Further Antedating of "Biblical"

[Shapiro, Fred]

Here's a still earlier antedating:

biblical (OED 1790)

1652 Anthony Burgess _Spiritual Refining_ 527 (Early English Books Online)  It will be very impertinent to give you a Theological, and Biblical use of the word _Spirit_, which is of a great latitude in its signification.


Fred Shapiro



________________________________________
From: Shapiro, Fred
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2011 4:40 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Antedating of "Biblical"

Here's an interesting antedating.  Perhaps I'm exaggerating, but the OED first use for _biblical_ is so late that it almost seems like the editors lost a batch of slips.  It's one of the few antedatings I ever found that made me feel that way (another one was _literary_, which the original OED dated 1749 although Francis Bacon had used it in 1605 and Samuel Johnson had used it frequently beginning in 1734).

biblical (OED 1790)

1684 John Lightfoot _The works of the Reverend and learned John Lightfoot D. D._ Preface (Early English Books Online)  This is very precarious, and such an Ellipsis ... as seems contrary to the Genius of the Biblical _Hebrew_.

Fred Shapiro

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