Peshitta

The Peshitta is the standard Bible of the Syriac-speaking churches and one of Christianity's most important ancient versions, its name traditionally understood to mean something like "simple" or "common." It encompasses both the Old and New Testaments, rendered from Hebrew and Greek respectively: the Old Testament rests on a Hebrew base text, while the New Testament derives from a Greek one. Its translation philosophy is generally close yet idiomatic, and it may be classed as a fresh translation that came to form a standardized tradition, drawing on earlier Syriac renderings as its predecessor and base. Among its distinctive features, the earliest standard Peshitta New Testament lacks several books present in later Western canons. Transmitted in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, it remains the liturgical Bible of the Syriac traditions and is regularly consulted by scholars of the biblical text and its early transmission.