Bible translations into Arabic
Importantly, digitization has increasingly made available manuscript sources, especially those from Saint Catherine’s Monastery, the Cairo Genizah, and the Firkovitch collections.
Part of what appears to be the oldest Arabic Bible or New Testament in existence was discovered in the 19th century at Saint Catherine's Monastery.
Sinai Arabic Codex 151, was created in AD 867 in Damascus by someone named Bishr Ibn Al Sirri.
[6] However recent research has paleographically dated this manuscript to late 9th- and early 10th century due to new discoveries of photographs.
[citation needed] The Aramaic Mār / Mōr (teacher or lord) is translated as Rabb or Sayyid (رب or سيِّد, respectively).
[citation needed] The Bible texts produced by the Mozarabs which have survived to the present day are the translations of the Gospels, the Psalms and the Canons.
[13] In the 10th century AD Saadia Gaon wrote a Tafsir, an Arabic translation of the Torah and some other Biblical books with a commentary.
The translation was done under the direction of Sergius Risi, the Catholic Archbishop of Damascus, as well as of Dominican Vincenzo Candido, professor of theology at the Roman College of Saint Thomas.
The translation of the Bible was published in 1857, after the death of Samuel Lee, thanks to his pupil and friend Professor Thomas Jarrett.
[18] The most popular translation is the Van Dyck Version, funded by the Syrian Mission and the American Bible Society.
More recently, newer printings of the Van Dyck have been made which employ simplified Arabic typesetting without vertical variation.
The Van Dyck translation was done at the beginning of the revival of Modern Standard Arabic as a literary language, and consequently many of the terms coined did not enter into common use.
One indication of this is a recent edition of the Van Dyck printed by the Bible Society in Egypt, which includes a glossary of little-understood vocabulary, with around 3000 entries.
In addition to obsolete or archaic terms, this translation uses religious terminology that Muslim or other non-Christian readers may not understand (e.g. إصحاح ișḥāḥ, a Syriac borrowing meaning a chapter of the Bible; تجديف tajdīf, the word for blasphemy.)
Among the scholars who advised on the original languages are Dr. Kenneth Bailey, Dr. David King, Dr. Ghassan Khalaf, and Dr. Maurice Seale.
[21] In 1992 the Bible Society, released Today's Arabic Version, a dynamic equivalence translation designed to be as easy to understand as possible.
It is also known as the Good News Arabic (GNA) or the Ecumenical Version (الترجمة المشتركة at-tarjamah al-mushtarakah), in that it was produced by an interdenominational team of scholars and church leaders.
The result of their collective efforts was published in Beirut in March 2008 under the title The True Meaning of the Gospel of Christ (المعنى الصحيح لإنجيل المسيح al-ma‘nā aṣ-ṣaḥīḥ li’injīl al-masīḥ).
The goal of the project was a translation of the gospel message that would speak clearly to Arabic speakers unfamiliar with church terminology and traditions.
There is also a collection of 26 articles on related topics of particular interest to Arab readers, as well as introductions to each of the Gospels and Acts, illustrations and maps.
The 2nd edition of the Gospels and Acts was published in 2016, with terms for Father and Son following recommended renderings from a committee of experts, and the New Testament Epistles were also published in 2016 under the title "The Bold Proclamation of the Apostles of Christ" (البيان الصريح لحواريي المسيح al-bayān aṣ-ṣarīḥ li’ḥawāriyyī al-masīḥ).
[citation needed] Abbreviations used for these Bibles include AVD AVDDV FAOV KEH MAT SAB TMA.
