© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/2212943X-20130105 Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 1 (2013) 69–113 brill.com/ihiw An Early Fragmentary Christian Palestinian Rendition of the Gospels into Arabic from Mār Sābā (MS Vat. Ar. 13, 9th c.) * Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala University of Crdoba ff1mosaj@uco.es Abstract Our aim in the present paper is to show that the translator of the oldest portions of the Gospels preserved in MS Vat. Ar. 13 used at least two texts, Greek and Syriac. Our analysis is based exclusively in the fragment represented by Matthew 11:1–19. According to our analysis of the translation strategies adopted by the Melkite translator the Greek text was used as the base text for the translation into Arabic. At the same time, the Syriac text/s was/were consulted for revising the previous translation made from Greek, a task which may have taken place during the very translation process. As we shall attempt to show in the present paper the revision made through Syriac text/s, together with the exegesis added by the translator, influenced the final Arabic version in some concrete parts of the texts. Keywords Melkite translation, Bible in Arabic, Arabic Gospel, Greek Vorlage, Syriac Interferences, Exegesis Introduction The importance of the MS Vat. Ar. 13 has always resided, primarily, in its early date. This feature was stressed from the outset, when Guidi in the nineteenth century and later Mai—who catalogued the collection of which the codex formed part—dated it to the eighth century ce. 1 This dating was initially ac- cepted by the German scholar Graf, 2 although years later he placed it in the *) The present study was prepared within the framework of the Research Project FFI2011–25460: ‘Aramaic and Arabic manuscripts kept in the Maronite Library and the Fundation Salem of Aleppo (Syria). Cataloguing and Study’, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (actually Ministry of Economics and Competitiveness). I wish to thank the two readers for the valuable comments. 1) Guidi, “Le traduzioni degli Evangelii”. 2) Graf, Die christlich-arabische Literatur, p. 10.