Van Dyck, Cornelius (Van Allen) (1818–1895)

US scholar and medical missionary. He studied Arabic intensively and ran a high school in Lebanon (1843–49). In 1857, he took up the uncompleted work of Eli Smith; by 1865 he had made the first modern translation of the Bible into Arabic. He was a professor of pathology at Syrian Protestant College (1867–83). His last work was a translation of Ben Hur into Arabic.

Van Dyck was born in Kinderhook, New York. He graduated from Jefferson Medical College (1839) and became a medical missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.