A polyglot’s delight! Written in the days when textual criticism was still relatively new, and the great mass of manuscripts commonly used by present-day biblical scholars had not yet been plumbed, Lagarde spent many years making these exotic manuscripts available to scholars who previously had no access to them. In this volume are combined two of his seminal publications of such manuscripts: the Pentateuch translated into Coptic, and the Gospels translated into Arabic. The Coptic manuscript from which the current edition was derived was the David Wilkins 1731 manuscript in London, which was compared with the Vatican, Paris, and Bodleian manuscripts. The Gospels derive from the Vienna manuscripts, particularly Lambeck I 172. Despite the relatively recent dates of the manuscripts for both collections, the material contained in these translations dates back to a period nearer in time to the originals than their exemplars. Each of these translations is introduced in German with some critical notes about the readings included. Much like the Bible itself, written in two languages, this edition provides a wealth of information for those who take the time to unlock it.

Paul Anton de Lagarde (1827-1891) was a biblical scholar and student of ancient languages. Having studied at Berlin, Halle, London, and Paris, he had a wide exposure to international thought. He eventually taught at Göttingen. Despite his participation in the anti-Semitism of his day, he was a gifted student of Semitic languages. His voluminous linguistic works are still recognized for their insights into oriental languages. He made important contributions to the study of Syriac, Aramaic, Arabic, Hebrew, and Coptic, as well as Greek and Latin.