VERSIONS OF THE SCRIPTURES shuns ov skrip'ttirs), a general name for transla tions of the Scriptures Into other languages than the original.
Versions are immediate or mediate, according as they are made directly from the original text or through the medium of other translations. Four ancient immediate versions of the Old Tes tament have come down to modern times : the Septuagint, the Targums of Onkelos and Jona than ben Uzziel, the Syriac Peshito with a consid erable portion of its predecessors, and the Latin Vulgate. They derive special value from the fact that they were made before the Hebrew text of the Masoretes was established.
1. Arabic. The Arabic versions which are extant are late and are of no critical importance. (Davis, Bib. Dict.) 2. Armenian. Armenian literature begins with Miesrob, the inventor of the Armenian al phabet, at the commencement of the fifth century. Before that time, the Armenians employed the Syriac letters. After making an alphabet, Mies rob, assisted by two of his pupils, undertook a translation of the Bible, which he completed in A. D. 4ro. The Old Testament part was made from the Greek: in the book of Daniel, from Theodotion; and the text of the Seventy which it follows appears to have been a mixed one, for it agrees with none of the leading recensions. It is said to have been interpolated in the sixth century from the Peshito; but this is doubtful. Gregory Bar Hebrxus gives it as a mere con jecture. (Wiseman, Syriaca', p. 142.) La Croze, Michaelis, and Bredenkainp think that it was altered from the Vulgate in the thirteenth century; but Alter and Holmes are opposed to that idea. The probability is on the side of the former. In the New Testament it was made from the original; but here too it is said to have been adapted to the Peshito. It is likely that it has been, at least in this part, conformed to the Vulgate by Haitho or Hethom, who reigned over the lesser Armenia and Cilicia from A. D. 1224 till 1270. This entire version was first pub lished by Bishop Uscan or Osgan, at Amsterdam, in 1776, quarto, who is also accused of interpolat ing it. The best edition is that of Dr. Zohrab, published at Venice A. D. 18o5, quarto, for which he consulted sixty-nine MSS. This edi
tion was collated for the Greek Testament pre pared by Scholz, who thinks that if we possessed the genuine version, we should find its text to be a compound of the Constantinopolitan and Alex andrian families.
3. Chaldee. See VERSIONS OF THE SCRIP TURES, II, The Targins.
4. Egyptian. Alter the of Alexander the Great, the Greeks multiplied in Egypt, and ob tained important places of trust near the throne of the Ptolemies. The Greek language accordingly began to diffuse itself from the court among people, so that the proper language of the country was either forced to adapt itself to the Greek, as well in construction as in the adoption of new words, or was entirely supplanted. In this way originated the Coptic, compounded of the old Egyptian and the Greek. There is a version in the dialect of Lower Egypt usually called the Coptic, or better the Mcniphitic version; and there is another in the dialect of Upper Egypt, termed the Saltidic, and sometimes the Thebaic.
(1) The Memphitie Version. The Old Tes tament in this version has been taken from the Septuagint, and not the original Hebrew. It would appear from Miinter (Specim. verss. Dan. Coptic. Romx, 1786), that the original was the Hcsychion recension of the Seventy, then current in the coun try. There is little doubt that all the Old tament books were translated into the Coptic dialect, although many of them have not yet been discovered. The Pentateuch was published by Wilkins (London, 1731, 4to) : the Psalms at Rome (1744 and 1749) by the Propaganda So ciety. A small part of Jeremiah (ix:17, to xiii.) was published by Mingarelli at Bologna (1785), and the ninth chapter of Daniel, in bunter's work. Gregory Bar Hebrwus quotes the version in the book of Psalms; and it seems to have been well known to the Syrians. (\Viseman's Hartz Syriac-a', pp. The New Testament, made from the original Greek, was published by Wil kins, at Oxford, with a Latin translation (A. D. 1716). Its readings, as may be inferred from the place where it was made. coincide with the Alex andrine family, and deserve the attention of the critic. Unfortunately the version is not yet cor rectly edited. It belongs to the third century.