Early translations of the New Testament
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Early translations of the New Testament – translations of the New Testament created in the 1st millennium. Among them, the ancient translations are highly regarded. They play a crucial role in modern criticism of New Testament's text. These translations reached the hands of scholars in copies and also underwent changes, but the subsequent history of their text was independent of the Greek text-type and are therefore helpful in reconstructing it. Three of them – Syriac, Latin, Coptic – date from the late 2nd century and are older than the surviving full Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. They were written before the first revisions of the Greek New Testament and are therefore the most highly regarded. They are obligatorily cited in all critical editions of the Greek text-type. Translations produced after 300 (Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic) are already dependent on the reviews, but are nevertheless important and are generally cited in the critical apparatus. The Gothic and Slavic translations are rarely cited in critical editions. Omitted are those of the translations of the first millennium that were not translated directly from the Greek original, but based on another translation (based on the Vulgate, Peshitta and others).
Translations from the second half of the first millennium are less important than ancient translations for reconstructing the original text of the New Testament, because they were written later. Nevertheless, they are taken into account; it may always happen that they convey any of the lessons of Scripture better than the ancient translations. Textual critics are primarily interested in which family of the Greek text-type they support. Therefore, they cannot be ignored when reconstructing the history of the New Testament. Among the translations of the first millennium, the Persian and Caucaso-Albanian translations are completely lost.
In the 27th edition of Nestle–Åland's Greek New Testament (NA27), the critical apparatus cites translations into the following languages: Latin (Old Latin and Vulgate), Syriac, Coptic dialects (Sahidic, Bohairic, Akhmimite, Sub-Ahmimite, Middle Egyptian, Middle Egyptian Faihumic, Protobohairic), Armenian, Georgian, Gothic, Ethiopian, Church Slavonic. Omitted are translations into Arabic, Nubian, Sogdian, Old English, Old Low German, Old High German, Old French.