RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bible Versions
classed with the Saidic version. Bashmuric had already died out in the time of Athanasius.
The Bohairic version was for a long time the only one known to European scholars, and is still supposed by some to be the earliest version in any Egyptian dialect; but with better reason others see in it a late recension, characterized by greater faithfulness to the Greek, the basal Greek text being best represented by the Greek Codex L and, among the Fathers, not by Clement and Orio-en, but by Cyril. Of the Saidic manuscripts some of the more ancient are bilingual, the Greek occupying the page on the left hand of the open book; the Bohairic manuscripts, on the contrary, are often accompanied by an Arabic translation, but there is no instance of a Greco-Bohairic manuscript. When written in two columns the Greco-Saidic manuscripts have both Greek columns on the left and both Saidic on the right, and occasionally the two pages of the codex give different readings. The text of this version generally supports that represented by Codex B, but it has some strange "Western" singularities; for instance, to Luke xxiii, 53, it is added that Joseph plaecd a stone at the door of the sepulcher, which twenty men were scarcely able to move, and in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus the name of the former is given as "Nineveh." Revelation seems to have been considered uncanonical, for it is not found with the rest of the New Testament. E. Nestle.
Bibliography: Erschand Gruber, Allgemeine Encyclopadie, Section 2, vol. xxxix, 12-36; J. P. Martin, in Polybiblion, i, 126, Paris, 1886; A. Schulte, Die koptische Uebersetzung der vier grossen Propheten, Munster, 1J393; Scrivener, Introduction, ii, 91-144 ; H. Hyvernat, Etude sur les versions Coptes de la Bible, in Revue Biblique, v (1896), 3, 427-433, 540-569, vi (1897), 1, 48-74; Gregory, Textkritik, i, 52S-553; DB, i, 668-673; EB, iv, 5006-11, 5027; W. E. Crum is accustomed to note new Biblical texts in the annual Archaeological Report of the Egypt Exploration ■ Fund (cf. that for 1905-08, pp. 66 sqq.).
On the Bohairic version of the Old Testament, especially the Pentateuch, cf. A. E. Brooke, in JTS, iii, 258-278. For the Bohairic New Testament there is now the fine edition of the Clarendon Press by G. Horner, The Coptic Version of the N. T. in the Northern Dialect, otherwise called the Memphitic and Bohairic, with Introduction, critical Apparatus, and literal Eng. transl., vols, i-ii, Gospels, 1898, vols, iii— iv, Acts and Epistles, 1905.
The Saidic New Testament is edited by P. J. Balestri in Sacrorum bibliorum fragmenta copto-sahidica Musei Borgiani, vol. iii, Rome, 1904; the Berlin manuscript of the Psalter, by A. Rahlf s, GGA , i v, 4, 1901 ; cf . also J. O. Prince, Two Versions of the Coptic Psalter, in JBL, xxi, 92-99; E. 0. Winstedt, Sahidic Biblical Fragments in the Bodleian Library, in PSBA, xxvii, 2; and C. Wessely, Sahidischgriechische Psalmenfragmente, Vienna, 1907. For parts of the Old Testament cf. Lagarde's Pentateuch, Leipsic, 1867, Psalteriiversio Memphitica, Gottingen, 1875, and (for Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, and Psalms) his JEgyptiaca, 1883; vols. i andii of the Borgian Fragments, byCiasca, 1885-89; on the importance of the Egyptian version of Job, cf. Lagarde, Mittheilungen, Gottingen, 1884, i, 203.
VIII. The Ethiopic Version: In Ethiopic there exists a translation of the Bible which has continued the only one authorized among Abyssinian Christians, and even among the Jewish Falashas; and it still maintains its ancient authority, although the Ethiopic long ago ceased to be spoken. There is no reliable information as to the exact time or manner of its origin; but it is certain that it was made
from the Septuagint in the early days ofAbyssinian Christianity, between the fourth and the sixth century. It is very faithful, being, for the most part, a verbal rendering of the Greek, readable and fluent, and in the Old Testament often renders closely the ideas and the words of the Hebrew.
Dillmann projected an edition of the Ethiopia Old Testament in five volumes, of which he lived to publish vols, i, Gen .-Ruth (1853), ii, Sam-Kings (1861-71), and v, the Apocrypha (1894). He arranged the manuscripts in three groups: (1) those which contain the original translation from the Septuagint uncorrupted; (L1) those the text of which has been revised and completed from the Greek; (3) those which have been corrected from the Hebrew. From the circumstance that the Ethiopic Church was dependent on that in Egypt, it is probable that the particular recension of the Septuagint from which the Ethiopic translation was made was the Hesychian (see above, I, 1, § 5). But the early Aramaicspeaking missionaries influenced the translation,. as is shown by the numerous Aramaic words, which are employed to convey Christian ideas. Possibly the Bible was translated, at least in part,, by these missionaries or their pupils.
The division into chapters was introduced at a, later day into Abyssinia, under European influences. The Ethiopic Bible includes the Apocrypha, except the books of Maccabees, which were either not translated or very early lost, and several pseudepigrapha, and puts them upon perfect equality with the canonical writings; and in this way the number of books is given as eighty-one, forty-six for the Old Testament, thirty-five for the New. (See Abyssinia and the Abyssinian Church.) (F PrAtorius.)
Bibliography: For lists of Ethiopic MSS. available consult the Catalogues by A. T. dAbbadie, Paris, 1859 (a general list), by C. F. A. Dillmann (for British Museum), London, 1847 (for Bodleian Library), Oxford, 1848, and (for Berlin) Berlin, 1878, by W. Wright (for British Museum), London, 1877, and by H. Zotenberg (for Bibliotheque Nationale), Paris; ZDMG, v, 164 sqq. (for those in Tubingen), ZDMG, xvi (for Vienna), Bulletin scientifigue publie par V Academie des Sciences, ii, 302, iii, 145 sqq. (for those in St. Petersburg), and a general list in C. R. Gregory, Prolegomena, iii, 900-912, Leipsic, 1894. On the version consult: C. F. A. Dillmann, in Jahrbiicher der biblischen Wissenschaft, v (1853), 144-151; Reckendorf, in ZATW, vii (1887), 61-90; P. J. Bachmann, Dodekapropheton wthiopum, part 1, Obadiah, Halle, 1892, part 2, Maleachi, 1893, Die Klagelieder, 1893, Jesaia, 1893; L. Goldschmidt, Bibliotheca mthiopica, Leipsic, 1893; Hackspill, in ZA, xi (1897), 150-151. The subject is treated also in C. R. Gregory, Prolegomena, iii, 894-900, ut sup.;. in the Einleitung of Konig, 1893, p 113, of Julicher, 1894, p. 388, and of Cornill, 1896, p. 338, and the Introduction. of Scrivener, ii, 154-155.
The best ed. of the Old Testament is that of Dillmann (ut sup.). The New Testament was first printed at Rome in 1548-49 by the Abyssinian Tasfa-Sion or, as he is also called, Peter the Ethiopian, reprinted in the London Polyglot. Aned. was issued by T. P. Piatt for the BFBS in 1826-30, reprinted at Leipsic, 1899.
IX. The Georgian (Iberian) Version : The earliest translations of parts of the Bible in the language of the Iberians belong to the fifth century, and seem to betray the influence of the Syriac version. David and Stephen in the eight century are the first names known of men engaged in revision of the Iberian Bible. A papyrus Psalter is assigned to the seventh
Bible Version b