Bible translations (Arabic)

Translations of the Bible into Arabic are known from the early Christian churches in Syria, Egypt, Malta and Spain. Some of these translations are from Syriac (the Peshitta), Coptic or Latin.

There are many New Testament translations or portions into regional colloquial forms of Arabic e.g. Egyptian Arabic, Sudanese Arabic, Palestinian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic and Chadian Arabic etc.

Old translations

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. The manuscript called Mt. Sinai Arabic Codex 151, was created in AD 867 in Damascus by someone named Bishr Ibn Al Sirri. Although it is a large, bound book, it only contains the Book of Acts and the Epistles, translated from Aramaic (Syriac). It includes the biblical text, marginal comments, lectionary notes, and glosses.

The Codex Arabicus from Saint Catherine's Monastery is a palimpsest containing (among other texts) John 9:16-38 in Arabic, from around AD 900.

The earliest fragment of the Old Testament in Arabic is a text of Psalm 77, found in the Umayyad Mosque. Initially it was dated to the end of the 8th century by Bruno Violet, the scholar who discovered the fragments in 1901. However recent research has paleographically dated this manuscript to late 9th- and early 10th century due to new discoveries of photographs.

Translating the tetragrammaton and "Lord"

Most Arabic translations have translated Yahweh (יהוה), the Hebrew name of God (LORD or Jehovah in English / Kyrios in Greek), as Allāh or Ar-rabb ( or , respectively). These are similar to the appellations utilized by Muslims in Classical Arabic, but the term Ar-rabb is quite distinct from Muslim usage, which normally does not use the definite article, instead predominantly making use of a vocative without an article or affixed possessive pronoun. The Aramaic Mār / Mōr (teacher or lord) is translated as Rabb or Sayyid ( or , respectively). There are many cases where an etymological root exists between an Arabic word and the original Hebrew or Aramaic text, yet it is translated into a colloquial or a commonly used word instead.

Mozarabic

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. It is assumed that the Bible was also translated in its entirety by the Christians of Al-Andalus. Most of the translations date to the twelfth century or later, although a few are as early as the tenth century. One of these manuscripts is still kept at the Qarawiyyin Library in Fez is a 12th-century Mozarab parchment containing the gospels of John. Ishaq ibn Balask of Cordoba translated the gospels into Arabic in 946. Hafs ibn Albar made a translation of the Psalms in 889.

Jewish

In the 10th century AD Saadia Gaon wrote a '' Tafsir'', an Arabic translation of the Torah and some other Biblical books with a commentary. These were written in Hebrew characters (Judaeo-Arabic). Much of the commentary is lost, but the translation of the Torah and several other books has survived intact, and even serves as part of the liturgy of Yemenite Jews, who read the Torah in the synagogue with each Hebrew verse translated twice: first to the Aramaic targum and then to Saadia's ''Tafsir''.

As the language of Saadia Gaon's translation became archaic and remote from common speech, most Jewish communities of the Arab world evolved their own translations of the Torah into their local dialects of Judaeo-Arabic. A traditional translation of this kind is known as a ''sharħ'' (plural ''shurūħ''), from the Arabic word for "explanation". These translations were generally used for teaching purposes rather than in the synagogue, and many of them were printed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Later Christian translations

17th century

In 1671 the Catholic Church published the whole Bible at Rome. 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. Francis Britius aided the translation.

19th century

One of the earliest modern translations to Arabic was at the initiative of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Around 1846, the Society commanded this work to the Orientalist Samuel Lee (1783–1852). Rev. Dr. Lee invited to Cambridge the Lebanese scholar Ahmad Faris Shidyaq to participate in the translation. The translation of the Bible was published in 1857, after the death of Samuel Lee, thanks to his pupil and friend Professor Thomas Jarrett. This translation is still considered one of the best Arabic translations of the Bible.

The most popular translation is the Van Dyck Version, funded by the Syrian Mission and the American Bible Society. The project was the brainchild of Eli Smith, and started around 1847, centered in Beirut. After Eli Smith's death it was completed under the direction of Cornelius Van Alen Van Dyck

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