A version of Isaiah, which in the original MS. is ascribed to Saadjah, with several extrinsic evi dences of truth, and without the opposition of a single critic, appeared under the title, R. Saadie Phijztmensis yesaia Arabica e MS. Bodley. ediclit atqiee Glossar. instraxit, H. E. G. Paulus, fasc. ii., Gena, 1791, Svo. The text was-copied from a MS. written in Hebrew characters, and the difficulty of always discovering the equivalent Arabic letters into which it was to be transposed, has been one source of the inaccuracies observable in the work. Gesenius (in his yesaias, i. SS, sq.) has given a summary view of the characteristics of this version, and has shewn the great general agree ment between them and those of the version of the Pentateuch, in a manner altogether confirmatory of the belief in the identity of the authors of both.
His version of Job exists in MS. at Oxford, where Gesenius took a copy of it (yesaias, p. x.) That of Hosea is only known from the citation of ch. vi. 9, by Kimchi. See Pococke's Theolog. Works, ii. 2So.
B. The version of. Joshua which is printed in the Paris and London Polyglotts, the author and date of which are unknown.
C. The version of the whole passage from Kings xii. to 2 Kings xii. 16, inclusive, which is also found in the same Polyglott. Professor Rodi ger has collected the critical evidences which prove that this whole interval is translated from the Hebrew ; and ascribes the version to an unknown Damascene Jew of the eleventh century. Like, wise, the passage in Nehemiah, from i. to ix. 27, inclusive, as it exists in both Polyglotts, which he asserts to be the translation of a Jew (resembling that of Joshua in style), but with subsequent inter polations by a Syrian Christian. (See his work De Origine Arabice Libror. V. T. Iliston'c. beteepreta tionis, 4to.) D. The very close and almost slavish version of the Pentateuch, by some Mauritanian Jew of the thirteenth century, which Erpenius published at Leyden in 1622—the so-called Ambs E. The Samaritan Arabic version of Abu Sa'id. According to the author's preface affixed to the Paris MS. of this version (No. 4), the original of which is given in Eichhorn's Bibl. Biblioth. iii. 6, Abu Sa'id was induced to undertake it, partly by seeing the corrupt state to which ignorant copyists had reduced the version then used by the Sama ritans, and partly by discovering that the version which they used, under the belief that it was that of Abu'l Hasan of Tyre was in reality none other than that of Saadjah Hagga8n. His national prejudice being thus excited against an accursed Jew, and the ' manifest impiety' of some of his in terpretations, he applied himself to this transla tion, and accompanied it with notes in order to justify his renderings, to explain difficulties, and to dispute with the Jews. His version is characterized by extreme fidelity to the Samaritan text (i. e., in other words, to the Hebrew text with the differences which distinguish the Samaritan recension of it), retaining even the order of the words, and often sacrificing the proprieties of the Arabic idiom to the preservation of the very terms of the original. It is certainly not formed on the Samaritan version, although it sometimes agrees with it ; and it has such a resemblance to the version of Saadjah as implies familiarity with it, or a designed use of its assistance; and it exceeds both these in the constant avoidance of all anthropomorphic expressions. Its date is unknown, but it must have been executed between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, because it was necessarily posterior to Saadjah's version, and because the Barberini copy of it was written A. D. 1227. It is to be regretted that this version, although it would be chiefly available in determin ing the readings of the Samaritan Pentateuch, is still unpublished. It exists in MS. at Oxford (one of the copies there being the one cited by Castell in the Appendix to the London Polyglott), at Paris, Leyden, and at Rome, in the celebrated Barberini Triglott (the best description of which is in De Rossi's Specimen Var. Lect. et Chald. Estlzeris
Aa'ditanzenta, Tubingen, 1783). Portions only have been printed : the earliest by J. H. Hottinger, in his Pn2mtuathinz, p. 98 ; and the two longest by De Sacy, with an interesting dissertation, in Eich horn's Bibl. Biblioth. x., and by Van Vloten, in his Specint. Philolog. continens descrip. cod. MS.
Ingd.-Bat. Partemque Vers. Sam. Amb. Pentat., 1803.
F. A version of the Gospels, which was first printed at Rome in 1590, then in the Arabic New Testament of Erpenius in 1616, and afterwards in the Paris Polyglott (the text of which last is the one copied in that of London). The first two of these editions are derived from MSS., and the variations which distinguish the text of Paris from that of Rome are also supposed to have been obtained from a MS. The agreement and the diversity of all these texts are equally remarkable. The agree ment is so great as to prove that they all represent only one and the same version, and that one based immediately on the Greek. The diversities (exclu sive of errors of copyists) consist in the irregular changes which have been made in every one of these MSS., separately, to adapt it indiscriminately to the Peshito or Coptic versions. This surprising amalgamation is thus accounted for by Hug : When the prevalence of the Arabic language had rendered the Syriac and Coptic obsolete, the Syrians and Copts were obliged to use an Arabic version. They therefore took some translation in that language, but first adapted it to the Peshito and Memphitic versions respectively. As the Peshito and Coptic versions still continued to be read first in their churches, and the Arabic translation immediately afterwards, as a kind of Targum, it became usual to write their national versions and this amended Arabic version in parallel columns. This mere juxtaposition led to a further adulteration in each case. Afterwards, two of these MSS. which had thus suffered different adaptations, were brought together by some means, and mutually corrupted each other—by which a third text, the hybrid one of our Arabic version, was produced. The age of the original Arabic text is uncertain ; but the circum stance of its adoption by the Syrians and Copts places it near the seventh century (Bertholdt's Ezizleit. i. 692, sq.).
G. The version of the Acts, of the Epistles of Paul, of the Catholic Epistles, and of the Apo calypse, which is found in both the Polyglotts. The author is unknown, but he is supposed to have been a native of Cyrene, and the date to be the eighth or ninth century (Bertholdt, ibia'.) II. Arabic versions founded on the LXX.
A. The Polyglott version of the Prophets, which is expressly said in the inscription in the Paris MS. to have been made from the Greek by an Alexandrian priest. Its date is probably later than the tenth century.
B. That of the Psalms (according to the Syrian recension) which is printed in Justiniani's PAO. °daplum. Genoa, 1516, and in Luber PsaImo,: a Gabr. Sionita et Viet. Rome, C. That version of the Psalms which is in use by the Malkites, or Orthodox Oriental Christians, made by 'Abdallah ben al Fadhl, before the twelfth century. It has been printed at Aleppo in 17°6, in London in 1725, and elsewhere.
D. The version of the Psalms (according to the Egyptian recension) which is found in both the Polyglotts.
III. Arabic versions formed on the Peshito.
A. The Polyglott version of Job, of Chronicles, and (according to Rodiger, who ascribes them to Christian translators in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries) that of Judges, Ruth, Samuel, i Kings i. to xi. and 2 Kings xii. 17, to xxv.
B. The version of the Psalms printed at Qashaia, near Mount Lebanon, in 1610. (The Einleitungen of Eichhorn, Bertholdt, and De Wette contain ample researches, or references, for the further investigation of this extensive subject.)—J. N.