Arabic BIBLE. The Arabic versions of the Bible are of two sorts; the one done by Christians, the other by Jews. There is one of the Old Testament, whose author is supposed to be Saadias Gaon, a Jew of Babylon, who wrote the same about the year of Christ 900. Of this whole work the Pentateuch alone is printed. The Jews have another Arabic version in Hebrew characters, which Erpenius published in Arabic characters at Leyden in the year 1622. Among the Arabic translations done by Christians, there is one printed in the polyglots of Paris and London; but both the author, and the time when it was written, are unknown. It must have been made since the publication of the Koran, because the author in many places has evidently followed it. In this version the Pentateuch is translated from the Hebrew text; Job, from the Syriac; and the rest from the Septuagint, and two other versions of the Pentateuch, the manuscripts of which are in the Bodleian library. There are also some Arabic translations of the Psalms; one printed at Genoa in 1516, the other at Rome in 1619: and there is a manuscript version of the prophets in this language preserved in the Bodleian library.
The gospel being preached in all nations, there is no doubt but that the Bible, which is the foundation of the Christian religion, was translated into the respective languages of each nation. St Chrysostom and Theodoret both testify, that the books of the Old and New Testament had been translated into the Syrian, Egyptian, Indian, Persian, Armenian, Ethiopic, Scythian, and Samaritan languages. Socrates and Sozomen tell us, that Ulphilas bishop of the Goths, who lived about the middle of the fourth century, had translated the holy Scriptures into the Gothic language; and pope John VIII. gave his approbation to the version of the holy Scriptures made into the Sclavonian.