RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bible Versions
Bondi (Halle, 1888). On Saadia's system of translating, cf. W. Engelkemper, De Saadiae Gaonis vita, bibliorum versione, hermeneutica (Munster, 1897).
There are other Arabic translations made from the Hebrew by Jews such as the Arabs Erpenii, a translation of the Pentateuch made by an African Jew in the thirteenth century (published by Erpenius, Leyden, 1622), and a translation of the Psalms made by the Karaite Japhet ben Eli (ed. J. J. L. Barges, Paris, 1871); a specimen of his commentary on Genesis is in Kahle, viii; his commentary on Deuteronomy was edited by S. Margoliouth, in Anecdota Oxoniensia, Semitic series, vol. i, part 3, 1899. Hosea and Joel from an Oxford manuscript were edited by Schroter, in Archiv fur wissenschaftliche Erforsckung des Alten Testaments, i and ii (1869-70). A Fragment einer arabischen Pentateuchubersetzung was published by J. Hirsch, Leipsic, 1900.
The first specimen of an Arabic translation of the Samaritan text was published by A. C. Hwiid (Rome, 1780) from the famous triglot in the Barberini library; then by Paulus, 1789 and 1791; better by de Sacy, in Memoires de I'Academie des Inscriptions, xlix, 1-199; S. Kohn, in Abhandlungen fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes, vol. v, part 4 (Leipsic, 1876), 1_499; J. Bloch, Die samaritanisch-ardbische Pentateuchubersetzung (Berlin, 1901); and Kahle, ut sup., no. vi. The Samaritans seem to have used at first the translation of Saadia; soon after 1000 they made a translation of their own, which was revised in the middle of the thirteenth century by Abu Said; Genesis, Exodus, and Leviticus of this version were edited by Kuenen, 1851-54 (cf. A. Cowley, in JE, x, 677).
Many Coptic manuscripts have an Arabic translation by the side of the Coptic text; in other manuscripts containing only an Arabic version, this is derived from the Coptic (cf. Arab. 3 in the Greek Pentateuch of Holmes-Parsons; see above, I, 1, § 2); for Job such a translation has been edited by Lagarde, Psalterium, Job, Proverbia arabice (Gottingen, 1876); on Psalms, cf. Psalterium Coptice, ed. M. G. Schwartze (Leipsic, 1843), v.
From the Latin, either made from it or corrected by it, are the Roman editions such as that of Sergius Risi (Arabic and Latin, 3 vols., Rome, 1671), the Gospels (1591), and Psalms and Prophets (1614). A new recension by Rafael Tuki contains only Genesis-Nehemiah and Tobit (2 vols., 1752). The edition of 1671 without the Apocrypha has been frequently reprinted by the BFBS since 3 822 after it had reprinted the Arabic portion of the London Polyglot under the supervision of J. D. Carlyle (Newcastle, 1811). In 1858 the Gospels, in 1860 the New Testament, in 1865 the Old Testament appeared in the new translation begun by the American missionary Eli Smith (q.v.) and finished by C. V. A. Van Dyck at Beirut, with the help of native scholars. It has been frequently reprinted in Beirut, Oxford, London, and New York. In competition with this translation are two from Roman Catholics, the one undertaken by the Dominicans of Mosul under the direction of Joseph David (4 vols., 1875-78), the other by the Jesuits in Beirut (3 vols., 1876-82; reproduced by photolithography in 1 vol., 1897; cf. on these editions Kahle, iii sqq.; A. G. Ellis, Catalogue of Arabic Books in the British Museum, London, 1894 sqq.; the Bible Catalogue of the same library; and Darlow-Moule, Historical Catalogue of the Collection of the BFBS, ii, London, 1908). Independent translations of the New Testament are those of Salomo Negri (London, 1727) and of Nathanael Sabat (Calcutta, 1816). There is also an edition of the Psalms by Negri (London, 1725; cf. G. A. Freylinghausen, Memoria Negriana, Halle, 1764).
