Peshitta
The Peshitta ( "or" "") is the standard version of the Bible for churches in the Syriac tradition, including the Maronite Church, the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Syriac Catholic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Malabar Independent Syrian Church (Thozhiyoor Church), the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church, the Mar Thoma Syrian Church, the Assyrian Church of the East and the Syro-Malabar Church. The consensus within biblical scholarship, although not universal, is that the Old Testament of the Peshitta was translated into Syriac from Biblical Hebrew, probably in the 2nd century AD, and that the New Testament of the Peshitta was translated  from the Greek. This New Testament, originally excluding certain disputed books (2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Revelation), had become a standard by the early 5th century. The five excluded books were added in the Harklean Version (AD 616) of Thomas of Harqel. Etymology. "Peshitta" is derived from the Syriac "mappaqtâ pšîṭtâ" (ܡܦܩܬܐ ܦܫܝܛܬܐ), literally meaning "simple version". However, it is also possible to translate "pšîṭtâ" as "common" (that is, for all people), or "straight", as well as the usual translation as "simple". Syriac is a dialect, or group of dialects, of Eastern Aramaic, originating around Edessa. It is  written in the Syriac alphabet and is transliterated into the Latin script in a number of ways, generating different spellings of the name: "Peshitta", "Peshittâ", "Pshitta", "Pšittâ", "Pshitto", "Fshitto". All of these are acceptable, but "Peshitta" is the most conventional spelling in English. Brief history. The Peshitta had from the 5th century onward a wide circulation in the East, and was accepted and honored by the whole diversity of sects of Syriac Christianity. It had a great missionary influence: the Armenian and Georgian versions, as well as the Arabic and the Persian, owe not a little to the Syriac. The  famous Nestorian tablet of Chang'an witnesses to the presence of the Syriac scriptures in the heart of China in the 8th century. The Peshitta was first brought to the West by Moses of Mindin, a noted Syrian ecclesiastic who unsuccessfully sought a patron for the work of printing it in Rome and Venice. However, he was successful in finding such a patron in the Imperial Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire at Vienna in 1555—Albert Widmanstadt. He undertook the printing of the New Testament, and the emperor bore the cost of the special types which had to be cast  for its issue in Syriac. Immanuel Tremellius, the converted Jew whose scholarship was so valuable to the English reformers and divines, made use of it, and in 1569 issued a Syriac New Testament in Hebrew letters. In 1645, the "editio princeps" of the Old Testament was prepared by Gabriel Sionita for the Paris Polyglot, and in 1657 the whole Peshitta found a place in Walton's "London Polyglot". For long the best edition of the Peshitta was that of John Leusden and Karl Schaaf, and it is still quoted under the symbol "Syrschaaf", or "SyrSch". New Testament. In a detailed  examination of Matthew 1–14, Gwilliam found that the Peshitta agrees with the "Textus Receptus" only 108 times and with the "Codex Vaticanus" 65 times. Meanwhile, in 137 instances it differs from both, usually with the support of the Old Syriac and the Old Latin, and in 31 instances it stands alone. A statement by Eusebius that Hegesippus "made some quotations from the Gospel according to the Hebrews and from the Syriac Gospel," means we should have a reference to a Syriac New Testament as early as 160–180 AD, the time of that Hebrew Christian writer. The translation of the New  Testament has been admired by Syriac scholars, who have deemed it "careful, faithful, and literal" with it sometimes being referred to as the "Queen of the versions." Critical edition of the New Testament. The standard United Bible Societies 1905 edition of the New Testament of the Peshitta was based on editions prepared by Syriacists Philip E. Pusey (d. 1880), George Gwilliam (d. 1914) and John Gwyn. These editions comprised Gwilliam & Pusey's 1901 critical edition of the gospels, Gwilliam's critical edition of Acts, Gwilliam & Pinkerton's critical edition of Paul's Epistles and John Gwynn's critical edition of  the General Epistles and later Revelation. This critical Peshitta text is based on a collation of more than seventy Peshitta and a few other Aramaic manuscripts. All 27 books of the common Western Canon of the New Testament are included in this British & Foreign Bible Society's 1905 Peshitta edition, as is the adultery pericope (John 7:53–8:11). The 1979 Syriac Bible, United Bible Society, uses the same text for its New Testament. The Online Bible reproduces the 1905 Syriac Peshitta NT in Hebrew characters. Manuscripts. Although physical evidence has yet to be found, J.S. Assemane in his Bibliotheca stated that  a Syriac Gospel dated 78 A.D. was found in Mesopotamia. The following manuscripts are in the British Archives: