The Gospels in Arabic

This book is a comparative edition of the Gospel of Matthew in Arabic. The first part of this volume gives a description of thirteen different versions of the Gospels in Arabic, from as early as the seventh century until the thirteenth century A.D. The second part of the book presents a concise study of the earliest extant Arabic Gospel text, in which the author argues, using new evidence, that the first translation of the Gospels was not produced in the Holy Land monastic communities between 685-735 A.D. from a Greek translation, but rather that the Gospels were translated earlier, in either Al-Hīra, Irāq, or Najrān, from an old Syriac text sometime between 500 and 620 A.D. The third part of the book presents these thirteen different Arabic versions of the Gospel of Matthew side by side in order that this part may be used as a comparative tool for in-depth study. Once published, scholars, pastors, and students will be able to access the desired texts of the Gospel of Matthew in Arabic, simultaneously and all in one place. This volume is over thirteen hundred pages, and is the first volume in a series of four volumes covering the four Gospels.