Bible translations into Sogdian

Last updated

Portions of the Bible were translated into the Sogdian language in the 9th and 10th centuries. [1] All surviving manuscripts are incomplete Christian liturgical texts (psalters and lectionaries), intended for reading on Sundays and holy days. It is unknown if a whole translation of any single book of the Bible was made, although the text known as C13 may be a fragment of a complete Gospel of Matthew . [2] All but one text are written in Syriac script; only a few pages of the Book of Psalms written in Sogdian script are extant. [3]

Contents

None of the surviving Sogdian texts was translated from the original Hebrew or Greek. All but one are derived from Syriac translations, mostly from the Peshitta but with some readings in C5 that could be from the Vetus Syra or the Diatessaron . One, a text of Psalm 33 under a Greek heading, was translated from the Septuagint. A number of Sogdian translations of non-Biblical works, both Christian and Manichaean, contain Biblical quotations, but these were translated along with the works in which they are found. [2]

All surviving Sogdian Biblical texts were found in the ruins of the monastery of Bulayïq, near Turpan, which was affiliated with the Church of the East of the East Syriac rite. The Psalm 33 fragment translated from Greek probably originally belonged to the Melkite community of Tashkent in Sogdia proper. [1] [3] Biblical texts in Syriac, Middle Persian and New Persian have been found at the same site. It appears that Sogdian, the local vernacular, gradually displaced Middle Persian, the vernacular of the early missionaries, and was in turn displaced by New Persian as that language spread in Central Asia. [2] Towards the end, however, the first language of a majority of the monks of Bulayïq was Old Uyghur. [3]

The Bible has not been translated into the sole surviving descendant of Sogdian, the Yaghnobi (Neo-Sogdian) language. [4] [5]

Manuscripts

  1. Manuscript C5. A Gospel lectionary with parts of Matthew, Luke and John , but not Mark . The Biblical texts are Sogdian but the rubrics and incipits are in Syriac. [2]
  2. Bilingual Sogdian–Syriac Gospel lectionaries wherein the translation alternates phrase by phrase. [2]
  3. Manuscript C13. Two fragments from a single page show text from the beginning of Matthew in both Sogdian and Syriac. [2]
  4. Manuscript C23. A bilingual Sogdian–Syriac lectionary of the Pauline epistles. [2]
  5. A bilingual Sogdian–Syriac psalter with Syriac headings. Only the first verse of each psalm appears. [2]
  6. A fragment containing Psalm 33 in Sogdian with a Greek incipit. [2]
  7. A few psalms in Sogdian script. [3]

Notes

  1. 1 2 Dickens 2009, pp. 106–08.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Sims-Williams 1989.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Barbati 2015, p. 446.
  4. ↑ The Bible in Yaghnobi at WorldBibles.org (accessed 29 January 2019).
  5. ↑ Language: Yagnobi at the Joshua Project (accessed 29 January 2019).

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<i>Diatessaron</i> 2nd century gospel harmony by Tatian

The Diatessaron is the most prominent early gospel harmony, and was created in the Syriac language by Tatian, an Assyrian early Christian apologist and ascetic. Tatian sought to combine all the textual material he found in the four gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John - into a single coherent narrative of Jesus's life and death. However, and in contradistinction to most later gospel harmonists, Tatian appears not to have been motivated by any aspiration to validate the four separate canonical gospel accounts; or to demonstrate that, as they stood, they could each be shown as being without inconsistency or error.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manichaeism</span> Persian religion founded in the 3rd century CE

Manichaeism is a former major universal religion, founded in the 3rd century CE by the Parthian prophet Mani, in the Sasanian Empire.

The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, is called the Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as sacred scripture by Christians.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psalter</span> Volume containing the Book of Psalms

A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the emergence of the book of hours in the Late Middle Ages, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons. They were commonly used for learning to read. Many Psalters were richly illuminated, and they include some of the most spectacular surviving examples of medieval book art.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Turpan</span> Prefecture-level city in Xinjiang, Peoples Republic of China

Turpan is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. It has an area of 69,759 square kilometres (26,934 sq mi) and a population of 693,988 (2020).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sogdian alphabet</span> Alphabet for use with the Sogdian language of central Asia

The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdian language, a language in the Iranian family used by the people of Sogdia. The alphabet is derived from Syriac, a descendant script of the Aramaic alphabet. The Sogdian alphabet is one of three scripts used to write the Sogdian language, the others being the Manichaean alphabet and the Syriac alphabet. It was used throughout Central Asia, from the edge of Iran in the west, to China in the east, from approximately 100–1200 A.D.

