Syriac versions of the Bible

From Textus Receptus

The Syriac Bible of Paris, Moses before pharaoh

Syria played an important or even predominate role in the beginning of Christianity. Here was written Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Luke, Didache, Ignatiana, Gospel of Thomas. Syria was the country in which the Greek language intersected with the Syriac. Syriac was the language in close relationship to the Aramaic dialect used by Jesus and Apostles. That is the reason for which Syriac Versions are high estimed by textual critics. Scholars have distinguished five or six different Syriac versions of all or part of the New Testament. It is possible some translations were lost. The majority of the manuscripts are held now in British Library, and other European libraries. They came from countries like Lebanon, Egypt, Sinai, Mesopotamia, Armenia, India, and even from China. It is good evidence of the great activity of the Syriac church in its history.

Diatessaron

See Also Diatessaron

The earliest translation of the gospels into Syriac, and the earliest translation of any New Testament text from Greek, seems to have been the Diatessaron, a harmony of the four canonical gospels (perhaps with a non-extant fifth text) prepared about AD 170 by Tatian in Rome. Although no text of the Diatessaron survives, its foremost witness is a prose commentary on it by Ephrem the Syrian. Although there are many so-called manuscript witnesses to the Diatessaron, they all differ from each other, and, ultimately only witness to the enduring popularity of such harmonies. Many medieval European harmonies draw on Codex Fuldensis.

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 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. These fragments were examined by William Cureton and edited by him in 1858. The manuscript is dated paleographically to the 5th century. It is called Curetonian Syriac, and designated by Syr^c.

The second manuscript it is a palimpsest discovered by Agnes Smith Lewis in the Monastery of St. Catherine in 1892 at Mount Sinai, called Sinaitic Syriac, and designated by Syr^s. This version was made at the end of the 2nd century. It was known for Ephrem the Syrian, and it was cited by him. It is a representative of the Western text-type.

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.^[1]

In early February, 2009, a third book was found in the possession of suspected antiquity smugglers in northern Cyprus. They found what 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 the manuscript, and whether it was an original or a fake.^[2]

Peshitta

Rabbula Gospels, Eusebian Canons

See Also Peshitta The term Peshitta was used by Moses bar Kepha in 903. and means "simple" (analogy of Latin Vulgate). 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 (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, bishop of Edessa (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, but in Acts to the Western text-type. It is designated by Syr^p.

The earliest manuscript of Peshitta is a Pentateuch dated A.D. 464. There are two New Testament manuscripts of the 5th century.

Later Syriac versions

Philoxenian, probably was produced in 508 for Philoxenus, Bishop of Mabbug in eastern Syria. This translaton 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 syr^ph. Harclensis is designated by syr^h. It is represented by some 35 manuscripts dating from the seventh century and later; they show kinship with the Western text-type.

According to some scholars the Philoxenian and Harclensis are only recentions of Peshitta, according to the others they are independent new translations.

About A.D. 500 a Palestinian Syriac version in the Palestinian dialect was made. It contains 2 Peter, 2 John-3 John, Jude, and Apocalypse. It is a representative of the Caesarean text-type 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 Syr^pal.

References

1. B. Metzger, Bart D. Ehrman, The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Oxford University Press, Nowy Jork — Oxford 2005, pp. 97-98.
2. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090206/lf_nm_life/us_cyprus_bible

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

Bibliography

Kurt Aland, and Barbara Aland, The Text of the New Testament: An Introduction to the Critical Editions and to the Theory and Practice of Modern Textual Criticism, 1995, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
F.G. Kenyon, Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts (4th ed.), London 1939.
Bruce Metzger, The Early Versions of the New Testament, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1977, pp. 3-98.
M. Black, K. Aland, Die alten Übersetzungen des Neuen Testaments, die Kirchenväterzitate und Lektionare: der gegenwärtige Stand ihrer Erforschung und ihre Bedeutung für die griechische Textgeschichte, Wissenschaftliche Beirat des Instituts für neutestamentliche Textforschung, Berlin 1972.
W. Wright, Catalogue of the Syriac Manuscripts in the British Museum, Gorgias Press LLC 2002.

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