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Andrew Persson studied Classics and then Arabic with Turkish at Oxford University. With his wife Janet he then worked for SIL International as a linguist, Bible translation advisor and consultant. They began work in Sudan in 1977 and produced Sudanese Colloquial Arabic for Beginners while Andrew was studying for an MA in African Languages at the University of Khartoum. Over the next 35 years they continued to assist and supervise Bible translation projects in Sudan and elsewhere. Andrew became a Senior Bible Translation Consultant for SIL and produced books on the translation of the Johannine Epistles and Revelation. After retirement he continued to check Bible translations in South Sudan and became involved in the work of the Centre for Muslim Christian Studies in Oxford. This has led him to investigate what is reputed to be the earliest Bible translation into Arabic, the gospels as found in Vatican Arabic MS 13.