Syriac versions of the Bible
Encyclopedia
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
played an important or even predominant role in the beginning of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. Here were written the Gospel of Matthew
Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...
, the Gospel of Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
, the Didache
Didache
The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is a brief early Christian treatise, dated by most scholars to the late first or early 2nd century...
, Ignatiana, and the Gospel of Thomas
Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel According to Thomas, commonly shortened to the Gospel of Thomas, is a well preserved early Christian, non-canonical sayings-gospel discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in December 1945, in one of a group of books known as the Nag Hammadi library...
. Syria was the country in which the Greek language
Koine Greek
Koine Greek is the universal dialect of the Greek language spoken throughout post-Classical antiquity , developing from the Attic dialect, with admixture of elements especially from Ionic....
intersected with the Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...
, which was closely related to the Aramaic
Aramaic language
Aramaic is a group of languages belonging to the Afroasiatic language phylum. The name of the language is based on the name of Aram, an ancient region in central Syria. Within this family, Aramaic belongs to the Semitic family, and more specifically, is a part of the Northwest Semitic subfamily,...
dialect used by Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
and the Apostles. That is the reason for which Syriac versions are highly esteemed by textual critics.
Scholars have distinguished five or six different Syriac versions of all or part of the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
. It is possible some translations were lost. The majority of the manuscripts are held now in British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
, and other European libraries. They came from countries like Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Sinai, Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
, Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
, Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, and even from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. It is good evidence of the great activity of the Syriac church
Church of the East
The Church of the East tāʾ d-Maḏnḥāʾ), also known as the Nestorian Church, is a Christian church, part of the Syriac tradition of Eastern Christianity. Originally the church of the Persian Sassanid Empire, it quickly spread widely through Asia...
in its history.
Diatessaron
The earliest translation of the gospels into Syriac. Syriac is Greek word for the language spoken by the Syrians, Syriac was an Aramaic dialect spoken in Syria and was almost the same as the Aramaic spoken by Christ. The earliest translation of any New Testament text from Greek, seems to have been the DiatessaronDiatessaron
The Diatessaron is the most prominent Gospel harmony created by Tatian, an early Christian apologist and ascetic. The term "diatessaron" is from Middle English by way of Latin, diatessarōn , and ultimately Greek, διὰ τεσσάρων The Diatessaron (c 160 - 175) is the most prominent Gospel harmony...
, a harmony of the four canonical gospels (perhaps with a non-extant fifth text) prepared about AD 170 by Tatian
Tatian
Tatian the Assyrian was an Assyrian early Christian writer and theologian of the 2nd century.Tatian's most influential work is the Diatessaron, a Biblical paraphrase, or "harmony", of the four gospels that became the standard text of the four gospels in the Syriac-speaking churches until the...
in Rome. Although no text of the Diatessaron survives, its foremost witness is a prose commentary on it by Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian was a Syriac and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is venerated by Christians throughout the world, and especially in the Syriac Orthodox Church, as a saint.Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as...
. Although there are many so-called manuscript witnesses to the Diatessaron, they all differ, and, ultimately only witness to the enduring popularity of such harmonies. Many medieval European harmonies draw on Codex Fuldensis
Codex Fuldensis
The Codex Fuldensis, designated by F, is a New Testament manuscript based on the Latin Vulgate made between 541 and 546. The codex is considered the second most important witness to the Vulgate text; and is also the oldest complete manuscript witness to the order of the Diatessaron. It is an...
.
The Old Syriac
The Old Syriac version of the four Gospels is preserved today only in two manuscripts, both with a large number of gaps.The Curetonian Gospels
Curetonian Gospels
The Curetonian Gospels, designated by the siglum syrcur, are contained in a manuscript of the four gospels of the New Testament in Old Syriac, a translation from the Aramaic originals, according to William Cureton differing considerably from the canonical Greek texts, with which they had been...
consists of fragments of the four Gospels. It was brought in 1842 from the Nitrian Desert in Egypt, and now held in the British Library
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom, and is the world's largest library in terms of total number of items. The library is a major research library, holding over 150 million items from every country in the world, in virtually all known languages and in many formats,...
. These fragments were examined by William Cureton
William Cureton
-Life:He was born in Westbury, Shropshire. After being educated at the Adams' Grammar School in Newport, Shropshire and at Christ Church, Oxford, he took orders in 1832, became chaplain of Christ Church, sublibrarian of the Bodleian, and, in 1837, assistant keeper of manuscripts in the British Museum...
and edited by him in 1858. The manuscript is dated paleographically to the 5th century. It is called Curetonian Syriac, and designated by Syrc.
The second manuscript it is a palimpsest
Palimpsest
A palimpsest is a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again. The word "palimpsest" comes through Latin palimpsēstus from Ancient Greek παλίμψηστος originally compounded from πάλιν and ψάω literally meaning “scraped...
discovered by Agnes Smith Lewis in the Monastery of St. Catherine
Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai
Saint Catherine's Monastery lies on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of a gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai in the city of Saint Catherine in Egypt's South Sinai Governorate. The monastery is Orthodox and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site...
in 1892 at Mount Sinai, called Sinaitic Syriac, and designated by Syrs. This version was known by Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian
Ephrem the Syrian was a Syriac and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is venerated by Christians throughout the world, and especially in the Syriac Orthodox Church, as a saint.Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as...
, and cited by him, thus suggesting a date of composition at the end of the 2nd century. It is a representative of the Western text-type
Western text-type
The Western text-type is one of several text-types used in textual criticism to describe and group the textual character of Greek New Testament manuscripts...
.
These two manuscript represent only Gospels. The text of Acts and the Pauline Epistles has not survived to the our time. We know it only from citations made by Eastern fathers. The text of Acts was reconstructed by F. C. Conybeare, the text of the Pauline Epistles by J. Molitor. They used Ephrem's commentaries.
