Editing Richard Simon (section)

===Old Testament===
The ''Histoire critique du Vieux Testament'' (1678) 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 This Dutch edition, in fact the second, superseded the suppressed French first edition, but differed from it in a number of ways.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.

The original French printer of the book, in order to promote sales, had the titles of the chapters printed separately and circulated. These had come into the hands of the Port Royalists, who had undertaken a translation into French of the ''Prolegomena'' to [[Brian Walton (bishop)|Brian Walton]]'s ''[[Polyglot (book)|Polyglott]]''. To counteract this, Simon announced his intention of publishing an annotated edition of the ''Prolegomena'', and added to the ''Histoire critique'' a translation of the last four chapters of that work, not part of his original plan. Simon's announcement prevented the appearance of the projected translation.

A faulty edition of the  ''Histoire critique'' had previously been published at [[Amsterdam]] by [[Daniel Elzevir]], based on a manuscript transcription of one of the copies of the original work had been sent to England; and from which a Latin translation (''Historia critica Veteris Testamenti'', 1681, by [[Noël Aubert de Versé]])<ref>Israel, p. 576.</ref> and an English translation (''Critical History of the Old Testament'', London, 1682)<ref>[http://m.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/encyc/encyc10/htm-old/0440=422.htm ''Schaff-Herzog'' article]</ref> were made. The edition of Leers was a reproduction of the work as first printed, with a new preface, notes, and those other writings which had appeared for and against the work up to that date; it included Simon's answers to criticisms of [[Charles de Veil]] and [[Friedrich Spanheim the Younger]].<ref>[[Richard Henry Popkin]], James E. Force, David S. Katz, ''Everything connects: in conference with Richard H. Popkin: essays in his honor'' (1999), p. 41; [https://books.google.com/books?id=A8Zc4gY8SmkC&pg=PA41 Google Books].</ref>