The Septuagint and the canon. A question for the East and the West

[Byzman]

Ok I stand corrected concerning Florence, but it merely says “It accepts and venerates their books, whose titles are as follows.” but does not condemn or say that the Greek or Oriental Canon is incorrect. Only that it must at least accept the following books.

In a way, this is exaclty how I read it too. I also look at from the way of how things are read in churches throughout Tradition. It would only make sense for the Latin Church to comment on the Books that are particular to their Tradition. The Septuagint is particular to our Greek Tradition, how could they comment on it w/o it being peculiar to theirs. Now if a Ecumenical Council were to convene including, of course, the East, than the matter could be settled.

So, in respect to the OP’s question, the Latin Church was only setting a Canon of Scripture that is particular to their Tradition, the way that the books are wont to be read in their churches. Which may seem like they are picking and choosing. I think this can be seen when looking at the way the Fathers speak when they talk about certain books in certain churches.

 

[John_Larocque]

And then there’s the dog with the wagging tail.

companysj.com/v141/written.html

For centuries, Catholics, for whom the Book of Tobit is canonical have been reading the charming story of Tobit and his son Tobiah in the Latin Vulgate or in vernacular Bibles based on the Vulgate. St. Jerome, who produced the Vulgate in the late fourth century a.d., was not really interested in translating Tobit but was pressured by two bishops to do so. Eventually he acquiesced and found a Jew who could read the Aramaic story and translate it into Hebrew, which Jerome then rendered into Latin as part of the Vulgate. He boasted in a letter that he devoted “one day’s work” to it.

In the story, Tobit’s dog went along on a trip to Rages with the young Tobiah and the angel Raphael. As they returned to Nineveh, the dog ran ahead, bringing the news of their return and “showed his joy by fawning and wagging his tail” (blandimento suae caudae gaudebat [11:9] ). So runs the story in the Douay-Rheims Catholic Bible, based on the Vulgate. Alas, that amusing detail is not found in the earlier versions of the story used in the Bibles that Jerome’s edition replaced. Where could Jerome have gotten it?

–

In 1952 Qumran Cave 4 was discovered, and out of it came 40,000 fragments that had to be pieced together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. By 1960, when the puzzle was more or less finished, close to 580 fragmentary texts had been assembled. Some were biblical texts, copies of Old Testament books; others were sectarian writings, rulebooks, hymnbooks, or prayer books of the Essenes, the Jewish community who had dwelled in Qumran.

Among the documents in Cave 4 were fragmentary copies of the Book of Tobit, four in Aramaic and one in Hebrew. The person to whom these texts were entrusted for publication sat on them for nearly 40 years and never published them.

Near the end of 1991 I was asked to prepare the Tobit texts for publication. The Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem sent me ten photographs of the texts, which I spent a year studying and transcribing; I ultimately traveled to Jerusalem for a close inspection of the fragments themselves. My work on these Tobit texts makes up volume 19 of the series, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, published by Clarendon Press in Oxford. In it I give for each fragment the transcription of its text, a translation into English, and a brief commentary, which compares the original Aramaic or Hebrew text with the ancient Greek and Latin versions of the story, which have long been known.

It is not easy to assess the importance of the discovery of these Tobit fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls. On the one hand, it means that we now have recovered about a fifth of the Book of Tobit in a Semitic language, some in Aramaic and some in Hebrew, and this version, which dates to around the second century b.c., is a much earlier version than what we had until the discovery of these Qumran fragments. But on the other hand, these fragments of Tobit will modify the Tobit story in revisions of modern Bibles.

Jerome’s Vulgate form of Tobit is related to a Greek version preserved in the manuscripts Alexandrinus and Vaticanus, which date from the fourth/fifth centuries a.d. In 1844, however, a German biblical scholar, Constantin von Tischendorf, discovered in the library of the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Mount Sinai an important manuscript of the Greek Old Testament that dates to the fourth century a.d. That manuscript, called Sinaiticus, contained a Greek form of the Tobit story that no one in the Western Church had read for centuries. It was longer than the Greek story in Alexandrinus and Vaticanus and the Latin story in the Vulgate. It was related in length and form to the Vetus Latina (Old Latin Bible), which Jerome’s Vulgate had replaced in the Western Church. The importance of the neglected longer form of Tobit in the Vetus Latina was then recognized.

