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.
The New International Version (NIV) is an English translation of the Bible first published in 1978 by Biblica. The NIV was published to meet the need for a modern translation done by Bible scholars using the earliest, highest quality manuscripts available. Of equal importance was that the Bible be expressed in broadly understood modern English.
The Vulgate is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It was to become the Catholic Church's officially promulgated Latin version of the Bible as the Sixtine Vulgate (1590), then as the Clementine Vulgate (1592); the Vulgate is still presently used in the Latin Church.
The Great Bible of 1539 was the first authorised edition of the Bible in English, authorised by King Henry VIII of England to be read aloud in the church services of the Church of England. The Great Bible was prepared by Myles Coverdale, working under commission of Thomas, Lord Cromwell, Secretary to Henry VIII and Vicar General. In 1538, Cromwell directed the clergy to provide "one book of the Bible of the largest volume in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that ye have care of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it."
The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. As of September 2020 the full Bible has been translated into 704 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,551 languages and Bible portions or stories into 1,160 other languages. Thus at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,415 languages.
Philoxenus of Mabbug, also known as Xenaias and Philoxenus of Hierapolis, was one of the most notable Syriac prose writers and a vehement champion of Miaphysitism.
The Peshitta is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church, the Syro Malankara Catholic Church, the Malankara Marthoma Syrian Church, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Syro Malabar Catholic Church.
The English Standard Version (ESV) is an English translation of the Bible. The ESV was published in 2001 by Crossway, having been "created by a team of more than 100 leading evangelical scholars and pastors." The ESV relies on recently published critical editions of the original Hebrew and Greek texts. Crossway claims that the ESV continues a legacy of precision and faithfulness in English translation of the original text, begun by William Tyndale's New Testament, and historically followed by "the King James Version of 1611 (KJV), the English Revised Version of 1885 (RV), the American Standard Version of 1901 (ASV), and the Revised Standard Version of 1952 and 1971 (RSV)." Crossway describes the ESV as a translation that "emphasizes 'word-for-word' accuracy, literary excellence, and depth of meaning." Crossway also describes the ESV as a translation that adheres to an "essentially literal" translation philosophy, taking into account "differences in grammar, syntax, and idiom between current literary English and the original languages."
George M. Lamsa was an Assyrian author. He was born in Mar Bishu in what is now the extreme east of Turkey. A native Aramaic speaker, he translated the Aramaic Peshitta Old and New Testaments into English. He popularized the claim of the Assyrian Church of the East that the New Testament was written in Aramaic and then translated into Greek, contrary to academic consensus.
Bible translations into Chinese include translations of the whole or parts of the Bible into any of the levels and varieties of the Chinese language. The first translations may have been made as early as the 7th century AD, but the first printed translations appeared only in the nineteenth century. Progress on a modern translation was encumbered by denominational rivalries, theological clashes, linguistic disputes, and practical challenges at least until the publication of the Protestant Chinese Union Version in 1919, which became the basis of standard versions in use today.
German language translations of the Bible have existed since the Middle Ages. The most influential is Luther's translation, which established High German as the literary language throughout Germany by the middle of the seventeenth century and which still continues to be most widely used in the German-speaking world today.
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.
Louis-Isaac Lemaistre de Sacy, a priest of Port-Royal, was a theologian and French humanist. He is best known for his translation of the Bible, the most widespread French Bible in the 18th century, also known as the Bible de Port-Royal.
Codex Phillipps 1388, Syriac manuscript of the New Testament, on parchment. It contains the text of the four Gospels. Palaeographically it had been assigned to the 5th/6th centuries. It is one of the oldest manuscripts of Peshitta with some Old Syriac readings.
A biblical canon, also called canon of scripture, is a set of texts which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as authoritative scripture. The English word canon comes from the Greek κανών, meaning "rule" or "measuring stick". Christians were the first to use the term in reference to scripture, but Eugene Ulrich regards the notion as Jewish.
The Bible translations into Latin are the versions used in the Western part of the former Roman Empire until the Reformation and still used, along with translations from Latin into the vernacular, in the Roman Catholic Church.
Translation of the Bible into Malayalam began in 1806, and has influenced development of the modern language.
The Harklean version, designated by syrh, is a Syriac language bible translation by Thomas of Harqel completed in 616 AD at the Enaton in Egypt.
Thomas of Harqel was a miaphysite bishop from the early 7th century. Educated in Greek at the monastery of Qenneshre, he became bishop of Mabbug in Syria. He was deposed as bishop by the anti-miaphysite metropolitan Domitian of Melitene before 602. Along with Paul of Tella, he lived in the Coptic monastery of the Enaton near Alexandria, Egypt, as exiles. At the request of Athanasios I, they worked on a Syriac translation of the Greek Bible. Translation of the New Testament, known as the Harclensis was completed in 616. At this time, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation were added to the Syriac Bible. Until then they were excluded.
