L10 Other Ancient Versions

1. Greek and Latin versions of the Bible dominated in imperial regions, other ancient versions also show how Christianity spread geographically and linguistically. We have heard the complex history of the Syriac version in Syria and the Coptic version in Egypt. Other translations show that the Bible was part of other populations in the ancient world.

2. In the East, three translations are important: Armenian, Georgian, and Ethiopian.

   1. Armenian: first kingdom to officially welcome Christianity: Gregory the Illuminator 240-332 baptized the king about 300 C.E. and Christianity was made the state religion. Armenian Christians tended toward Monophysitism. Translations of the Bible into Armenian was also the beginning of Armenian literature: the bible was the first written text in their otherwise oral language. To write the text, an alphabet of 36 letters was created. The text used was the Syriac version and then revised in comparison with the Greek manuscript. The Armenian Bible contained texts not in the Bible we use, such as the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs and the Epistle of the Corinthians to Paul.

   2. In Georgia in the south Caucasus region Christianity dates in the 4^th Century through the evangelizing of a slave woman named Nina. The Church in Georgia may have been influenced by Jewish Christianity but was thoroughly Orthodox. Also here an alphabet for the Georgian language was developed in order to translate the Gospels and other parts of the New Testament into the language of the people.

   3. The Ethiopian church began by two missionaries, Frumentius and Edesius of Tyre, sent there as prisoners. Ethiopian Bible was translated from the Greek in 5^th or 6^th century.

3. Other expansions of Christianity beyond the boundaries of the empire are known in Arabia (3^rd century with several Arabic translations); Persia by the 3^rd and 4^th century; Eastern Trukestan and Central Asia used a common Asian language, Sogdian, like Greek was used in the Greco-Roman empire.

4. In addition to the Latin Vulgate, other versions of the Bible appeared in the West in native languages: the Gothic language was used between the Danube and Black Sea by Visigoths and Ostrogoths. Missionary work among the Goths by the 3^rd century and the bible was here translated in Gothic…again with the invention of a Gothic alphabet.

5. Slavic peoples were subject to the Christian mission by 6^th century. Here again the Slavic alphabet was invented and the bible and other liturgical works written in Slavonic.

6. Great Britain had Celtic and Roman missionaries by the 4^th and 5^th centuries. The earliest translating into Anglo-Saxon was 7^th-8^th C.

7. Christianity entered the Rhine River region with the baptism of King Clovis in 496 and correspondingly German translations were done.