What is striking about the Qumran Tobit texts, both Aramaic and Hebrew, is that they not only agree with the longer form of Sinaiticus and Vetus Latina but are also at times longer than either of them. This has been public knowledge since the 1950s, when preliminary reports were issued about the kinds of biblical texts recovered from Qumran. Since then, vernacular Catholic Bibles, including La Sainte Bible de Jerusalem (the Jerusalem Bible in English), began incorporating the longer Tobit story of the Sinaiticus and Vetus Latina. Although Tobit in the Revised Standard Version of 1957 was translated from the short version of the manuscripts Alexandrinus and Vaticanus, the New Revised Standard Version of 1991 presents the longer version of Sinaiticus, supplemented by the Vetus Latina.

Having finished the work on the Qumran Tobit texts, I was asked to revise the English translation of Tobit for a forthcoming revision of the New American Bible. Since the Qumran Aramaic and Hebrew texts are fragmentary, I had to use the full text of the long form of the Sinaiticus and supplement it with verses from the Vetus Latina (because of gaps in the Sinaiticus text). I kept my eye, however, on the Aramaic and Hebrew texts and modified the long version accordingly. So the revision of the New American Bible will be the first Catholic Bible with the text of Tobit governed by these Semitic texts from Qumran.

So where did Jerome get that detail about the dog wagging its tail? We may never know. The Aramaic text he had translated is not known to us; perhaps the wagging tail was a simple stylistic flourish that some writer or translator felt was necessary at that point.

But the whole question is academic in light of the fact that the Qumran fragments have yielded an earlier version of the story, one that is much closer to the source. This is the contribution that the trained exegete can make to the spiritual life of modern Catholics, which is nourished by the written Word of God.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Does the Nova Vulgata include “dog wagging its tail”?

 

[mardukm]

From my cursory reading of this thread, it does not seem like anyone mentioned that (IIRC) shortly after Trent, there was a papal ruling that the use of the Vulgate applied ONLY TO THE LATIN CHURCH.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Jerry-Jet]

That of course is true. I am a Latin Rite Catholic so it applies to me.

The question–whether Latin Rite or not Latin Rite should always be–what did the original bible write intend to convey?

The reason I am asking about the “dog wagging his tail” is I want to know if that is included in the Nova Vulgata just like it was in Jerome’s vulgate–i don’t know Latin–i know that Canis means dog–i don’t know what Latin is for “dog wagging his tail”.

Since it appears that Greek II has even been found in Hebrew in the Dead Sea scrolls–there are those that maintain that it is the best exemplar of the book of Tobit.

Now I don’t know whether that is true or not but it makes sense to me–I certainly respect non Latin Rite Catholics who might believe that the shorter rescension is more accurate.

I guess what I’m really asking as a Latin Rite Catholic is whether the “dog wagged his tail” as St. Jerome translated. If the Nova Vulgata also says that the dog wagged his tail then as a latin Rite Catholic I tend to believe that the dog probably did and that is what the original writer of Tobit intended to convey.

If the Nova Vulgata does not include the detail about the dog wagging his tail then maybe I shouldn’t believe this detail.

Though of course Trent said that the Vulgate did not err in matters of faith or doctrine–it never said it was correct in ALL details.

And maybe those who believe the shorter version of Tobit is correct but I do tend to believe more in the longer version.

Marduk–do you know if most translations that most Easter Rite Catholics would use would include the shorter version of Tobit or the longer version of Tobit?

When I last attended a Maronite Mass the Quorbono said that the scriptures were taken from the NRSV which I believe has the longer version.

I don’t know whether most Easter Rite Catholics use the longer version of Tobit or the shorter version of Tobit?

 

[John_Larocque]

Jerome’s Vulgate is almost a paraphrase, based on the Hebrew translation of Aramaic. He is reputed to have translated it in a day, and under duress. Most translations (eg. NRSV, new NAB) now use the longer Greek text, and the Nova Vulgata is reputed to have replaced Tobit with a modified Vetus Latina (which adheres to the longer text). The bit about the dog wagging his tail was lifted from Homer’s homecoming.

