Ancient Versions

Links updated October 2007

General

•  LOCAL  Ancient Versions, a comprehensive treatise by Eberhard Nestle from the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia.
• Versions of the New Testament. By Robert B. Waltz. A good overview with much detailed information on all the ancient versions.
• Versions article in the Believe Religious Information Source by Carl Johnson. A compilation of introductory information on the ancient versions, from various sources.

Aramaic (Targums)

•  LOCAL  Articles on the Aramaic Versions by various authors.
• Targumic Studies Module. Texts of all the major targums online, for searching or browsing, at Hebrew Union College.
• The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel On the Pentateuch With The Fragments of the Jerusalem Targum From the Chaldee. By J. W. Etheridge. The full text online of an English translation first published in 1862.
• The Aramaic Targum to Song of Songs, English Translation by Jay C. Treat.
• Targum to Lamentations, English translation by Christian M. M. Brady.
• Targum to Ruth, English Translation by Samson H. Levey.
• The Psalms Targum, English Translation by Edward M. Cook.
• Newsletter for Targumic and Cognate Studies.
• A Brief Introduction to the Targums. By Mark G. Vitalis Hoffman at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg. A handy two-page fact sheet for students.
• Targum article from the Jewish Encyclopedia, by Wilhelm Bacher. A detailed discussion, though somewhat dated (1906).
• A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. By Marcus Jastrow (1903). A standard lexicon of the Aramaic Targums, with definitions in English. Volume 2 is online here. A recent reprint of this lexicon can be bought here.

Syriac

•  LOCAL  Syriac Versions by Thomas Nicol (from the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia).
• The Peshitta in Syriac characters has been put online as part of John Isett's Online Parallel Bible Project.
• Murdock's English Translation of the Peshitta New Testament. (1851)
• Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies. An electronic journal for the study of ancient Syriac literature and culture.
• Syriac script. By Simon Ager, in his Omniglot: A Guide to Writing Systems.
• The Peshitta. A brief history of the version by Glenn Davis. Also here.
• The Syriac Translations of the Scriptures. By James Murdock (1851). Appendix II from Murdock's English translation of the Peshitta, giving a history of the version as it was understood in the early nineteenth century. The article is incorrect regarding the date of the Peshitta, and gives an exaggerated opinion of its importance, but it does give much accurate information.

Coptic

• Coptic Versions of the Bible. By Henri Hyvernat, in The Catholic Encyclopedia (1914).
• Coptic papyri images are online at Duke University.
• A Coptic Dictionary, by Walter Ewing Crum (Oxford, 1939).
• An Introductory Coptic Grammar (Sahidic Dialect), by J. Martin Plumley (London, 1948).
• Coptic language article from Wikipedia.

Greek

•  LOCAL  Articles on the Septuagint by various authors.
• bibelwissenschaft.de (website of the German Bible Society) has the full text of Rahlfs's Septuagint online.
• The Online Parallel Bible Project also has the full text of the Septuagint.
• Theological and Academic Resources for the Septuagint. By Joel Kalvesmaki. Here you will find links to studies on the Septuagint, links to several online or downloadable Septuagint texts and versions, and a bibliography.
• Notes on the Septuagint. By R. Grant Jones. A comprehensive study of the use of the Septuagint in the New Testament.
• lxx · Septuagint and Old Greek Studies. A Septuagint discussion list.
• The Septuagint: God's Blessing on Translation. By Debra E. Anderson, at the Trinitarian Bible Society. Contains some interesting observations relating to God's use of translations.
• The Letter of Aristeas. From R.H. Charles' Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, at CCEL. This ancient document purports to give the story behind the creation of the Septuagint.
• The Septuagint in English. The Brenton translation, first published in 1851. The translation of the Apocrypha is according to the KJV. Provided online by Ernie Marsh.
• Morphologically analyzed text of the Septuagint. Prepared by the Center for Computer Analysis of Texts (CCAT) at the University of Pennsylvania.
• Images of the Goettingen Papyrus Codex 967. Excellent scans of one of the oldest Septuagint manuscripts, containing Ezekiel, Daniel, and Esther, from about the year 200 AD. The introduction (in German) is here.
• The Apostolic Bible. A complete interlinear Greek-English Septuagint in PDF files, edited by Charles Van der Pool.
• A New Paradigm for Addressing Old Questions: The Relevance of the Interlinear Model for the Study of the Septuagint. By Albert Pietersma (2000). Interesting discussion of the possibility that the books of the Septuagint version originated as interlinear glosses on the Hebrew text.
• Selective Bibliography of the Septuagint. Compiled by Johan Lust at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.

