The Holy Bible

...details of the precious original. However, from certain signs within it, we can surmise that its transcription took place in Cilicia, from the manuscript of, as it is said, Gēorg Vardapet. But as to who exactly that Gēorg was, for the present, I cannot confirm anything with certainty, because throughout the centuries there have been many teachers named Gēorg, as can be seen in our ancient historians and in the colophons of other volumes. And furthermore, we have not encountered any Gēorg who labored on a separate compilation of the Holy Scriptures as alluded to in the text above. This very same manuscript by the scribe Yovhannēs became the core model for our present edition, as we have said. As for the other manuscripts we possessed, they were helpful to this model in terms of etymology, orthography, and the filling of omissions. These are as follows:

Our Second Copy was written in shragir cursive script, or what is called notragir clerical shorthand, on shiny paper, and it seems to have been accurately copied from the first one; it even contains almost word-for-word the same colophons in the same places as we cited above, changing only the name from Yovhannēs to Fatlal a variant name, or Fatlalay, and omitting the phrase that the owner and the mentioned teacher Gēorg had assigned. In the other, he placed the date of writing as 94 original: "ոդ" - 1645 AD, without mentioning the location, unlike the first one. And this is the manuscript which we refer to in our notes as the Copyist's Volume.

The Third Manuscript Copy was written in small-format erkatagir iron-letter script and bolorgir rounded script on parchment; it was devoid of illustrations and was deficient in certain places where leaves had been cut out and removed, perhaps to completely hide the colophon of the transcription, leaving the volume undated, as we have seen occur with other manuscript volumes. Although its writing was beautiful and uniform, it was not free from many errors and omissions. By its outward appearance, it might suggest greater antiquity than the first, if the same hand had not stamped numerical chapter headings in the margins according to the Latin system, marking them as Ch. I. Ch. II. and at the beginning of the books: The number of chapters for this book is 40 or 37, etc. From this, one can deduce that its transcription took place in Cilicia, in comparison with Latin volumes, and perhaps only regarding the chapter divisions without any changes to the original text. This volume, more than our other manuscripts, agreed with the model of Voskan Voskan, especially in the three books of Solomon—Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs—such that in these, when compared with others, they seem to be different translations.

The Fourth and Fifth Manuscript Copies, written on parchment in bolorgir rounded script with gilded headers and decorated with dense, colorful illustrations, were derived from the copy of Ghazar of Baberd Lazarus of Bayburt. This is evident from the introduction and the concluding poem of his, which were recorded in them, and which he compiled for the manuscript of his Holy Bible in the city of Lviv, Poland, in the year 1100 original: "ռկ" - 1651 AD.

Because he was envious of the Latin version, he labored with great effort to adjust his copy, including a double index of the names and words contained in the Holy Scripture in alphabetical order: one according to the ancient chapter counts, and the second according to the chapter divisions and detailed numbering of the Latins. For this reason, for the discovery of their chapters, besides the first, he added the Latin ones in the margins as well. I do not dare to vouch for the text here, as in some places it is indifferent to the original. I had the occasion to see his original manuscript in that same city, and his other copies in the regions of the Bolognese; from there, they spread outside to many places. For this reason, the scribe of the first of the aforementioned, which was the most glorious and richest in terms of decorations, is said in the colophon to be Tēr Datur the priest, who wrote it at the expense of Tēr Khachatur the monk in the year 1075 original: "ռճէ" - 1626 AD, in the land of Persia, at the Synod of Gag. The other was written by a certain Markos in the year 1076 original: "ռճկ" - 1627 AD, whose final page with the colophon is missing, leaving the location unknown along with other circumstances. The writing of both, as we have said, although aesthetically pleasing, is much diminished in terms of skill, especially the second, which was full of countless errors. It is astonishing that although both were identical in external decorative drawings, they were also identical in the text in many places, even in the errors themselves, to the point where they seem to have been transcribed directly from one to the other, or from one and the same source. Yet, in other places, and sometimes even in entire books, they differed entirely from one another, at times agreeing with one and at times with another of the manuscripts, just as they frequently agreed with our present copy.

The Sixth Manuscript Copy was written with very moderate orthography and beautiful gilded illustrations on parchment in Constantinople by the hand of the scribe Yakov of Akn in the year 1130 original: "ռճլ" - 1681 AD. The writing of this one was, in its style, even more patterned than all the modern copies, and it agreed more than others with our own model in many books. If the Latin chapter divisions—even without the numbering—had not been added in its margins, the volume might suggest it was copied from a very ancient and faithful manuscript.

The colophon of the Seventh Manuscript Copy shows it was written in the year 1105 original: "ռճե" - 1656 AD for the needs of Abraham of Belrat, in Poland, by Yovhannēs the scribe; but where it was written is not clear, as nothing was noted about it. Although this bolorgir rounded script volume was written on parchment and decorated with gilded headers and beautiful illustrations, it was not free from errors, and in some places displayed a strange lack of faithfulness, especially in the New Testament, where the scribe, in adjusting the chapter divisions to match the Latin, appeared to have tampered with the original text—for example, the passage in 1 John 5:6, which you may see there in its place. In it, traces of the aforementioned distinction of asterisks and obeli were frequently noticed, as in the...