# Henry Ainsworth : Annotations on the Pentateuch



## Mayflower (Jul 6, 2005)

Has anyone read this book ? Is it a great commentary on the pentateuch ?


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Jul 6, 2005)

I don't have it but yes, it is supposed to be very highly regarded. Ainsworth was one of the greatest Hebrew scholars of his era. He also wrote an Annotations of the Psalms which is superb, as well as the Psalter used by the Pilgrims in Holland and Massachusetts. 



> Ainsworth was teacher or "doctor" to the puritan Ancient Separatist Church of Amsterdam and, after its dissolution in 1610, pastor of his own Ainsworthian Church. "Many considered Ainsworth one of the finest Hebrew scholars of his day. His interest in languages may have begun at Cambridge. If so, it was powerfully strengthened when he arrived in Amsterdam, which had a large Jewish population living near the Ancient Church. By 1605 Ainsworth had become part of an Amsterdam circle of English Herbalists that included Hugh Broughton, Matthew Slade, and later John Paget. These men sought to further their understanding of the Bible by learning its original tongues." (New DNB). Further volumes by Ainsworth appeared on "Leviticus" (1618), "Numbers" (1619), "Deuteronomy" (1619), "Psalms" (1622) and the "Song of Songs" (1623) and their were two collected editions in 1622 and 1627.
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> "Although some writers criticized Ainsworth for being too ready to follow the conclusions of Jewish authors and rabbinic scholaship, most were grateful for the information which he synthesize. Thus, [Samuel] Hartlib argued that 'Commentarii should be written as Ainsworth explaining only the words phrases et sense', and he bemoaned the fact that Ainsworth had died before he 'had done all summaries upon the whole Bibel as hee hade done upon the 5. bookes of Moses'. Interest in and regard for Ainsworth's work did not abate, despite the provision of new commentaries on the Bible during the 1640s and 1650s. Ainsworth's Annotations were recommended as a foundation for the marginal notes which were intended to accompany the revision of the Authorized Version, planned by the Council of State in 1652, and entrusted to the care of a committee including Ralph Cudworth, a Cambridge divine and advocate of Hartlib's schemes for the reformation of learning. This committee expressed particular interest in Ainsworth's unpublished manuscripts." (Jim Bennett & Scott Mandelbrote, _The Garden, the Ark, the Tower, the Temple: Biblical metaphors of knowledge in early modern Europe_ (Oxford, 1998, p. 174).


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## C. Matthew McMahon (Jul 6, 2005)

I have it and yes, it is quite good. I've used it many times.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Jan 11, 2006)

Two other Ainsworth books I would love to get my hands on:

_The Old Orthodox Foundation: Left for a Pattern to a New Reformation_ (1641)

_An Arrow Against Idolatrie_ (1611)


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Mar 10, 2006)

I've acquired Ainsworth's _Annotations_ and I'm enjoying it very much.


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## VirginiaHuguenot (Apr 2, 2006)

Matthew Poole says in his _Synopsis_:



> _Annotations upon the Five Books of Moses_ of Henry Ainsworth of England, written in the English language, and indeed written with so much acumen and judgment, fidelity and skill, that I dare to pronounce the annotations worthy


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