Latin

Vulgate Texts Online

• The Gutenberg Bible reproduces the text of a now-lost manuscript of the corrupt Exemplar Parisiense tradition, which was the most widely used form of the Vulgate text from the thirteenth century up to the middle of the sixteenth century. The entire text of this famous Bible is online in high-resolution images in three places: the University of Göttingen, the British Library, and the University of Texas. Of these three, the British site has the largest and sharpest images, but all are worth visiting for their helpful background pages.
• The Clementine Vulgate is the late medieval form of the text that Pope Clement VIII authorized in 1592, and the basis of the Douay-Rheims version. At the Clementine Vulgate Project Michael Tweedale has made available an electronic transcription (from the 1946 edition of Colunga and Turrado) with punctuation and paragraph formatting. Ronald L. Conte Jr. at SacredBible.org has put online a complete edition (edited by Carolus Vercellone, 1861) in page images, along with some other resources relating to the Vulgate. (Also here. I note that Vercellone's edition gives also the Latin text of First and Second Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh in an appendix.)

• Weber's critical text of the Vulgate (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1975), which represents early manuscripts, is online in several places in different formats. On some of these sites the text is defective in Daniel, breaking off at 3:24 (where the apocryphal "Song of the Three Holy Children" insertion begins in Weber's edition), and some sites supply the remainder of Daniel (with the additions in chapter 3 and at the end, chapters 13 and 14) from the Clementine vulgate—a modern example of what textual critics call "block mixture" in the transmission of texts. I also note that the sites which have added the portions from the Clementine edition have also incorporated Jerome's comments about the additional matter into the text. In Daniel 3:23, 90, and 12:13 his comments ("Quae sequuntur in Hebraeis voluminibus non reperi," "Hucusque in Hebraeo non habetur et quae posuimus de Theodotionis editione translata sunt," and "Hucusque Danielem in hebraeo volumine legimus Quae sequuntur usque ad finem libri de Theodotionis editione translata sunt") appear in the text as if they were part of the translation. The additions to Esther, which Jerome placed at the end of the book, are omitted in all but one of the sites listed below.
• bibelwissenschaft.de (website of the German Bible Society) has the full text of Weber's edition online. In Daniel the apocryphal additions are included in chap. 3 and at the end of the book, with special marks. This is the only site which includes the additions to Esther.
• latinvulgate.com has Weber's text with the apocryphal additions to Daniel, and with a parallel translation (the Challoner-Rheims).
• scripturetext.com has the text according to Weber, minus the apocryphal additions in Daniel and Esther.
• drbo.org has it in chapter files, with a search utility; but in Daniel, from 3:23 to the end, the text is not Weber's, but from the Clementine edition, and Esther breaks off at 10:2.
• The University of Chicago has the same mixed text as drbo.org with a boolean search function.
• The Bible Gateway has the same mixed text as drbo.org, for browsing.
• Bibliotheca Augustana has Weber's text, with Daniel broken off at 3:23, and Esther at 10:2, in one large file for each book. Also here.
• The IntraText Digital Library (provided by an Italian software company named Èulogos) has the same text (with Daniel broken off at 3:23 and Esther at 10:2) outfitted with hypertext links to a concordance and word lists. This is a must-see.
• Daniel and additions to Esther. Complete text of Daniel and the additions to Esther. This site was put up by Dennis McCarthy at the Catholic Center at Georgia Tech in order to supply the deficiency in the online texts noted above, but instead of Weber's critical text here we have the text according to the Clementine Vulgate (ed. Hetzenauer, 1914). This is the source used by compilers of the "mixed" elecronic texts noted above.

Articles on the Latin Versions

•  LOCAL  Articles on the Old Latin and Vulgate by various authors.
• Vetus Latina: Resources for the study of the Old Latin Bible. By Hugh Houghton, M.A., a graduate student at the University of Birmingham. Not much here currently, but there are some good images of Old Latin manuscripts.

Latin Language Helps

• Latin Words in Context. A search utility at the Perseus site that finds instances of words and phrases appearing in many Latin texts. Useful in searching for examples of Latin idioms and phrases.
• Morphological Analyses for Inflected Latin Words. A word-parsing utility at the Perseus site.
• Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary. From the Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University. Very impressive!
• Latin Dictionary and Grammar Aid. From the University of Notre Dame. The dictionary here is very simple compared to the one at the Perseus site. Included on the page are some helpful links to other resources for students of Latin.
• Foundation of the Classics Technology Center has some very nice resources for Latin, provided free by AbleMedia. I want to especially mention the WORDS Latin-to-English Dictionary by William Whitaker, and the Electronic Resources for Latin by Paul Barrette.
• Latin Language and Literature. A good page of links maintained by the staff of the Alcuin Library at Saint John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota.
• Learn the Latin Language by Father Gary Coulter with Fr. Reginald Foster.