Armenian Versions, of the Bible
The Need for an Armenian Bible
Armenia holds the distinction of being the first nation to adopt Christianity as its state religion, traditionally dated to 301 AD under King Tiridates III and through the ministry of Gregory the Illuminator. Yet for over a century after this conversion, the Armenian church had no Bible in its own language. Scriptures were read aloud in either Greek or Syriac, languages understood by the educated clergy but largely inaccessible to ordinary Armenians. Priests would translate orally for their congregations, a practice that left much to be desired in terms of accuracy and consistency.
The situation grew more urgent when Persian political domination threatened to sever Armenia from the Greek-speaking Christian world. Around 378 AD, the Persian king Sapor gained control of much of Armenia. His administrators suppressed Greek learning, destroyed Greek books, and attempted to undermine Christian influence. The church faced a crisis: without access to Scripture in a language the people could understand, the faith risked withering under political pressure.
The Invention of the Armenian Alphabet
The translation of the Bible required something that did not yet exist, a written Armenian language. The monk Mesrob Mashtots, working with the support of the Catholicos Isaac (Sahak) and King Vramshapouh, undertook the monumental task of creating an alphabet suited to the sounds of Armenian. After years of effort, Mesrob succeeded around 405-406 AD in devising a script of 36 letters (later expanded to 38), drawing on Greek, Syriac, and Pahlavi models but creating something fundamentally new.
This alphabet was one of the great intellectual achievements of the ancient world. It was designed specifically to represent the phonetic range of the Armenian language with precision, and it has remained in use, with minor modifications, for over sixteen centuries. The creation of the alphabet made possible not only the translation of the Bible but the birth of Armenian literature as a whole.
The Translation Process
With the alphabet in hand, Mesrob and Isaac assembled a team of scholars and began translating the Scriptures. The earliest translations, completed around 410-414 AD, were made primarily from Syriac texts, since those were most readily available under Persian rule. However, the translators recognized the need for Greek sources, which were considered more authoritative.
According to Armenian tradition, Mesrob sent students to Constantinople, Alexandria, and other centers of learning to study Greek and to obtain the best available manuscripts. A thorough revision of the translation was undertaken using Greek texts, likely around 430-435 AD. This revised version, based primarily on the Greek Septuagint for the Old Testament and Greek manuscripts for the New Testament, became the standard Armenian Bible.
The quality of the translation was extraordinary. Later scholars dubbed it the "Queen of Translations" for its combination of fidelity to the original texts and elegance in Armenian expression. The translators achieved a balance between literal accuracy and natural Armenian style that has rarely been surpassed in the history of Bible translation.
Significance for Biblical Scholarship
The Armenian Bible is valuable for textual criticism because it preserves readings from Greek manuscripts that are now lost. Since the translators worked from fifth-century Greek texts, texts older than many surviving Greek manuscripts, the Armenian version can sometimes help scholars reconstruct earlier forms of the biblical text.
The Armenian text shows affinities with the Caesarean text-type, a family of Greek manuscripts associated with Caesarea in Palestine. This connection reflects the routes through which Greek manuscripts reached Armenia. The Armenian version is particularly important for the study of the Gospels, Acts, and the Pauline letters, where it preserves distinctive readings that contribute to the ongoing work of textual scholarship.
The first printed edition of the Armenian Bible was published in Amsterdam in 1666, making it one of the earlier complete Bibles to appear in print. Subsequent critical editions have been produced by the Mekhitarist monks in Venice and Vienna, who have been custodians of Armenian manuscript traditions for centuries.
The Armenian Bible and National Identity
The translation of the Bible into Armenian did more than provide Scripture to the church, it created the foundation for Armenian national and cultural identity. The alphabet Mesrob invented became the vehicle for a rich literary tradition encompassing theology, history, philosophy, and poetry. The first sentence ever written in Armenian, according to tradition, was from the book of Proverbs: "To know wisdom and instruction, to understand words of insight" (Proverbs 1:2).
Through centuries of foreign domination, by Persians, Arabs, Seljuk Turks, Mongols, and Ottomans, the Armenian Bible and the Armenian alphabet remained the enduring symbols of national survival. The church, built on the foundation of Scripture in the people's own language, served as the primary institution preserving Armenian identity through every political catastrophe, including the genocide of the early twentieth century.
Modern Armenian Translations
The classical Armenian of the fifth-century Bible eventually became unintelligible to ordinary speakers, much as Chaucerian English is to modern readers. Two main dialects of modern Armenian emerged: Eastern (spoken in Armenia and Iran) and Western (spoken by diaspora communities descended from Ottoman Armenian populations). Bible translations into both dialects were produced in the nineteenth century with the support of the Bible societies, making Scripture once again accessible to the Armenian-speaking world.
Biblical Context
The Armenian Bible encompasses the entire Old and New Testaments. The translation project was inspired by the conviction expressed in passages like Deuteronomy 6:6-7 that God's word must be accessible to all his people. The Great Commission to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20) provided theological motivation for translating Scripture into every language. Paul's principle that worship should be in a language the people understand (1 Corinthians 14:9-19) undergirded the translation effort.
Theological Significance
The Armenian Bible demonstrates the power of Scripture to create and sustain a Christian civilization. The conviction that every people needs God's word in their own language, a principle that would later drive the Protestant Reformation and modern Bible translation movements, was already at work in fifth-century Armenia. The survival of Armenian Christianity through centuries of persecution, sustained by access to Scripture in their own tongue, testifies to the enduring power of the translated word of God.
Historical Background
Armenian Christianity traces its roots to the apostolic era, with traditions associating the apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew with the first preaching of the gospel in Armenia. Gregory the Illuminator's conversion of King Tiridates around 301 AD made Armenia the first officially Christian nation. The Mekhitarist Order, founded in 1701, has been instrumental in preserving and publishing Armenian manuscripts. Over 30,000 Armenian manuscripts survive worldwide, many containing biblical texts. The Matenadaran in Yerevan, Armenia, houses one of the world's largest collections of ancient manuscripts, including some of the oldest Armenian Bible manuscripts in existence.