ARABIC VERSIONS. As Christianity never attained any extensive or permanent influence among the Arabs as a nation, no entire nor pub licly sanctioned Arabic version of the Bible has been discovered. But, as political events at length made the Arabic language the common vehicle of instruction in the East, and that to Jews, Sama ritans, and Christians, independent versions of single books were often undertaken, according to the zeal of private persons, or the interests of small communities. The following is a classified list of only the most important among them : I. Arabic versions formed immediately on the original texts.
A. Rabbi Saadjah Haggatin, a native of Faijum, and rector of the academy at Sora, who died A.D. 942, is the author of a version of some portions of the Old Testament. Erpenius and Pocock, indeed, affirm that he translated the whole (Walton's Pro legomena, ed. Wrangham, ii. 546); but subsequent inquirers have not hitherto been able, with any certainty, to assign to him more than a version of the Pentateuch, of Isaiah, of Job, and of a portion of Hosea.
That of the Pentateuch first appeared, in Hebrew characters, in the folio Tetraglott Pentateuch of Constantinople, in the year 1546. The exact title of this exceedingly rare book is not given by Wolf, by Masch, nor by De Rossi (it is said to be found in Adler's Biblisch-kritische Reise, p. 221); but, ac cording to the title of it which O. G. Tychsen cites from Rabbi Shabtai (in Eichhorn's Repo- torium, x. 96), Saadjah's name is expressly mentioned there as the author of that Arabic version. Nearly a century later an Arabic version of the Pentateuch was printed in the Polyglott of Paris, from a MS. be longing to F. Savary de Breves; and the text thus obtained was then reprinted in the London Poly glott, with a collection of the various readings of the Constantinopolitan text, and of another MS. in the appendix. For it was admitted that Saadjah was the author of the Constantinopolitan version ; and the identity of that text with that of the Paris Polyglott was maintained by Pocock (who never theless acknowledged frequent interpolations in the latter), and had been confirmed even by the colla tion which J. H. Hottinger had instituted to estab lish their diversity. The identity of all these texts was thus considered a settled point, and long remained so, until J. D. Michaelis published (in his Orient. ix. 155, sg.) a copy of a Latin note which Jos. Ascari had prefixed to the very MS. of De Breves, from which the Paris Polyglott
had derived its Arabic version. That note ascribed the version to ` Saidus Fajuinensis, Monachus Cop titcs; ' and thus Saadjah's claim to be considered the author of the version in the Polyglotts was again liable to question. At length, however, Schnurrer (in his Dissertat. de Pentat. Arab. Polygl. in his Desert. Philologico-criticeo) printed the Arabic preface of that MS., proved that there was no foundation for the Monachus Coptites,' and en deavoured to shew that Sa'id was the Arabic equi valent to the Hebrew Sa'adjah, and to re-establish the ancient opinion of the identity of the two texts. The results which he obtained appear (with the exception of a feeble attempt of O. G. Tychsen to ascribe the version to Abu Sa'id, in the Repertorizem) to have convinced most modern critics ; and indeed they have received much confirmation by the ap pearance of the version of Isaiah. This version of the Pentateuch, which is an honourable monument of the Rabbinical Biblical philology of the tenth century, possesses, in the independence of its tone, and in some peculiarities of interpretation, the marks of having been formed on the original text. It leans, of course, to Jewish exegetical authorities generally; but often follows the Sept., and as often appears to express views peculiar to its author. Carpzov has given numerous examples of its mode of interpretation in his Crit. Sacr. p. 646, sq. It is also marked by a certain loose and paraphrastic style of rendering, which makes it more useful in an exegetical than in a critical point of view. It is difficult, however, to determine how much of this diffuseness is due to Saadjah himself. For, not only is the printed text of his version more faulty, in this respect, than a Florentine MS., some of the readings of which Adler has given in Eichhorn's Einleit. ins A. T. ii. 245; but it has suffered a systematic interpolation. A comparison of the Constantinopolitan text with that of the Polyglotts shows that where the former retains those terms of the Hebrew in which action or passion is ascribed to God—the so-called dv0pwrordOetac—the latter has the ' Angel of God,' or some other mode of evading direct expressions. These interpolations are ascribed by Eichhom to a Samaritan source; for Morinus and Hottinger assert that the custom of omitting or evading the anthropomorphisms of the Hebrew text is a characteristic of the Samaritan versions.