Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

GOTHIC VERSION

A translation of the Bible into the Gothic language by Ulfilas (ca. 310-380 c.e.), who created a special Gothic alphabet and reduced the spoken language to written form. The translation was begun ca. 341, when Ulfilas went to Byzantium and was consecrated “bishop of the Gothlands” by Eusebius of Nicomedia. It was completed sometime after 348, when Gothic Christians, including Ulfilas, were expelled and crossed the Danube into Moesia.

Other than about 50 verses from Neh. 5–7, the Gothic OT has not survived. Based on the Byzantine or Koine text, the translation of the NT is the oldest known Teutonic literary document. “Western” readings, particularly in the Pauline Epistles, were introduced from Old Latin manuscripts.

The most complete of the half-dozen fragmentary manuscripts is a 5th- or 6th-century copy in the University Library in Uppsala. Written on purple vellum with silver ink, Codex Argentus presents about one half of the text of the Gospels in the order of Matthew, John, Luke, Mark. All other manuscripts of the Gothic NT, with the exception of a vellum leaf of a bilingual Latin and Gothic manuscript now at Giessen, are palimpsests. Ca. 40 verses of the book of Romans are extant in a bilingual Latin and Gothic manuscript at Wolfenbüttel. Nothing exists of Acts, the Catholic Epistles, or Revelation.

Carroll D. Osburn

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

GOTHIC VERSION

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)