Al-Kitab al-Muqaddas: The Arabic Bible

Already at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Henry Martyn – the famous Anglican pastor who served as a role model for Smith and generations of other

mis-94 Glaß, Malta, Beirut, Leipzig and Beirut Again, 25; Roper, “The Beginnings of Arabic Printing by the ABCFM,” 57.

95 Smith to Anderson (Beirut, December 26, 1853): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 1 (208). A letter from Khalil al-Khuri to Eli Smith (June 9, 1856) indicates that he wanted to purchase American Ara-bic Type for printing his new AraAra-bic journal: ABC 50, Box 3 (HHL).

96 Glaß and Roper, “Arabischer Buch- und Zeitungsdruck,” 193–94. The Matbaʻat al-Maʻarif (Press of Knowledge) was established by Butrus al-Bustani and Khalil Sarkis in 1857; Khalil Sarkis also started the al-Matbaʻa al-Adabiyya (Press for Literature) in 1876. The Funun press was established in 1874.

97 Glaß, Malta, Beirut, Leipzig and Beirut Again, 27–28: Bustani’s famous encyclopedia Daʾirat al-Maʿarif appeared in American Arabic Type as well.

98 Jessup, Fifty-Three Years in Syria, vol. 1, 362.

99 Ibid. In 1838, Emil Rödiger told Smith that he hoped Tauchnitz would make two of all the castings, since the press in Germany needed “a larger font and a font for musical notation.” It is not known whether Smith fulfilled this request. See Rödiger to Smith (Halle, November 11, 1838): ABC 60 (65), (HHL).

100 Leavy, Eli Smith and the Arabic Bible, 12.

101 MH 50 (1854), in: ROS 4, 214; Tibawi, American Interests in Syria, 134.

102 Hall, “The Arabic Bible of Drs. Eli Smith and Cornelius Van Dyck,” 285.

sionaries – recognized that the translation of the Bible into Arabic was one of the most important tasks of Christian evangelism: “We can begin to preach to Arabia, Syria, Persia, Tartary, part of India and China, half of Africa and nearly all the sea-coasts of the Mediterranean, including Turkey.”¹⁰³ Smith, who had studied Mar-tyn’s experiences intently, must have remembered these words in Syria. Certainly the development of a new, aesthetically pleasing Arabic typeface was important not only for the production of Christian tracts and schoolbooks. The Holy Scripture, too, had to appear in a form that appealed to Arab readers.

When Rufus Anderson visited Syria in 1844, it was decided at a general meet-ing that a new Arabic Bible translation should be undertaken under the leadership of Eli Smith.¹⁰⁴ Smith, who was by now an accomplished Arabist, believed that the Catholic version from 1671 was harmful to Syrians’ understanding of Holy Scripture:

The whole version is not in a classical style. The structure of the sentences is awkward, the choice of words is not select, and the rules of grammar are often transgressed. We have been ashamed to put the sacred books of our religion, in such a dress, into the hands of a respectable Muhammedan or Druze and felt it our duty to accompany them with an apology.¹⁰⁵

Another translation that was available to the mission was an Arabic New Testament, published by the London Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in 1727. This version, too, was unusable, as Smith reported: “It was corrected from the Paris and London Polyglotts, by Solomon Negri, and conformed with great strictness to the Greek original. But in this very strictness the corrector erred, for there is always a stiffness about it, and not unfrequently the idiom is quite foreign.”¹⁰⁶

The American mission wanted a Bible translation with uniform phraseology for the entire text, in contrast to the different translated versions that the mission had thus far relied upon.¹⁰⁷ In 1848, Eli Smith embarked upon this project with assistance from the well-known Syrian poet (and accomplished specialist in Arabic grammar) Nasif al-Yaziji, as well as from Butrus al-Bustani, the mission’s Arabic teacher. The workload was so great that Smith soon complained about a shortage of helpers. In 1844, Smith proposed that one missionary should dedicate himself entirely to the translation, without having to perform additional duties.¹⁰⁸ The

103 MH 30 (1834), in: ROS 2, 390.

104 “Preface,” in Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Translations of the Scrip-tures.

