The Bible was translated into Old Nubian during the period when Christianity was dominant in Nubia. Throughout the Middle Ages, Nubia was divided into separate kingdoms: Nobadia, Makuria and Alodia. Old Nubian may be regarded was the standard written form in all three kingdoms. Of the living Nubian languages, it is modern Nobiin which is the closest to Old Nubian and probably its direct descendant. The date of the first translation of the Bible into Old Nubian is unknown. Probably it was not long after the establishment of Christianity in the sixth century. The Nubian Bible was translated from the original Greek in the case of the New Testament and in the case of the Old Testament mainly from the Septuagint with possibly some input from the Hexapla. With the Islamization of Nubia in the 14th and 15th centuries, the Nubian Bible was lost. No complete Nubian Bible survives today. All of the Old Nubian biblical fragments, including quotations of the Bible in other works, have been gathered and edited by G. Michael Browne. Portions of the Bible were translated into Nobiin between 1860 and 1899.
Discovery of texts
In 1906, Carl Schmidt rediscovered the Nubian Bible in Cairo when he purchased sixteen pages of a parchment codex containing parts of a lectionary for the Christmas season, December 20–26. The biblical readings are drawn from the Apostolos and the Gospels. The sequence and selection of texts are unique and unlike those of any known Greek or Coptic lectionary except for the readings for December 25, which are the same as those of the Greek menologia. Sixteen fragments of the Nubian Bible were subsequently found in the ruins of the cathedral of Qasr Ibrim. These include passages from John, Philippians, Hebrews, 1 Corinthians, Revelation and Psalms. Some of the Psalms 149 and 150 are recorded with verses alternating between Greek and Nubian translation. This format is also found in fragments of Psalms and Daniel found at Old Dongola and possibly made by the same scribe as the Qasr Ibrim fragments. These bilingual texts were probably not intended for public reading but for the private edification of the scholarly class, which was fluent in both languages. Also recovered from Qasr Ibrim was a six-word fragment identified by Browne as belonging to a Nubian translation of the SyriacDiatessaron of Tatian. It was published by Browne under a pseudonym and its authenticity has been questioned. Fragments of Mark and Luke have been recovered from the island of Sunnarti. There are also biblical passages in the Nubian translation of Pseudo-Chrysostom. Several Old Nubian biblical texts have been found on ostraka and wooden planks similar to those from the pre-Christian period. These may have had an apotropaic function carried over from the Isaic religion. Something similar may be behind the arrays of texts in Greek, Coptic and Old Nubian, including Old Nubian biblical texts and some magical signs, that cover the interior of the tomb of Archbishop George of Dongola.
