B.19 REVIEW OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTMANT: ITS ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT AND SIGNIFICANCE (BRUCE M. METZGER)

1. THE SYRIAN CHURCHES

The fact that during the first six centuries of the Christian era five or six separate versions of the Scriptures in Syriac were produced is testimony to the vitality and scholarship of Syrian churches. Indeed, as Eberhard Nestle has reminded us, ‘No branch of the Early Church has done more for the translation of the Bible into their vernacular than the Syriac-speaking. In our European libraries we have Syriac Bible MSS from Lebanon, Egypt, Sinai, Mesopotamia, Armenia, India (Malabar), and even from China.’