105 “Report of Rev. Eli Smith, D. D., in March 16th, 1844, on the existing Arabic Versions of the Scriptures,” in Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Translations of the Scriptures, 1–2: The Catholic translation, based upon the Vulgate, was completed under the direction of the Archbishop of Damascus, the Maronite Sarkis al-Rour. Kahle, Die Arabischen Bibelübersetzungen, III–IV: Protestant missions in the nineteenth century printed this version without the Apocrypha.

106 “Report of Rev. Eli Smith on the existing Arabic Versions,” in Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Docu mentary History of the Translations of the Scriptures, 2.

107 “Dr. Smith’s Report on the Translation of the Scriptures, April 1854,” in: Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Translations of the Scriptures, 8.

108 “Report of Rev. Eli Smith on the existing Arabic Versions,” in: Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Translations of the Scriptures, 3.

ABCFM, however, was not able to meet Smith’s request. Because Smith, Bustani, and al-Yaziji all had other responsibilities, their collaboration was not continuous.

They rarely worked together in one location, but instead sent drafts and written comments back and forth to one another.¹⁰⁹ Beginning with the Old Testament, they worked through the Bible bit by bit. Bustani, who had already worked with Biblical Greek and Hebrew, translated individual passages first.¹¹⁰ Through his schooling at the Maronite institution ʿAyn Warqa, he was presumably familiar with older manu-scripts and versions of the Bible.¹¹¹ Smith and al-Yaziji then checked Bustani’s pre-liminary translation for theological accuracy and linguistic proximity to the original text. As a third step, Bustani took the corrected passages and worked in textual elements from old Arabic manuscripts. These manuscripts were up to five hundred years old, generally containing fragments of Holy Scripture based on the text of the Vulgate (and sometimes the Peshitta).¹¹² After considering the different forms of expression within the manuscripts, Smith again reviewed Bustani’s choice of words. Through consensus, the goal was to form a unity from the different transla-tions of past centuries.¹¹³ As a last step, Smith and al-Yaziji rechecked the grammar and lexicography of each text to be sure that it would speak to readers. Al-Yaziji completed the final proofreading.¹¹⁴

One of Smith’s responsibilities as director of the American Mission Press was acquiring specialized literature for the mission library. For the Bible translation alone, he assembled a collection of specialized works on linguistics and textual criticism that would have otherwise been available only in European and American libraries, “scarcely valued or even understood, by the average missionary or cler-gymen at home.”¹¹⁵ Reference works included the most recent lexicons for Biblical languages from Europe, as well as old and new books on Arabic grammar.¹¹⁶ The first published drafts were sent to Christians and Muslims in Beirut, Damascus, Aleppo, Jerusalem, Egypt, as well to Orientalists in Germany, along with a request for comments and corrections. Van Dyck later wrote that “many minds, native and foreign, were thus brought to bear upon the work.”¹¹⁷ The opinion of less educated

109 This is drawn from the correspondence between Bustani and Smith. For example, see Bustani to Smith (Souq al-Gharb, July 18, 1855): ABC 50, Box 3 (HHL).

110 “Smith’s Report, 1854,” in: Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Transla-tions of the Scriptures, 8: “The advantages of this proceeding are: – First, giving to the work a native coloring which a foreigner could not so easily accomplish. Second, bringing into it the terms and phrases in common and good use to express the ideas of the original …”

111 Binay, “Revision of the manuscripts of the ‘so-called Smith-Van Dyck Bible,’” 78.

112 “Smith’s Report, 1854,” in: Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Transla-tions of the Scriptures, 6–7: Some of these manuscripts had been republished by European Orientalists. Binay, introduction to Translating the Bible into Arabic, 16.