The Orthodox tend to a have a preference for the shorter Alexandrinus (and Vaticanus) text. The RSV used this form.

 

[Cavaradossi]

From my cursory reading of this thread, it does not seem like anyone mentioned that (IIRC) shortly after Trent, there was a papal ruling that the use of the Vulgate applied ONLY TO THE LATIN CHURCH.

Source?

 

[mardukm]

Dear Cavaradossi,

Source?

Can you please show where Trent stated that the Vulgate is the only edition of Scripture to be used by the Church? The investigation should answer your question (summary - Trent only affirmed the value and authenticity of the Vulgate in relation to the other LATIN texts of Scripture that were in existence, and was not denying the value and authenticity of any of the other editions of Scripture, such as the Septuagint). Aside from the internal evidence of Trent itself, there was a specific statement by one of the Popes around the time of Trent - I believe it was in response to a query by a bishop - that the rule on the Vulgate was only for the Latin Church. Sorry I don’t have time to look it up and quote the text directly for you right now.

Also, FYI, St. Robert Bellarmine, who was on the papal commission for the revision of the Vulgate, affirmed in one of his writings that the Septuagint was never rejected by Trent.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[Alfonsus]

To sum up, at the time of the unified church, there are several canons of the Scripture in use.
The canon is a list, that determined which books can be read during the Liturgy.
After 4 centuries, the canons of respective churches became stable (that some Fathers accept/reject books in the beginning is non disputable, it is part of the process).
Prior to Nicaea II, Latin synods codified the Latin canon consisted of 73 books.
I don’t know about other synods not conducted by the Latins, but if so, these canons are all respected and accepted by Nicaea II (which did not explicitly list the books, just giving acceptance of prior canons produced by local synods, including the Synod of Carthage, Rome and decree of Damasus).

What we see from the early Church, is there are canons that are more expanded than the others, but we can safely says that the 73 books are all accepted (is there still a Church now that don’t accept the book of Revelation? The Maccabees by the Ethiopians?). If so, the Latin canon of the Scripture, can be seen as bare minimum as accepted by Nicaea II. This was normal for the standard of the patristic Church.

This is constant until further modifications by the Protestants, which selects the canon of Hebrew bible codified by the Jerusalem rabbis, and perhaps because of this the shift of understanding the canon.

 

[Alfonsus]

Dear Cavaradossi,

Can you please show where Trent stated that the Vulgate is the only edition of Scripture to be used by the Church? The investigation should answer your question (summary - Trent only affirmed the value and authenticity of the Vulgate in relation to the other LATIN texts of Scripture that were in existence, and was not denying the value and authenticity of any of the other editions of Scripture, such as the Septuagint). Aside from the internal evidence of Trent itself, there was a specific statement by one of the Popes around the time of Trent - I believe it was in response to a query by a bishop - that the rule on the Vulgate was only for the Latin Church. Sorry I don’t have time to look it up and quote the text directly for you right now.

Also, FYI, St. Robert Bellarmine, who was on the papal commission for the revision of the Vulgate, affirmed in one of his writings that the Septuagint was never rejected by Trent.

Blessings,
Marduk

What Marduk said is reflected in what Pope Pius XII said in Divino Afflante Spiritu no. 21, although granted this document came long after Trent, but I say it safely reflect the mind of the Roman Church regarding Vulgate position in the Catholic Church:

And if the Tridentine Synod wished “that all should use as authentic” the Vulgate Latin version, this, as all know, applies only to the Latin Church and to the public use of the same Scriptures; nor does it, doubtless, in any way diminish the authority and value of the original texts. For there was no question then of these texts, but of the Latin versions, which were in circulation at that time, and of these the same Council rightly declared to be preferable that which “had been approved by its long-continued use for so many centuries in the Church.” Hence this special authority or as they say, authenticity of the Vulgate was not affirmed by the Council particularly for critical reasons, but rather because of its legitimate use in the Churches throughout so many centuries; by which use indeed the same is shown, in the sense in which the Church has understood and understands it, to be free from any error whatsoever in matters of faith and morals; so that, as the Church herself testifies and affirms, it may be quoted safely and without fear of error in disputations, in lectures and in preaching; and so its authenticity is not specified primarily as critical, but rather as juridical

 

[Cavaradossi]

Dear Cavaradossi,

Can you please show where Trent stated that the Vulgate is the only edition of Scripture to be used by the Church?

