Translating the Gospels into Arabic from Syriac: Vatican Arabic 13 Restored Section, Strategies and Goals*

Abstract

We analyze two pericopes (Mt 3, 1-12, 13-17) of the Arabic version contained in Codex Vat. Ar. 13 corresponding to the restored section of the Gospels rendered from an original Syriac text. Our aim in this article is to contribute to the hypothesis that the two sections of the translation of the Gospels have been made from two different originals. So while the text contained in the oldest section has been translated from a Greek original, though revised with a Syriac text, however the text of the restored section (corresponding to four hands) has been rendered from a Syriac text apparently previous to the Pešīṭtā, or maybe revised from a Greek text. At the same time, we also emphasize the difference between these two corpora of translations, which not only come from two different Vorlagen, but they also are the result of different strategies followed by the translator.