113 “Smith’s Report, 1854,” in: Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Transla-tions of the Scriptures, 8.

114 Ibid., 9.

115 Hall, “The Arabic Bible of Drs. Eli Smith and Cornelius Van Dyck,” 284.

116 For a list of the specialized literature that was used, see “Smith’s Report, 1854,” in: Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Translations of the Scriptures, 5–7.

117 “Dr. C. V. A. Dyck’s Report on the Translation, April 29th, 1863,” in Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Translations of the Scriptures, 15–16.

Syrians was also important to Smith, which is why he regularly sent his drafts to three or four natives, “in order to obtain their criticisms on the intelligibility of the language, and acceptableness of the style, to common readers.”¹¹⁸ If they did not understand certain words or expressions, the passages in question were changed to facilitate comprehension.¹¹⁹ The choice of Arabic words had to be understood by the “simple” population, too. Instead of transliterating JHWH, the Old Testament name for God, Smith decided to use rabb (LORD), which was already familiar to Arabs as a title for the highest being.¹²⁰ The elaborate process of revision and send-ing out requests for corrections slowed down work on the Bible. But the investment of time paid off, resulting in a “style that spoke in practically the same way to all reasonably capable Arabs, at least those from Egypt to Mesopotamia.”¹²¹ If one compares the Americans’ translation to older Bible editions, it appears to be more of a revision than a completely new translation of the Bible into Arabic.¹²²

For Smith, work on the Arabic Bible was laborious and exhausting. After some years, he grew dissatisfied with the collaboration with Nasif al-Yaziji:

It was soon found that in the terms of natural history and certain other sciences, as well as in the technicalities of different trades and professions, and in other like matters, his knowledge was indistinct and often very defective. And to search out, and rightly select words of this kind, has cost me much time.¹²³

Smith consistently had to correct passages that al-Yaziji had translated: “The trans-lation … come[s] out, in very many passages, wide of the original meaning, and the force of the sentiment [is] lost.”¹²⁴ Smith’s colleagues did not seem to agree with his criticisms of al-Yaziji: “This part of my work I think some of my brethren do not, perhaps, fully appreciate. They would confide too much in Nâsîf, and expect more from him than they will realize.”¹²⁵

Moreover, Smith was often unable to complete more than twelve verses per day.¹²⁶ Colleagues and friends later recalled that he had great difficulty deciding between synonyms, as Isaac Hall from the American Oriental Society wrote:

Some of the missionaries who believe in rapid work have said to me that he was therein a prey to indecision … his (unfinished) Old Testament manuscript, as I have been told by those who 118 ABCFM, Minutes of the Special Meeting of the Syrian Mission, 35.

119 Kahle, Die Arabischen Bibelübersetzungen, V.

120 “Dr. Van Dyck’s Letter to Dr. S. Jessup, Sept. 8th, 1888, called out by Letter of Dr. Bruce, of Persia, asking the views of the Syria Mission on the subject,” in: Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Translations of the Scriptures, 32.

121 Smith to the DMG (Beirut, May 9, 1856), in: ZDMG 10 (1856), 813. This letter was published in German.

122 Binay, introduction to Translating the Bible into Arabic, 15.

123 “Smith’s Report, 1854,” in: Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Transla-tions of the Scriptures, 9. See also “Letter from Dr. Smith on the Printing Establishment” (Bei-rut, October 16, 1855): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 5 (216).

124 ABCFM, Minutes of the Special Meeting of the Syrian Mission, 34.

125 Ibid. See also “Dr. Van Dyck’s History of the Arabic Translation of the Scriptures, March 7th, 1885,” in: Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Translations of the Scrip-tures, 29.

