VERSIONS OF THE HOLY BIBLE
The Old Testament has two versions in Syriac. The simple version, the Pshitto, is called thus because its translation is plain and simple. The date of its translation, however, is subject of controversy among scholars. Some of these scholars claim that its introductory chapters were translated from the Hebrew into Syriac in the time of Solomon, son of David, and Hiram, King of Tyre. Others are of the opinion that it was translated by Asa the priest. However, both of these views are poor and refutable. Still others hold that it was translated in Jerusalem by order of King Abgar of Edessa and St. Addai the Apostle. More correctly, the Pshitto was translated by a group of christianized Jews in the first century.
The second version, the Septuagint, was rendered by St. Paul of Tal Mauzalt, 615-617, by order of Athanasius I, patriarch of Antioch after the Hexapla of Origen, i.e., the Greek translation based on six sources.1 The Septuagint translation became the scholars’ foundation for interpreting the Holy Scriptures. Bar Hebraeus often refers to it in his commentary Ausar Roze (Storehouse of Secrets) under its name in the Greek translation. He also devotes a chapter to it in his large book of grammar Semhe (The Book of Lights)2 in which he cited twelve testimonies from the books of both Testaments proving the precision of the Septuagint rather than the Pshitto in order to show the correctness of the first and also to close the gate of dispute and controversy in this matter.
Later on the reader will come across a special translation of the Psalms rendered by Simon, abbot of the Monastery of Liqin, in the first quarter of the seventh century.3
The New Testament had three translations. The first is the simple translation made at the close of the first and the beginning of the second centuries. This version contained all the books of the New Testament except the second and the third epistles of St. John, the second epistle of St. Peter, and the epistle of St. Jude. The second is the Philoxenian translation rendered by Chorepiscopus Polycarp in the care of Mar Philoxenus, metropolitan of Mabug in the year 505. The third is the Harqlensian translation from the Greek by Tuma of Harqal (Thomas of Harclea), bishop of Mabug in 616.
The two Testaments also had another translation made according to the dialect of Palestine. It is the newest of all the formerly mentioned translations of which only a few portions survive.
VERSIONS OF THE HOLY BIBLE
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