It is not yet clear which Arabic and/or multilingual edition(s) Abba Abraham (c. 1749/50‒1818) and Asselin de Cherville (1772‒1822) used when translating Bible texts. The most likely editions are the following ones:
(1) Arabic Bible texts
1.1 SERGIUS RISI, Philip Guadagnoli, and Ludovico Marracci:
Biblia Sacra Arabica Sacrae Congregationis de Propaganda Fide iussu edita ad usum ecelesiarum orientalium additis e regione Bibliis Latinis Vulgatis / al-kutub al-muqaddasah bi-al-lisān al-ʻArabī maʻa al-nuskhah al-Lāṭīniyah al-ʻāmmah al-maṭbūʻah bi-amr al-majmaʻ al-muqaddas al-mutawakkil ʻalā intishār al-īmān al-masīḥīli-manfaʻat al-kanā’īs al-sharqiyah al-majād al-thālith. 3 vols. Rome: Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, 1671. [View vol. 3 (Arabic/Latin NT) at Archive.org]
1.2 ERPE, Thomas van [lat. Thomas Erpenius]:
Novum D. N. Jesu Christi Testamentum Arabice. Leiden: Erpenius, 1616. [e-rara]
Note
It is likely that Asselin de Cherville was familiar with Erpe’s edition of the Arabic New Testament, as his former professor and lifelong patron, Silvestre de Sacy, preferred it to the Arabic Bible published by the Propaganda Fide (see 1.1 above). De Sacy worked on a bilingual (Syriac and Arabic) New Testament and transcribed Erpe’s slightly revised text into Karshuni script (Syriac) on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society:
- Quatremère, Etienne Marc, and Antoine Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, eds. Ketava ḳadmaya di-deyatiḳa ḥedata bi-leshana Suryaya ṿe-Arabaya aikh ʿeyada de-ʿadata de-Marunaya / Kitab al-ahd al-jadid li-rabbina Yasu al-Masih. Paris: Barish, [1824] [British Library record]
(2) Polyglot Bibles
The following polyglot Bibles might have been used by Asselin de Cherville and Thomas Pell Platt (1798‒1852) to look up the Syriac and Ge’ez translations of difficult Arabic words:
2.1 LEJAY, Guy Michel, et al.:
[Paris Polyglot] Biblia Hebraica, Samaritana, Chaldaica, Graeca, Syriaca, Latina, Arabica, quibus textus originales totius Scripturae Sacrae, quorum pars in editione Complutensi, deinde in Antuerpiensi regiis sumptibus extat, nunc integri, ex manuscriptis toto fere orbe quaesitis exemplaribus, exhibentur. 9 vols. Paris: Antoine Vitré, 1628‒1645. [View vol. 5, pt. 1 (Gospels) at Georgetown Univ. (large file!)]
2.2 WALTON, Brian, et al.:
[London Polyglot] Biblia sacra polyglotta: complectentia textus originales, Hebraicum, cum Pentateucho Samaritano, Chaldaicum, Graecum. Versionumque antiquarum, Samaritanae, Graecae LXXII interp. Chaldaicae, Syriacae, Arabicae, Aethiopicae [only NT!], Persicae, vulg. Lat. Quicquid comparari poterat. Cum textuum, & versionum Orientalium translationibus Latinis … Cum apparatu, appendicibus, tabulis, variis lectionibus, annotationibus, indicibus, & c. 6 vols. London: Thomas Roycroft, 1654‒1657. [View vol. 5 (New Testament) at Archive.org]
Further reading
Graf. Georg. Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur; vol. 1: Die Übersetzungen. Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1944. [See pp. 93‒97, 139, 141; Archive.org]
“Bibliography of the Arabic Bible” (Ludwig-Maximilians-Univ., Munich)
Cross-reference
Abba Abraham, Manuscripts