Chapter V. The Other Versions Of The New Testament.
The remaining Versions are of less importance in the ascertainment of the sacred text. But some of them have recently received more attention in the general widening of research, and in becoming better known have strengthened their claims to recognition and value. Three of them, at all events, date from the period of the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament now known to be in existence. And the presence amongst us of eminent scholars acquainted with them renders reference to them more easy than it was a few years ago.
Nevertheless, some are of slight service to the critic, being secondary versions, and as such becoming handmaids, not of the Greek, but of some other version translated from the Greek.
In the account of these versions, the Editor of this edition is indebted for most valuable assistance to Mr. F. C. Conybeare, late Fellow of University College, Oxford, who has re-written the sections on the Armenian and Georgian versions; to Professor Margoliouth, who has also re-written those on the Ethiopic and Arabic; to the Rev. Llewellyn J. M. Bebb, Fellow of Brasenose College, who has re-written the account of the Slavonic; and to Dr. James W. Bright, Assistant-Professor of English Philology in the John Hopkins University, who has contributed what is known on the Anglo-Saxon Version.