A Look at Translations of Old, New Testaments into Arabic
There have been efforts to do so in various historical periods, with one of the earliest ones being in 8th century AD in Spain.
But the first such effort dates back to the year 639 when Amr ibn Sa’ad asked Yuhanna, an Orthodox priest, to translate the Bible into Arabic.
Since then there have been numerous incomplete renderings of the Bible.
The early translation of the Bible began with the phrase “In the Name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful”, which is a Quranic phrase.
Akram Lamei, an Egyptian Christian priest, says it is not surprising because the phrase is only an Arabic greeting that does not negate Christian identity or theology.
Some researchers claim that this phrase existed in Arabic centuries before the advent of Islam.
As for modern translations, a Jesuit translation was published in Beirut Lebanon in 1880, which was used by the Catholic Church for about a century.
In 1973, a translation came out under the title of “Book of Life”, which used a simple and more precise Arabic and avoided using the word-for-word method.
Later, another translation rendered by a committee comprising scholars and researchers from Catholic, Orthodox and biblical churches was published in Beirut.
“Correct Meaning of Book of Jesus” is a translation of the Bible into Arabic by al-Hadi Jatlawi, head of the faculty of literature in Tunisia.
This rendering first came into attention in 2017, when a forum was held to discuss the book.
The participants in the forum mentioned concerns such as lack of precision, omission of some words and undermining some Christian beliefs.
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It again caused controversies when in 2020, copies of the translation were distributed by a group among Christian families in Egypt.
The daily Ad-Dustur described it as an attempt to destroy the principles of Egypt’s Christian church and one aimed at fomenting discord among Christians.
A Coptic Christian figure called the translation a Bid’ah that distorts Christian beliefs.
The three major Christian denominations also decisively dismissed this translation.
A problem with new translations of the Bible, whether they are aimed at spreading Christianity among Arab Muslims or an attempt at Arabizing Christianity or just offering a new perspective of the Bible, is the monopoly of translation by major Christian denominations.
Without their approval, the publication of new renderings faces problems. This is while no institution should be considered in possession of the rights related to the holy book written centuries ago.
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