The Sogdian language was an Eastern Iranian language spoken mainly in the Central Asian region of Sogdia, located in modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; it was also spoken by some Sogdian immigrant communities in ancient China. Sogdian is one of the most important Middle Iranian languages, along with Bactrian, Khotanese Saka, Middle Persian, and Parthian. It possesses a large literary corpus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polyglot (book)</span> Multilingual book or manuscript

A polyglot is a book that contains side-by-side versions of the same text in several different languages. Some editions of the Bible or its parts are polyglots, in which the Hebrew and Greek originals are exhibited along with historical translations. Polyglots are useful for studying the history of the text and its interpretation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bible translations into Coptic</span>

There have been many Coptic versions of the Bible, including some of the earliest translations into any language. Several different versions were made in the ancient world, with different editions of the Old and New Testament in five of the dialects of Coptic: Bohairic (northern), Fayyumic, Sahidic (southern), Akhmimic and Mesokemic (middle). Biblical books were translated from the Alexandrian Greek version.

A biblical manuscript is any handwritten copy of a portion of the text of the Bible. Biblical manuscripts vary in size from tiny scrolls containing individual verses of the Jewish scriptures to huge polyglot codices containing both the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the New Testament, as well as extracanonical works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian Palestinian Aramaic</span> Western Aramaic dialect

Christian Palestinian Aramaic (CPA) was a Western Aramaic dialect used by the Melkite Christian community in Palestine and Transjordan between the fifth and thirteenth centuries. It is preserved in inscriptions, manuscripts and amulets. All the medieval Western Aramaic dialects are defined by religious community. CPA is closely related to its counterparts, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (JPA) and Samaritan Aramaic (SA). CPA shows a specific vocabulary that is often not paralleled in the adjacent Western Aramaic dialects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agnes and Margaret Smith</span> Twin scholars and travellers

Agnes Smith Lewis (1843–1926) and Margaret Dunlop Gibson (1843–1920), nées Smith, were English Semitic scholars and travellers. As the twin daughters of John Smith of Irvine, Ayrshire, Scotland, they learned more than 12 languages between them, specialising in Arabic, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, and Syriac, and became acclaimed scholars in their academic fields, and benefactors to the Presbyterian Church of England, especially to Westminster College, Cambridge.

"They have pierced my hands and my feet", or "They pierced my hands and my feet" is a phrase that occurs in some English translations of Psalm 22:16. The text of the Hebrew Bible is obscure at this point, and Jewish and some Christian commentators translate this line differently, although there is no evidence of a deliberate mistranslation.

Arabic translations of the Bible constitute one of the richest traditions of Bible transmission. Translations of the Bible into Arabic were produced by Arabic-speaking Jews, Christians, and Samaritans. Even though Arabic was spoken by Jews and Christians before the advent of Islam, running Arabic translations of the Bible are attested in manuscripts only from the 9th century CE onwards. So far, no evidence could be adduced that Arabic Bible translations were available in the milieu in which the text of the Quran emerged, which, however, is heavily influenced by biblical and para-biblical narratives. Before that, quotations from the Bible were used in Arabic especially by Christian apologists. However, they probably were not relying on already existing translations of biblical books.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psalm 42</span> Biblical psalm

Psalm 42 is the 42nd psalm of the Book of Psalms, often known in English by its incipit, "As the hart panteth after the water brooks". The Book of Psalms is part of the third section of the Hebrew Bible, and a book of the Christian Old Testament. In the Hebrew Bible, Psalm 42 opens the second of the five books (divisions) of Psalms, also known as the "Elohistic Psalter" because the word YHWH is rarely used and God is generally referred to as "Elohim".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Syriac versions of the Bible</span>

Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic. Portions of the Old Testament were written in Aramaic and there are Aramaic phrases in the New Testament. Syriac translations of the New Testament were among the first and date from the 2nd century. The whole Bible was translated by the 5th century. Besides Syriac, there are Bible translations into other Aramaic dialects.

The earliest known Christian texts in Old Uyghur are known from manuscript fragments uncovered in the Turfan oasis. There are approximately fifty fragments written in Old Uyghur. An early Uyghur translation of the New Testament and the Psalms may have been done in the 14th century by Giovanni da Montecorvino, papal envoy to the Mongols who became Roman Catholic archbishop of Khanbaliq in 1307.

Lectionary 311 (Gregory-Aland), designated by siglum ℓ311 is a bilingual Greek–Arabic manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. Palaeographically it has been assigned to the 12th century. The manuscript has survived in a fragmentary condition.

The Bible was translated into Old Nubian during the period when Christianity was dominant in Nubia. Throughout the Middle Ages, Nubia was divided into separate kingdoms: Nobadia, Makuria and Alodia. Old Nubian may be regarded was the standard written form in all three kingdoms. Of the living Nubian languages, it is modern Nobiin which is the closest to Old Nubian and probably its direct descendant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bulayïq</span>

Bulayïq is a locality and archaeological site in central Xinjiang province in western China. It is located 10km north of Turpan city in the foothills of the Tien-shan Mountains. It is also known as Bīlayuq.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.