Syriac is a dialect ofAramaic. Portions of theOld Testament were written in Aramaic and there are Aramaic phrases in theNew Testament. Syriac translations of the New Testament were among the first and date from the 2nd century. The wholeBible was translated by the 5th century. Besides Syriac, there areBible translations into other Aramaic dialects.
Syria played an important or even predominant role in the beginning ofChristianity. Here is where theGospel of Matthew, theGospel of Luke, theDidache, Ignatiana, and theGospel of Thomas are believed to have been written. Syria was the country in which theGreek language intersected with the Syriac, which was closely related to theAramaic dialect used byJesus and theApostles. That is why Syriac versions are highly esteemed by textual critics.[1]
Scholars have distinguished five or six different Syriac versions of all or part of the New Testament. It is possible that some translations have been lost. Other than Syria, the manuscripts also originate in countries likeEgypt (specifically theSinai),Iraq,Assyria,Armenia,Georgia,India, and even fromChina.[citation needed] This is good evidence for the great historical activity of the SyriacChurch of the East.[2]
This is the earliest translation of the gospels into Syriac. The earliest translation of any New Testament text from Greek seems to have been theDiatessaron, a harmony of the four canonical gospels (perhaps with a now lost fifth text) prepared about AD 170 byTatian in Rome. Although no original text of the Diatessaron survives, its foremost witness is a prose commentary on it byEphrem the Syrian. 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. Rescensions appeared in later centuries as translation of originals. Many medieval European harmonies draw on theCodex Fuldensis.[3]
The Old Syriac version translation of the four gospels orVetus Syra[4] is preserved today in only four manuscripts, both with a large number of gaps.TheCuretonian Gospels consist of fragments of the four Gospels. The text was brought in 1842 from theNitrian Desert in Egypt, and is now held in theBritish Library. These fragments were examined byWilliam Cureton and edited by him in 1858. The manuscript is dated paleographically to the 5th century. It is calledCuretonian Syriac, and is designated bySyrc.[5]
The second manuscript is apalimpsest discovered byAgnes Smith Lewis atSaint Catherine's Monastery in 1892 atMount Sinai called theSyriac Sinaiticus, and designated bySyrs. This version was known and cited byEphrem the Syrian, It is a representative of theWestern text-type.[6] Two additional manuscripts of the Old Syriac version of the gospels were published in 2016 bySebastian Brock[7] and in 2023 by Grigory Kessel,[8] respectively.
These four manuscripts represent only the Gospels. The text of Acts and the Pauline Epistles has not survived to the present. It is known only from citations made by Eastern fathers. The text of Acts was reconstructed byFrederick Cornwallis Conybeare, and the text of the Pauline Epistles by J. Molitor. They used Ephrem's commentaries.[9]
The termPeshitta was used by Moses bar Kepha in 903 and means "simple" (in analogy to the LatinVulgate). It is the oldest Syriac version which has survived to the present day in its entirety. It contains the entire Old Testament, most (?) of the deuterocanonical books, as well as 22 books of the New Testament, lacking the shorterCatholic Epistles (2-3 John, 2 Peter, Jude, as well as John 7:53-8:11) andRevelation. It was made in the beginning of the 5th century. Its authorship was ascribed toRabbula, bishop ofEdessa (411–435). The Syriac church still uses it to 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 theByzantine text-type, but in Acts to theWestern text-type. It is designated bySyrp.
The earliest manuscript of the Peshitta is aPentateuch dated AD 464. There are two New Testament manuscripts of the 5th century (Codex Phillipps 1388).
TheSyro-Hexaplar version is theSyriac translation of theSeptuagint based on the fifth column ofOrigen'sHexapla. The translation was made by BishopPaul of Tella, around 617, from the Hexaplaric text of the Septuagint.[10][11]
The Philoxenian was probably produced in 508 forPhiloxenus, 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 bysyrph. Harclensis is designated bysyrh. 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 thePhiloxenian andHarclensis are only recensions of Peshitta, but according to others they are independent new translations.[12]
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