Introductory

     This website aims to collect any information related to biblical topics and to develop it, so that anyone who enters this address and seeks new information, can access it.
     Printed versions of texts have been imported, such as the text of the Hebrew Bible, the LXX, the Samaritan, as well as other ancient translations. Texts of other ancient translations from the LXX have also been imported. Also English, German and modern Greek translations. Grammatical studies, various website sources, and recently imported patristic writings.
     The website is regularly updated and new material is added.
Hebrew-Masoretic – Aramaic Targums

     The Masoretic (Hebrew) text is that of the Leningrand Codex (1008 AD), a faithful copy of the Ben Asher text (the Aleppo Codex, with Tiberian punctuation which is the Western Masoretic tradition; although somewhat mixed with the East Babylonian of Ben Naphtali, where it became the most accepted Masoretic tradition text among the Jews), which is availabe to us in the BHS (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia) and the BHQ (Quinta); the latter is a large critical edition in volumes and provides again the textual tradition of the Leningrad Codex, as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls; words-phrases commentaries are also included.
     The Aramaic Targums are “paraphrases” of the Hebrew Bible, usually an interpretive type of development by paraphrase; but the Targum of Onkelos (on the Pentateuch) and Jonathan (on the Prophets) and that of Writings (hagiographa) are more often a literal translation. Alexander Sperber has edited a critical edition in two volumes; the Targum of Onkelos and Jonathan, and the Writings in the second. There is also the Targum of Neophiti and PsJonathan (on the Pentateuch).

Dead Sea Scrolls

     Around the Dead Sea in Israel, many manuscripts have been discovered, in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Arabic and Samaritan origin, many of which provide an old textual form; biblical texts, some canonical and some deuterocanonical and apocrypha; many of them in the Qumran caves and others in places such as Nahal Hever, Wadi Deliyeh, etc.

Samaritan Pentateuch

     This type of text deserves an attention. The Samaritans, who broke away from the Jews, except for a few places in the Pentateuch, provide another textual form
     Critical editions are provided by Von Gall, “Der hebräische Pentateuch der Samaritaner”, and now by Stefan Schorch, “The Samaritan Pentateuch, a critical editio maior”.

Septuagint (LXX)

     The translation of LXX is the so-called work of the 72 Hellenistic Jews, according to the letter of Pseudo-Aristeas, who describes in his work that during the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-247 BC), in aggreement with Demetrius of Phalerum, he sent an embassy to the high priest Eleazar in Jerusalem to send elders to Alexandria to carry out a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek language.
     A few years after the dead of Alexander the great, after the Near East and Northen Africa were Hellenized, in this way Greek, as the now Hellenistic common language, a mixture of language of various regions, became the means of disseminating the Hebrew Scriptures. And when this work was completed, it had been fully accepted by the Jewish community as a whole and had received honor.
     Critical editions are provided by Alfred Rahlfs in two volumes, as well as the large Gottingen edition, which includes the entire textual tradition.

Translations from LXX text

     Many translations have been made from the LXX text; some of these are the Old Latin version, which Fischer provides in a critical edition; Coptic versions, Ethiopic version, Syriac version and several other versions.

Revisions of LXX text

     The first attempt at LXX revision was that of Origen (c. 185 – c. 253). He made the so-called Hexapla, including the LXX text and other translations, such as those of Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion and others.
     Another revision had been made by Lucian (c. 125 – c. 180), which was honored.
     There had also been a revision by a certain Hesychius, as well as by some monks, which is called “catenae”.

Peshitta

     Another important translation is the Syriac version, completed in the mid-2nd century. The Syrians, who were closely related to the Jews, as an Aramaic dialect, may have been one of the people who played a primary role in the interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures.
     A key manuscript is called "Codex Ambrosianus" (6th/7th century AD).
     A critical edition, in many volumes, is “ The Old Testament in Syriac, according to the Peshitta version”, by Boer. A critical edition of the New Testament, “The New Testament in Syriac, Peshitta”, is also being prepared

Vulgata

     Jerome, having learned Hebrew, completed a Latin translation around 405. The respect for this translation was expressed in the Middle Ages, where it became common to all (Vulgata).
     There were some editions of Jerome's text, such as the Clementine. A large multi-volume edition that began to be published from 1926 to 1953 onwards, "Biblia sacra iuxta latinam Vulgatam versionem ad codicum fidem", etc., was based on about eight thousand manuscripts. The revised edition by Robert Weber and Roger Gryson is “Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem”.

New Testament

     The New Testament was written, and completed, in Greek, at the end of the 1st century, according to the information we have. Manuscripts abound; patristic commentaries and tradition are written in books, in many countries and langauges.
     In order to understand the meaning of the writings in the New Testament, one sometimes needs to have knowledge of the Aramaic dialect.

Patrology

     The Fathers of the Church are the people who preserved the history of the first centuries until today, and explained the Holy Bible, and left behind tradition and gave us the Holy Bible, as we have it today.
     There are many writings and a great history that they have left behind, and an entire century is not enough to read them all.
     Patristic books are edited by several editors, such as that of Migne “Patrologiae cursus completus”, etc., in Greek series and Latin, as well as the “Patrologia Orientalis” of Graffin and Nau, and others such as the “Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum”, “Acta Sanctorum”, and other important publications..