Abstract
All ancient Syriac versions of the New Testament are based on the Greek text. Nevertheless, these versions in some cases witness to significant textual variants which manifest that dealing with the sacred texts was not ruled by a rigid discipline of mechanical ans slavish copying, but rather it was inspired by an idea that the text is open for a living encounter with readers.
The presented chapter demonstrate this approach to the biblical texts by some observations regarding the text in the chapter 4 of the Gospel of John. Comparing the two versions of the Old Syriac (Vetus Syra),attested by the 5th-century Codex Curetonianus (= C) and by the 4th/5th-century Sinaitic Manuscript (= S), the Peshitta version (= P) and the later Harqlean version (= H), will give us an overview, drawing out not only the linguistic, stylistic, and literary peculiarities, but theological and other interpretative tendencies of each version as well.