THE STORY OF THE SMITH-VAN DYCK TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE INTO ARABIC (original) (raw)

“The translation project began in 1848, with Dr. Eli Smith. On 9 April 1848, Dr. Smith submitted a copy of the new translation of the Book of Genesis. Four years later, most of the Pentateuch had been translated and approved. Dr. Smith worked on the translation of the New Testament that was completed in 1855.” “At the time of his death in 1856, Eli Smith had devoted nine years to this work. The mission appointed Dr. Cornelius Van Dyck who continued with the translation work in November 1857, until it was accomplished in 1865. “Cornelius Van Alan Van Dyck, M.D., came to Syria, April 2, 1840, aged twenty-one years and four months, the youngest American ever sent to Syria. He came as a medical missionary, had never studied theology, but in seventeen years in Syria he had mastered the Arabic language, the Syrian, Hebrew, Greek, French, Italian and German. He was of Dutch origin, born at Kinderhook in 1818. He had a genius for languages, a phenomenal memory, a clear intellect, and excelled in medicine, astronomy, the higher mathematics, and linguistic science. His knowledge of Arabic, both classical and vulgar, was a wonder to both natives and foreigners, as will be seen in the chapter on his life and work. He had been ordained January 14, 1846, and afterwards received the degrees of D.D. and LL.D., and later that of L.H.D. from Edinburgh.”