The birth of Georgian Christian literature, first of all, is related to the translation of the Bible into Georgian. Therefore, the study of the origins of the Georgian Christian culture, its orientations and connections to the Christian world is impossible without detailed, specific and fundamental study of the initial Georgian translation (or translations) of the Bible, its character, language and origin, and without the investigation of the objective material obtained through this research.
Therefore, the study of the Georgian Bible means the study of the birth and the first steps of the Georgian Christian culture.
For centuries, the text of the Bible has been changing for numerous reasons. For instance, it used to be changed by copyists, by sowing “the evil seeds”, used to be corrected according to the new grammatical norms, or aligned to Greek language, i.e. it used to be changed unintentionally as well as intentionally, sometimes because of veneration to the sacred scripture, or sometimes because of lack of it. The aim of the biblical scholar is to identify these changes, to find the logic behind this changes, and to attribute them to the traditions of the philological and/or theological schools. Therefore, the study of the Georgian Bible means also the study of the mainstreams of the Georgian Christian culture.
Georgian Bible is a translated text. Accordingly, the study of it is not possible without determining its parent text and considering the issues connected to this text. Therefore, the philology of the Georgian Bible includes all problems of the biblical scholarship in general and at the same time it is a part of it.