From the Syriac Bible is the text of Judges, Ruth, Samuel, I Kings i-xi, II Kings ii, 17 to the end, Chronicles, Neh. ix, 28 to end, and Job in the Paris and London Polyglots. The first four books are, according to Rodiger, by the same author, the rest by different authors. Psalms, Proverbs, and Job have been reissued by Lagarde (Psalterium, etc., ut sup.) and the whole with few alterations by the BFBS (1811, ut sup.). A Psalter in Syriac and Arabic in Syriac letters (the so-called Karshunic script; i.e., Gersom's manner of writing) was printed by Maronite monks of Mount Lebanon at Kozchaya, 1610 (perhaps as early as 1585), and reprinted m Arabic type by Lagarde. Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy in the Materialien of Lagarde seem to have been derived from the Syriac Bible. A translation of the Syriac Hexapla of the Pentateuch and Wisdom is the work of Hareth ben Senan ben Sabat (cf. Nestle, in ZDMO, 1878, p. 468; Holmes-Parsons, Projfatio ad Pentateuchum,
and Kahle, ut sup., ix). The fragments of Job were edited by Baudissin, 1870.
From the Greek are translated the prophets and the poetical books (except Job) in the Polyglots, perhaps also the Psalms as edited by Athanasius, patriarch of Antioch (Aleppo, 1706), reprinted by Lagarde with a translation of the tenth century by Abu al-Fath Abdallah ben Fadhl.
Gregory (Textkritik, Leipsic, 1902) mentions 137 Arabic manuscripts for the New Testament. On no. 136, cf. Stenij, Die altarabische Uebersetzung der Briefe an die Hebraer, an die Homer und an die Korinther (Helsingfors, 1901). For the manuscripts on Mount Sinai, cf. the catalogue of Mrs. M. D. Gibson, in Studia Sinaitica, iii (Cambridge, 1894), and her publication of a part of an Arabic translation of the Epistles of St. Paul in no. ii (1893) of the same collection; also in no. vii (1899), an Arabic translation of Acts and of the seven Catholic Epistles from an eighth or ninth century manuscript. On the revision of the Arabic made about 250 at Alexandria by Hibath Allah ibn al-Assaly with various readings from the Greek, the Syriac, and the Coptic, cf. D. B. Macdonald, in the Hartford Seminary Record, Apr., 1893. Finally, the Arabic version of Tatian's Diatessaron (ed. Ciasca, Rome, 1888) must not be forgotten. E. Nestle.
Bibliography: On the MSS. the one indispensable book is I. Guidi, he traducioni degli evangelii in arabo . . , Rome, 1888; and valuable is also C. R. Gregory, Prolegomena, iii, 928-947, Leipsic, 1894. On the version and editions consult: Walton's Polyglot, Prolegomena, chap. 14, London, 1652; C. F. Schnurrer, Bibliotheca arabica, de Pentateucho arabico . . , Tubingen, 1780; H. E. G. Paulus, Commentatio critica, Jena, 1789; R. Holmes, Vetus Testamentum Greece, the Preface to the Pentateuch, Oxford, 1798; J. Roediger, Commentatio . de interpretatione Arabica , Halle, 1824; idem, De origine
. Arabica interpretationis, ib. 1829; J. Gilde-
meister, De evangeliis in Arabicum . translatis, Bonn, 1865; Gregory, Textkritik; Scrivener, Introduction, ii, 161- 164; F. C. Burkitt, in DB, i, 136-138 (a lucid presentation). , ,
II. Celtic Versions: No version of the Bible or of single Biblical books in any of the Celtic dialects has come down from the pre-Reformation period, though a few Biblical extracts in Old Irish (8th-llth centuries) are extant in homilies. After the establishment of the English Church in 1560 as the State Church, Bishop Nicholas Walsh of Ossory and others made an effort toward giving the Bible to the Irish people, and the New Testament, translated by William O'Donnell, archbishop of Tuam, was published at Dublin in 1603 in Irish characters. This edition was republished at London in 1681, and in 1685 the Old Testament, translated by Bishop William Bedell of Kilmore and others, was issued. This edition was often reprinted, especially in a revised form by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1827. A translation of the New Testament into the modern dialect of Munster by Dr. R. O'Kane appeared at Dublin, 1858. Of the Roman Catholic translation prepared by Archbishop John MacHale of Tuam from the Vulgate, the first volume only (Genesis-Joshua) has appeared (Tuam, 1861). Gaelic, which is spoken in the Highlands and westem isles of Scotland, is related to Irish; consequently the Scottish minister Robert Kirke, in order to satisfy the needs of the Protestant Highlanders, had O'Donnell's Irish translation of the New Testament printed in Roman letters and supplied with an Irish-Gaelic glossary (London, 1690). To provide the Gaelic-speaking Highlanders with a Bible of their own, the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge published in 1767 the New Testament translated by James Stuart of
Bible Versions