If the source is not immediately accessible, then simply state so. There is no need to respond by rhetorically challenging me to defend the opposite viewpoint, when I am simply asking for sources, and not advancing any position of my own.

 

[John_Larocque]

“It will be a grievous thing that, in the reading of Scripture, differences must arise between the Latin Churches and the Greek Churches, especially seeing that the discrepancy is easily condemned in a Latin version by the production of the original in Greek, which is a language very widely known; whereas, if any one has been disturbed by the occurrence of something to which he was not accustomed in the translation taken from the Hebrew, and alleges that the new translation is wrong, it will be found difficult, if not impossible, to get at the Hebrew documents by which the version to which exception is taken may be defended. And when they are obtained, who will submit, to have so many Latin and Greek authorities pronounced to be in the wrong?”

 

[Zekariya]

“It will be a grievous thing that, in the reading of Scripture, differences must arise between the Latin Churches and the Greek Churches, especially seeing that the discrepancy is easily condemned in a Latin version by the production of the original in Greek, which is a language very widely known; whereas, if any one has been disturbed by the occurrence of something to which he was not accustomed in the translation taken from the Hebrew, and alleges that the new translation is wrong, it will be found difficult, if not impossible, to get at the Hebrew documents by which the version to which exception is taken may be defended. And when they are obtained, who will submit, to have so many Latin and Greek authorities pronounced to be in the wrong?”

Sounds like St Augustine to St Jerome…

 

[John_Larocque]

St. Augustine’s views on the longer canon prevailed, and the Latin church set aside St. Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew psalter in favour one based on the Septuagint. But the Reformers picked up where St. Jerome left off, separating, and then finally jettisoning the books of the longer Greek canon altogether. The American fundamentalists who rejected the Revised Standard bible, did so - in part - because its revision of the Old Testament favoured non-Masoretic readings (including some from the Greek). The Hebrew Old Testament texts - as they existed in Jerome’s day, or the years 1600 or 1950 - were inerrant and thus displaced any authority of earlier translations such as the Septuagint.

 

[Alfonsus]

St. Augustine’s views on the longer canon prevailed, and the Latin church set aside St. Jerome’s translation of the Hebrew psalter in favour one based on the Septuagint. But the Reformers picked up where St. Jerome left off, separating, and then finally jettisoning the books of the longer Greek canon altogether. The American fundamentalists who rejected the Revised Standard bible, did so - in part - because its revision of the Old Testament favoured non-Masoretic readings (including some from the Greek). The Hebrew Old Testament texts - as they existed in Jerome’s day, or the years 1600 or 1950 - were inerrant and thus displaced any authority of earlier translations such as the Septuagint.

Not so. You see, the Masoretic text itself have some variant or unclear sentences. The one quoted in new Testament sometimes read differently from the Masoretic since the writer of new Testament quote it from Septuagint, showing either the writer preference or at least acceptance of Septuagint authority.

For instance Hebrew 10:5 is quoting Psalm 40:5, said “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me” is a direct quotation from Septuagint, while the Masoretic reads “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but my ears you have pierced.”

Rejecting Septuagint outright is a big disservice in understanding the New Testament.

 

[John_Larocque]

It was the Reformers who made these claims about the infallibility of the Hebrew texts of 1600 (or 1950), but they were working from a similar set of assumptions that led to the overthrow of the authority of the Septuagint in the West dating back to the time of Jerome.

 

[Zekariya]

It was the Reformers who made these claims about the infallibility of the Hebrew texts of 1600 (or 1950), but they were working from a similar set of assumptions that led to the overthrow of the authority of the Septuagint in the West dating back to the time of Jerome.

You can read the correspondence between Sts Augustine and Jerome concerning the Greek vs the Hebrew here: bible-researcher.com/vulgate2.html