a bill of divorce is in its nature an unfriendly act (Git. 12i). This question of Acceptance or finality is often complicated with the law of Agency’ ; for when doc- uments are sent by “messengers,” that is, agents, or Yvhen the party who is to receive a document empowers another to receive it, there is more room for dispute as to the moment of finality than when the two parties deal with each other in person. L. N. D.