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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.
The first enterprise of this kind is the famous Hexapla of Origen of Alexandria, in which the Old Testament Scriptures were written in six parallel columns, the first containing the Hebrew text, the second a transliteration of this in Greek letters, the third and fourth the Greek translations by Aquila of Sinope and by Symmachus the Ebionite, the fifth the Septuagint version as revised by Origen, and the sixth the translation by Theodotion. However, as only two languages, Hebrew and Greek, were employed, the work should perhaps be called a diglot rather than a polyglot in the usual sense.
After the invention of printing and the revival of philological studies, polyglots became a favourite means of advancing the knowledge of Middle Eastern languages, for which no good references were available, as well as for the study of Scripture.
The series began with the Complutensian printed by Axnaldus Guilielmus de Brocario at the expense of Cardinal Ximenes at the university at Alcalá de Henares (Complutum). The first volume of this, containing the New Testament in Greek and Latin, was completed on 10 January 1514. In vols. ii.−v. (finished on 10 July 1517), the Hebrew text of the Old Testament was printed in the first column of each page, followed by the Latin Vulgate and then by the Septuagint version with an interlinear Latin translation. Below these stood the Chaldee, again with a Latin translation. The sixth volume containing an appendix is dated 1515, but the work did not receive the papal sanction until March 1520, and was apparently not issued until 1522. The chief editors were Juan de Vergara, López de Zúñiga (Stunica), Hernán Núñez (Pincianus), Antonio de Nebrija (Nebrissensis), and Demetrius Ducas.
About half a century after the Complutensian came the Antwerp Polyglot, printed by Christopher Plantin (1569-1572, in eight volumes folio). The principal editor was Arias Montanus, aided by Guido Fabricius Boderianus, Raphelengius, Masius, Lucas of Bruges, and others. This work was under the patronage of Philip II of Spain; it added a new language to those of the Complutensian by including the Syriac New Testament; and, while the earlier polyglot had only the Targum of Onkelos on the Pentateuch, the Antwerp Bible had also the Targum on the Prophets, and on Esther, Job, Psalms, and the Salomonic writings.
Next came Guy Michel Lejay's Paris Polyglot (1645), which embraces the first printed texts of the Syriac Old Testament (edited by Gabriel Sionita, a Maronite, but the Book of Ruth by Abraham Ecchellensis, also a Maronite) and of the Samaritan Pentateuch and version by Jean Morin (Morinus). It has also an Arabic version, or rather a series of various Arabic versions.
The last great polyglot is Brian Walton's (London, 1657), which is more complete in various ways than Le Jay's, including, among other things, the Syriac of Esther and of several apocryphal books for which it is wanting in the Paris Bible, Persian versions of the Pentateuch and Gospels, and the Psalms and New Testament in Ethiopic. Walton was aided by able scholars and used much new manuscript material. His prolegomena and collections of various readings mark an important advance in biblical criticism. It was in connection with this polyglot that Edmund Castell produced his famous Heptaglott Lexicon (two volumes folio, London, 1669), a monument of industry and erudition even when allowance is made for the fact that for the Arabic he had the great manuscript lexicon compiled and left to the University of Cambridge by William Bedwell.
The liberality of Cardinal Ximenes, who is said to have spent half a million ducats on it, removed the Complutensian polyglot from the risks of commerce. The other three editions all brought their promoters to the verge of ruin.
Subsequent polyglots are of little scholarly importance, the best recent texts having been confined to a single language; but at least into the early 20th century many biblical students still used Walton and, if it was available, Le Jay.
The numerous polyglot editions of parts of the Bible include the Genoa psalter of 1516, edited by Agostino Giustiniani, bishop of Nebbio. This is in Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Aramaic, and Arabic, and is interesting from the character of the Chaldee text, being the first specimen of Western printing in the Arabic writing system, and from a curious note on Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America on the margin of Psalm xix.
The Septuagint, sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy, and often abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Hebrew. The full Greek title derives from the story recorded in the Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates that "the laws of the Jews" were translated into the Greek language at the request of Ptolemy II Philadelphus by seventy-two Hebrew translators—six from each of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
The Vulgate is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible.
The Samaritan Pentateuch, also called the Samaritan Torah, is the sacred scripture of the Samaritans. Written in the Samaritan script, it dates back to one of the ancient versions of the Torah that existed during the Second Temple period. It constitutes the entire biblical canon in Samaritanism.
The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. As of September 2023 all of the Bible has been translated into 736 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,658 languages, and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,264 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance. Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,658 languages.
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 Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church, the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Syro-Malabar Church.
The Complutensian Polyglot Bible is the name given to the first printed polyglot of the entire Bible. The edition was initiated and financed by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros (1436–1517) and published by Complutense University in Alcalá de Henares, Spain. It includes the first printed editions of the Greek New Testament, the complete Septuagint, and the Targum Onkelos, a translation of the Torah. Of the 600 six-volume sets which were printed, only 123 are known to have survived to date.
Hexapla, also called Origenis Hexaplorum, is a critical edition of the Hebrew Bible in six versions, four of them translated into Greek, preserved only in fragments. It was an immense and complex word-for-word comparison of the original Hebrew Scriptures with the Greek Septuagint translation and with other Greek translations. The term especially and generally applies to the edition of the Old Testament compiled by the theologian and scholar Origen sometime before 240.
Aquilaof Sinope was a translator of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, a proselyte, and disciple of Rabbi Akiva.
The Plantin Polyglot is a polyglot Bible, printed under the title Biblia Polyglotta by Christopher Plantin in Antwerp (Belgium) between 1568 and 1573.
Jewish printers were quick to take advantages of the printing press in publishing the Hebrew Bible. While for synagogue services written scrolls were used, the printing press was very soon called into service to provide copies of the Hebrew Bible for private use. All the editions published before the Complutensian Polyglot were edited by Jews; but afterwards, and because of the increased interest excited in the Bible by the Reformation, the work was taken up by Christian scholars and printers; and the editions published by Jews after this time were largely influenced by these Christian publications. It is not possible in the present article to enumerate all the editions, whole or partial, of the Hebrew text. This account is devoted mainly to the incunabula.
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 at that time. Before that, quotations from the Bible were used in Arabic especially by Christians.
Novum Instrumentum Omne, later called Novum Testamentum Omne, was a bilingual Latin-Greek New Testament with substantial scholarly annotations, and the first printed New Testament of the Greek to be published. It was prepared by Desiderius Erasmus (1466–1536), and printed by Johann Froben (1460–1527) of Basel.
The Apostolic Bible Polyglot (ABP), originally published in 2003, is a Bible translation by Charles VanderPool. The ABP is an English translation with a Greek interlinear gloss and is keyed to a concordance. The numbering system, called "AB-Strong's", is a modified version of Strong's concordance, which was designed only to handle the traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text of the Old Testament, and the Greek text of the New Testament. Strong's concordance doesn't have numbering for the Greek O.T. The ABP utilizes a Greek Septuagint base for the O.T. and, therefore, required a modified system. The numbers and the Greek word appear immediately above the English translation instead of side by side, as is common in many interlinears.
Samuel Bagster the elder was the founder of the publishing firm of Bagster & Sons.
Elias Hutter was a German Hebraist.
Agostino Giustiniani was an Italian Catholic bishop, linguist and geographer.
The Bible translations into Latin date back to classical antiquity.
The Codex Ambrosianus C. 313 Inf. is a Syro-Hexaplar manuscript in parchment form the late eight or early ninth-century.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Polyglot Bibles". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.