3. In the j>ost-exilic records, where we meet with the word, it ordinarily signifies Nnbritirnn. In 2 Mac 5* we read of Aretas, tlie kingof the Arabians ; now Aretaswas the name of several of the Nnbatu'au kings, as we know from their own inscriiilions ; and I'rocopiiis sjieaks of I'etia as the capital of the Arabs, whereas it was famous as the capital of the
Nabaticans. The Romans, who from the time of the ill-starred expedition of ^-Elius Gallus (B.C. 24), in which the Nabatajans were their allies against the Arabs, had good cause to distinguish the two races, do not often confuse them ; yet both Diodorus and Procopius (quoted by Quatremfcre) fall into this mistake. By the term 'Arabia,' then, St. Paul (Gal 1" 4") probably means the territory of the Nabatieans, which in the period of their greatest [irosperity extended from the Euphrates to the lied Sea. One of their kings was the Aretas whose ethnarch in Damascus endeavoured to arrest St. Paul (2 Co IP'). The misapplication of ethnic names is exceedingly common ; and in this context it may be noticed that in the Sabiean inscriptions the Sabajans distinguish themselves from the Arabians (pny; seed. D6renbourg in CIS iv. fasc. 2, p. 93), with whom classical antiquity identified them. Perhaps 'Nabatajan' is the sense to be attached to the name ' Arabian ' applied to Neheniiah's opponent Geshera (Neh 2"), or Gashmu (Neh 6"), whose name in its latter form bears a genuinely Nabatajan appearance. The important part played by this race was first pointed out by Quatremere in his Etude sur les Nnbatiens (1835), the results of which were condensed by Hitter in his Erdkunde von Arabien (1846, i. p. Ill il'.). The inscriptions discovered at Madain Salih by Mr. Douglity (Documents ipigraph. recueil. dans le nord de I'Arabie, Paris, 1884), and recopied by Euting [Nabnt. Inschri/. 1885), have thrown con- siderable light on their language, institutions, and history. Having originally come from Mesojio- tamia, this tribe profited by the weakness of the last Bab. kings to seize Petra, the ancient capital of the Idumseans. The unique position of this fortress at the meeting-place of three great commercial routes was the source of the wealth which enabled them to attain a remarkable degree of civilisation and luxury. Their first appear- ance in history is in B.C. 312, when, according to Diodorus (xi.\. ch. 95 sq(j. ), they successfully resisted Athena>us, the general sent against their fortress by Antigonus, king of Syria ; their last in A.D. 106, when A. Petra'a was turned into a Kom. province by Cornelius Palma. The i)Ossession of Damascus by Aretas IV. (' Philopatris,' mentioned in several of the Madain Salih inscriptions) is to be ascribed to a temporary arrangement of the emperor Gaius. Tlie fact that the Nabata'an empire extended to El-Hijr, called afterwards Madain Salih, is certified for the time of Augustus by the Kom. records. The notices of the Naba- ta-ans in ancient literature are put together by von Gutschniidt in the ajipendix to Eating's A^abat- wische hi.schriftcn.
i. The ein|iloyment of the name Arab for an inhabitant of any portion of the vast peninsula known to us as Arabia, l)egins somewhere in the 3rd cent. B.C., though the only trace of it in OT is in 2 Ch 21", where the 'Arabians that are near the Ethiopians' would .seem naturally to refer to the neighbours of the Ilabashah, whom there arc grounds for placing in the extreme S. of Yemen ; it is not, however, clear how these tribes could interfere in Jewish politics. In 2 Ch 26" God i.-^ said to have helped Uzziah against ' the Arabians who dwelt in Gur-I)aal,' and tlie Mina'ans ; as this notice is not found in 2 K, its accuracy is open to HUsiiicion ; moreover, the name Gur-Baal bears no trace of Arabian nomenclature, and only vague conjectures can 1h3 hazarded about its situation. EfTually uncertain is tlie use of the name in 2 Cli 17 '. An Arab prince Zabdiel is mentioned in 1 Mac 11" as nmraering the Syrian king Alexuiidrr Balas, who h.id taken refuge in 'Arabia'; iind another Iinnlkun", or lamblichus, as rearing tli" same Alexander's son (11""). The residence of
136
ARABIC VERSIONS
ARABIC VERoiONS
these princes, according to Diodorus (Excerpt. 32. 1), waa called 'A^ai. D. S. Maegoliouth.
ARABIC VERSIONS.— Arab. VSS of the Bible have been made from various 80urce.«, chiefly Gr., Syr., and Coptic. It is, however, most improbable that any Christian Arab, literature is as old as the time of Mohammed. There were Christians in the Arab, kingdom of Ghassiin, E. of Damascus, and at Nejran in S. Arabia, but, to judge from our very scanty historical information about the progress of the Church in these regions, the ecclesiastical lan- guage was Syriac. * It was not tUl after the success of the Koran had made Arabic into a literary lan- guage, and the conq^uests of Islam had turned large portions of Christian Syria and Egypt into Arabic-speaking provinces, that the need of trans- lations of Scripture in the Arabic vernacular was really felt.
The extant forms of NT in Arabic are best divided according to the languages from which they are derived. Thus we have — (i.) translations from the Syriac; (ii. ) translations directly from the Greek; (iii.) translations from the Coptic; at a later period we have also (iv.) eclectic com- binations of the first three classes. It \vill be con- venient to take the various divisions of NT separ- ately.