EXHIBIT OF BIBLICAL ANTIQUITIES. 1019 



Coptic New Testament. — Manuscript of the seventeenth century, 

 Cairo, Egypt. Coptic was the language of the Egyptian Christians. 

 It is a developmenfc from the ancient hieroglyphic language, with an 

 admixture of Greek words, and continues to the i)resent day to be used 

 in the services of the Christian Church in Egypt. There were differ- 

 ences in the dialects spoken in different parts of the country, and so 

 there are three Egvptian translations of the Bible — the 'Ihebaic or 

 Sahidic, the Memphitic or Bahiric, commonly called the Coptic, and 

 the Bashmuric. They all probably date from the second century and 

 are made after the Septuagint. The present manuscript contains 

 St. Mark in the Bahiric dialect. 



Ethiopic version op the Bible, — Photograph of original Bible, 

 preserved in the United States National Museum. This coi)y was 

 obtained from King Theodore, of Abyssinia, by Lord Napier, and by 

 him presented to General Grant. The Ethiopic version was made 

 from the Septuagint in the fourth century, probably by Frumentins, 

 the ajjostle of Ethiopia, It has forty-six books in all, containing, in 

 addition to the Canon, a large number of Apocryphal books. 



Arabic version op Saadia Gaon. — In Hebrew characters. The 

 Peniateuch, edited by J. Derenbonrg, Paris, 1893. Saadia Gaon was 

 born at Fayum, A. D. 892, and died in 942. His translation of the 

 Bible is rather a paraphrase, and has a high exegetical value. 



Arabic Bible. — Manuscript. (See plate 44.) Ccmiplete Old Testa- 

 mcTit, neatly written and well preserved. Dated by scribe 1500, A. D. 

 Cairo, Egypt. 



Arabic New Testament. — Contains the Epistles and Acts, the 

 last five verses of the Acts wanting. Sixteenth century, Cairo, Egypt. 



MODERN TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE. 



The New Testament, translated by John Wyclifpe about 

 138U; lU'inted from a contemporary manuscript by William Pickering, 

 London, 184S. John Wyclifl'e was born in Yorkshire about 1320. He 

 studied at Baliol College, Oxford, aiul was for some time master of that 

 college. He became later rector of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, and 

 was the foremost leader of the reform party. He died in 1384. About 

 1380 he undertook, with the assistance of some of his followers, espe- 

 cially Nicholas Hereford, the translation of the entire Bible into 

 English from the Latin of the Vulgate. It was the first complete 

 English Bible. His translation was, after his death, revised by one of 

 his adherents. The present copy is assumed to rejjresent the first 

 version prepared by Wyclifife himself, or at least under his supervision. 



TY^'DALE's New Testament, Facsimile by F. Fry, — William Tyn- 

 dale was born between 1484 and 148G in Gloucestershire. He was 

 educated at Oxford and afterwards at Cambridge. He went to Ham- 

 burg and later joined Luther at Wittenberg, where he finished the 

 translation of the New Testament into English. The first edition was 



