Syriac versions of the Bible

Syria played an important or even predominant role in the beginning of Christianity. Here is where the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke, the Didache, Ignatiana, and the Gospel of Thomas were written. Syria was the country in which the Greek language intersected with the Syriac, which was closely related to the Aramaic dialect used by Jesus and the Apostles. That is why Syriac versions are highly esteemed by textual critics. 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. The majority of the manuscripts are now held in the British Library and in other European libraries. They came from countries like Lebanon, Egypt, Sinai, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Georgia, India, and even from China. This is good evidence for the great historical activity of the Syriac church.

This is the earliest translation of the gospels into Syriac. Syriac is a Greek word for the language spoken by the Syrians. It was an Aramaic dialect spoken in Syria. The earliest translation of any New Testament text from Greek seems to have been the Diatessaron, a harmony of the four canonical gospels (perhaps with a non-extant fifth text) prepared about AD 170 by Tatian in Rome. Although no text of the Diatessaron survives, its foremost witness is a prose commentary on it by Ephrem 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. Many medieval European harmonies draw on the Codex Fuldensis.

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