The first translations of the New Testament

The earliest translations of the New Testament sprang up surprisingly fast, because Christian communities were multilingual from the start. 

The first translations of the New Testament weren’t Latin. They were Syriac and Coptic.

The earliest Christians outside Palestine were in Syria and Egypt, both Greek-speaking regions, but both had large populations whose first languages were Syriac (Aramaic) and Coptic (Egyptian). That’s where translation began before Latin became dominant.

So the earliest translation timelines look like this:

1. Syriac (Early 2nd century)

Probably the first major translation.

Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic, meaning it is very close to the language Jesus Himself spoke. The earliest form is called the Old Syriac, represented by:

• the Syriac Sinaiticus (late 2nd or early 3rd century)

• the Curetonian Gospels (3rd century)

These reflect translations that likely began sometime around AD 120–150.

2. Coptic (Early to mid-2nd century)

Egypt was packed with Christians by the second century. Greek was common in the cities, but the rural population spoke different Coptic dialects. So Christians translated Scripture for them early on.

Earliest dialects:

• Sahidic Coptic — likely begun AD 150–200

• Bohairic Coptic — slightly later

• Other regional dialects appeared through the 2nd–3rd centuries

The Sahidic translation is extremely important because it preserves early Alexandrian readings—sometimes even older than surviving Greek manuscripts.

3. Latin (Late 2nd century)

Latin was not the first.

The earliest Latin translations, now called Old Latin or Vetus Latina, were made around AD 180–200, mainly in North Africa and Rome. These came before Jerome’s Vulgate (late 4th century), which replaced the many competing Old Latin versions.

4. Later translations: Armenian, Georgian, Gothic, Ethiopic

These appear from the 4th century onward and do not belong in the “earliest possible” tier.

Why Syriac and Coptic came first

Greek was the lingua franca of the Roman East. Most converts in the earliest decades could read Greek. Translations only became necessary when Christianity reached deeply into regions where Greek had not penetrated strongly.

That’s why:

• Syriac emerged in the East (Edessa, Nisibis)

• Coptic emerged in the South (Egypt)

These are natural “first translation zones.”

Did the original autographs get translated directly?

Not likely.

Translators would have used early local Greek manuscripts, not the original autographs.

This means:

• Syriac Christians translated from early Eastern Greek texts

• Coptic Christians translated from early Alexandrian Greek texts

• Latin Christians translated from Western Greek texts

None of these were identical. That’s why the early translations preserve different “families” of readings.

This is one of the strongest historical proofs against the idea of a single, perfect textual line (e.g., a strict “KJV-only” claim). The textual world was diverse from the beginning.

The surprising truth

The first Christians had no problem with this diversity.

They cared most about the message, not absolute uniformity of every syllable.

Textual variety is not a late corruption.

It is a feature of Christianity from its earliest decades.