In early February, 2009, a third book was found in the possession of suspected antiquity smugglers in northern Cyprus. It appears to be a Syriac bible from about 2000 years ago. The manuscript carries bible excerpts written on vellum in gold lettering. One page has a drawing of a tree, and another eight lines of Syriac script. It was loosely strung together. Experts are divided over this manuscript, and whether it was an original or a fake.
Peshitta
The term Peshitta
Peshitta
The Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition.The Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from the Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD...
was used by Moses bar Kepha in 903. and means "simple" (analogy of Latin Vulgate
Vulgate
The Vulgate is a late 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was largely the work of St. Jerome, who was commissioned by Pope Damasus I in 382 to make a revision of the old Latin translations...
). It is the oldest Syriac version survived to the present day in its entirety.
It contains 22 books of New Testament, lacking the shorter General epistles
General epistles
General epistles are books in the New Testament in the form of letters. They are termed "general" because for the most part their intended audience seems to be Christians in general rather than individual persons or congregations as is the case with the Pauline epistles...
(2-3 John, 2 Peter, Jude, as well as John 7:53-8:11).
It was made in the beginning of the 5th century. Authorship was ascribed to Rabbula
Rabbula
Rabbula was a bishop of Edessa from 411 to August 435, noteworthy for his opposition to the views of Theodore of Mopsuestia, as well as those of Nestorius...
, bishop of Edessa
Edessa, Mesopotamia
Edessa is the Greek name of an Aramaic town in northern Mesopotamia, as refounded by Seleucus I Nicator. For the modern history of the city, see Şanlıurfa.-Names:...
(411-435). The Syriac church still uses it in the present day.
More than 350 manuscripts survived, several of which date from the 5th and 6th centuries.
In the Gospels it is closer to the Byzantine text-type
Byzantine text-type
The Byzantine text-type is one of several text-types used in textual criticism to describe the textual character of Greek New Testament manuscripts. It is the form found in the largest number of surviving manuscripts, though not in the oldest...
, but in Acts to the Western text-type
Western text-type
The Western text-type is one of several text-types used in textual criticism to describe and group the textual character of Greek New Testament manuscripts...
. It is designated by Syrp.
The earliest manuscript of Peshitta is a Pentateuch dated AD 464. There are two New Testament manuscripts of the 5th century (Codex Phillipps 1388
Codex Phillipps 1388
Codex Phillipps 1388, Syriac manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. It contains the text of the four Gospels. Palaeographically it had been assigned to the 5th/6th centuries...
).
Some manuscripts
- British Library, Add. 14479British Library, Add. 14479British Library, Add. 14479, Syriac manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. It is dated by a colophon to the year 534. It is one of the oldest manuscript of Peshitta and the earliest dated Peshitta Apostolos.- Description :...
— the earliest dated Peshitta Apostolos. - British Library, Add. 14459British Library, Add. 14459British Library, Add. 14459, Syriac manuscript of the New Testament, on a parchment. It is dated by a colophon to the year 528-529 or 537-538 . It is one of the oldest manuscript of Peshitta and the earliest dated manuscript containing two of the Gospels in Syriac...
— the oldest dated Syriac manuscript of the two Gospels - British Library, Add. 14470British Library, Add. 14470British Library, Add. 14470, Syriac manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 5th or 6th century...
— the whole Peshitta text from the fifth/sixth century - British Library, Add. 14448 — the major part of Peshitta from the 699/700
Later Syriac versions
The Philoxenian probably was produced in 508 for Philoxenus, Bishop of Mabbug in eastern Syria. This translation contains the five books not found in the Peshitta: 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and the Apocalypse. This translation survived only in short fragments. It is designated by syrph. Harclensis is designated by syrh. It is represented by some 35 manuscripts dating from the 7th century and later; they show kinship with the Western text-type.According to some scholars the Philoxenian and Harclensis are only recensions of Peshitta, but according to the others they are independent new translations.
About AD 500 a Palestinian Syriac version in the Palestinian dialect was made. It contains 2 Peter, 2-3 John, Jude, and Apocalypse. It is a representative of the Caesarean text-type
Caesarean text-type
Caesarean text-type is the term proposed by certain scholars to denote a consistent pattern of variant readings that is claimed to be apparent in certain Greek manuscripts of the four Gospels, but which is not found in any of the other commonly recognized New Testament text-types; the Byzantine...
and is a unique translation different from any other which was made into Syriac.
In 1892 Agnes Smith Lewis discovered the manuscript of the Palestinian Syriac lectionary in the library of the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai.
It is designated by Syrpal.
See also
- Church of the EastChurch of the EastThe Church of the East tāʾ d-Maḏnḥāʾ), also known as the Nestorian Church, is a Christian church, part of the Syriac tradition of Eastern Christianity. Originally the church of the Persian Sassanid Empire, it quickly spread widely through Asia...
- Syro-hexaplar versionSyro-hexaplar versionThe Syro-hexaplar version is the Syriac translation of the Septuagint, as revised by Origen of Alexandria in his Hexapla....
- List of the Syriac New Testament manuscripts
Other versions
- Coptic versions of the BibleCoptic versions of the BibleThere have been many Coptic versions of the Bible, including some of the earliest translations into any language. Several different versions were made in the ancient world, with different editions of the Old and New Testament in all four of the major dialects of Coptic: Bohairic , Fayyumic, Sahidic...
External links
- The Syriac Version, Studia Biblica et Ecclesiastica (Oxford 1891), pp. 195–208.
- Syriac Versions of the Bible at the Bible Research
- At the Encyclopedia of Textual Criticism