ABSTRACT
Sarkis al-Rizzi, the Bishop of Damascus, requested permission from the Pope to create a printed version of the Holy Bible, as the versions present among them at time were full of errors, and the Pope granted permission. In 1620, this same Bishop began with a number of scholars to gather the various Arabic versions of book and compare them to the Hebrew and Greek versions, and in particular with the Latin version, known as the Vulgate. The full translation of Holy Bible was completed on 23rd of August, 1864, and the first print was made on the 29th of March 1865. However, the New Testament had been completed before this date and printed several times, first print in March 1860. The history of the Arabic Bible’s translation found in Calhoun’s commentary is reiterated almost word for word by Van Dyck in his 1883 correspondence with Isaac Hall (1885) which suggests a prevalent “narrative” involving “translation” on a number of levels.
