chapter eleven

THE VERSION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

Jef W. Childers

The Georgian version of the New Testament remains one of the least well- studied versions. This is partly due to its commonly accepted status as a sec- ondary or even tertiary version—but also to the obscurity of the language itself,1 the relative scarcity of key tools and editions,2 and even the contin- uing political instability and isolation of and Georgian scholarship since the demise of the Soviet Union.3 Yet the results of twentieth-century research commend the Georgian not only as a rewarding  eld of study in its own right, but also as a valuable resource for the twenty- rst-century task of writing the history of the New Testament text. The translation of the New Testament into the (k‘ar- t‘uli)4 is bound up with the coming of Christianity to eastern Georgia (k‘art‘li; Greek “”). Apart from late legends celebrating apostolic missions to the , archaeological evidence from burials in Urbnisi and the an- cient capital of Mc‘xet‘a indicates that Christianity had a presence there by

1 This problem is steadily being remedied as basic language tools continue to appear: Kevin Tuite, “Early Georgian,” in The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor (ed. Roger D. Woodard; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 145–165; Heinz Fähnrich, “Old Georgian,” in The Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus, vol. 1: The (ed. Alice C. Harris; Delmar: Caravan, 1991), 131–217; H. Fähnrich, Grammatik der altgeorgischen Sprache (Hamburg: Buske, 1994); and the older Akaki Shanidze, Grammatik der altgeorgischen Sprache (trans. H. Fähnrich; Schriften des Lehrstuhls für Altgeorgische Sprache 24; Tbil- isi: State University, 1982). For recent lexical aids: Surab Sardshweladse and Heinz Fähn- rich, Altgeorgisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (Lexicographia Orientalis 5; Hamburg: Buske, 1999); S. Sardshweladse and H. Fähnrich, Altgeorgisch-deutschesWörterbuch (Handbook of Oriental Studies, section 8: Uralic and Central Asian Studies 12; Leiden, Brill, 2005); Donald Ray eld, ed., A Comprehensive Georgian-English Dictionary (2 vols.; London: Garnett, 2006). 2 The recent publication of digital tools and resources on the internet greatly improves accessibility. See the discussion of the Armazi Project and TITUS Index below. 3 See Elguja Khintibidze, Georgian Literature in European Scholarship (Amsterdam: Hak- kert, 2001). 4 The system of transliteration used is that of the Library of Congress (http://www.loc .gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html). Romanized forms of names occurring in print are retained. 294 jeff w. childers the third century, perhaps brought by Jewish immigrants.5 The traditional national tale points to the fourth century as the period in which the Geor- gian royal family adopted Christianity, crediting the inuence of a foreign slave woman named Nino.6 Although the historicity of the Nino tale is much disputed, Christianity did in fact make major inroads into Georgia in the fourth century. By the  fth century, Christianity was the dominant faith in Georgia.7 Native traditions ascribe the invention of the Georgian alphabet to P‘ar- navaz, a third-century bce king of Georgia.8 The more widely accepted account follows the Armenian tradition that the missionary Mesrob Mash- toc‘ (d. ca. 440) devised the Georgian alphabet after having done so for Armenian. Although a Georgian inscription unearthed at Nekresi has been dated to the  rst or second century,9 the dating is highly questionable. Indisputably pre-fourth-century inscriptions from Georgia are in Greek or Aramaic, not Georgian. Hence, no clear evidence exists for a pre-Christian Georgian alphabet,10 and it appears likely that the alphabet was devised as part of a Christian initiative during the late fourth or early  fth century, though the legends associating it with Mesrob/Mashtoc‘ are tendentious,11

5 See the historical overview in Stephen H. Rapp, “Georgian Christianity,” in The Black- well Companion to Eastern Christianity (ed. Ken Parry; Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 137–155; also, Tamila Mgaloblishvili and Iulon Gagoshidze, “The Jewish Diaspora and Early Christianity in Georgia,” in Christianity in the Caucasus (ed. Mgaloblishvili; Iberica Caucasica 1; Richmond: Curzon, 1998), 39–58; Michel van Esbroeck, “Église géorgienne des origines au moyen age,” Bedi Kartlisa 40 (1982): 186–199; Kalistrate Salia, “Outline of the History of Georgia,” Bedi Kartlisa 30 (1975): 17–71. 6 Rapp, “Georgian Christianity,” 138; cf. Konstantin Lerner, “Georgia, Christian History of,” in Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity (ed. Ken Parry et al.; reprint; Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 210–212. 7 See Christopher Haas, “Mountain Constantines: The Christianization of Aksum and Iberia,” Journal of Late Antiquity 1 (2008): 101–126. 8 Dee Ann Holiskey, “The Georgian Alphabet,” in The World’s Writing Systems (ed. Peter T. Daniels and William Bright; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 364–370; Thomas V. Gamkrelidze, “Typology of Writing, Greek Alphabet, and the Origin of Alphabetic Scripts of the Christian Orient,” in Current Trends in Caucasian, East European and Inner Asian Linguistics (ed. D.A. Holiskey and K. Tuite; Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2003), 85–96. 9 Levan Chilashvili, “A Pre-Christian Inscription (from Nekresi),” K‘art‘velologi 7 (2000): 16–24. 10 See S.H. Rapp, Studies in Medieval Georgian Historiography: Early Texts and Eurasian Contexts (CSCO 601; Louvain: Peeters, 2003), 19; D. Ray eld, The Literature of Georgia: A His- tory (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2000), 19; cf. K. Salia, “Note sur l’origine et âge de l’alphabet géorgien,” Bedi Kartlisa 15–16 (1963): 5–18; G. Deeters, “Das Alter der georgischen Schrift,” OrChr 39 (1955): 56–65. 11 Rapp, “Georgian Christianity,” 139.