126 Anderson to the Syria Mission (Boston, July 11, 1851): ABC 16.8.1., Vol. 8 (4).

saw it, often had a column of synonyms six or seven deep and high, above and below nearly every important word in the line.¹²⁷

Smith and his team intentionally chose words that had fallen out of use, but which could be understood within the context of a passage, “trusting to the future enlight-enment of the nation to bring back the language again nearer to its classical richness and purity.”¹²⁸ Sending out the text for corrections confirmed that the language of the translation was generally comprehensible. Smith hoped that the Bible would achieve even more than proclaiming the message of Christianity:

And so we believe, generally speaking, that this is the vessel by which the language will arise, accompanying the people’s return to the ranks of educated nations, although perhaps more Muhammedan phraseology than we assumed will flow into this new creation.¹²⁹

Thus far, there is no published research that draws upon linguistic studies to show the effect of the American Bible translation on the development of the Arabic lan-guage in the second half of the nineteenth century.¹³⁰

Despite his tireless efforts, Smith could not complete the translation. A visitor who spent several weeks at Smith’s house in 1856 wrote that the missionary was

“feeble, attenuated, and under the necessity of guarding his precarious health with constant care.”¹³¹ Before Smith died in 1857, he and his team had worked through the entire New Testament, the Pentateuch, and many of the prophetic books (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, and Isaiah through chapter 52).¹³² On his deathbed, he told his colleague Wilson that the Bible should not be published in his name. Smith saw himself as responsible only for those texts that had already been printed (Genesis, Exodus, Matthew through chapter 12); in his estimation, all of the other drafts were incomplete.¹³³ Anderson later remarked with a gentle cynicism:

It did not please the Lord to grant the earnest desire of Dr. Smith to live and complete his translation of the Scriptures; and it must be admitted, that his ideal of perfection in the work was such, that it is doubtful whether he ever could have been satisfied that his entire translation was ready for publication.¹³⁴

Van Dyck, who continued the translation after 1857, had to revise large parts of Smith’s work. It turned out that Smith’s New Testament translation was not based on the textus receptus of that time, but instead relied upon the latest research of the

127 Hall, “The Arabic Bible of Drs. Eli Smith and Cornelius Van Dyck,” 283.

128 “Smith’s Report, 1854,” in: Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Transla-tions of the Scriptures, 10.

129 Smith to the DMG (Beirut, May 9, 1856), in: ZDMG 10 (1856): 813.

130 The PhD student Rana Hisham Issa (University of Oslo) is working on a dissertation entitled

“Arabia Minor: The Arrival of the Bible to the Arabic Language in 19th Century Lebanon.”

See University of Oslo, Research, accessed July 2016, http://www.uio.no/english/research/

interfaculty-research-areas/kultrans/phd-group/rana/.

131 Free Church of Scotland, “Dr. Eli Smith,” 238.

132 Van Dyck (Beirut, May 19, 1859), in: “Eulogies”: ABC 60 (139), HHL.

133 “C. V. A. Dyck’s Report, 1863,” in: Smith and Van Dyck, Brief Documentary History of the Translations of the Scriptures, 15.

134 Anderson, History of the Missions of the American Board, vol. 2, 327.

theologians Konstantin von Tischendorf, Samuel Pl. Tregellus, E. Lachmann and Henry Alford. All four theologians were working on a new edition of the Greek New Testament, based upon their study of old Greek Bible manuscripts (including the Codex Sinaiticus).¹³⁵ Because Smith’s New Testament did not correspond to the textus receptus, the American Bible society sponsoring the Arabic Bible translation would not allow it to be published.¹³⁶ A committee of missionaries from the Syria Mission reviewed Smith’s translated texts, requesting the Bible society’s permis-sion to correct, rather than discard, them: “In regard to the translation of the New Testament … the committee are unanimously of the opinion that it has been made with great care and fidelity, and that it could, with comparatively little labor be prepared for the Press …”¹³⁷

The foundation that Smith laid was regarded as “invaluable.”¹³⁸ Van Dyck was able to use some of Smith’s work, but he had to begin anew with many New Testa-ment books. In Van Dyck’s estimation, if he devoted too much attention to Smith’s drafts, the work would take even longer.¹³⁹