Translated from the Original Greek?

[patrick457]

How many of the 46 books are in the Dead Sea Scrolls? And how many are complete?

Out of the deuteros, you only have Sirach, five manuscripts of Tobit (four in Aramaic, one - the latest - in Hebrew) and a very small Greek fragment that looks like the Letter of Jeremiah (part of Baruch in some Bibles). As for the protocanonical books, every book is represented except for Esther (though there is a vaguely Esther-like nonbiblical work found). The only (almost) complete manuscript to come out from Qumran is the Great Isaiah Scroll. (Isaiah ranks third among the number of manuscripts found - twenty-one; it is only beaten by the Psalms - thirty-six scrolls - and Deuteronomy - thirty).

 

[patrick457]

Right. If St. Jerome had known 2015 English we would probably have a different English Bible altogether today. Just sayin…

By the way, there was an earlier Latin Bible than the Vulgate, which Jerome built upon. Do we know who the authors or translators were on that version, which I’m sure had been written in differing periods? After all, Greeks themselves were writing a lot of things in Latin.

Actually it wasn’t a ‘Latin Bible’, because Vetus Latina doesn’t refer to a single translation. It’s a catch-all term for different Latin translations of the same books of the Bible. And they were all likely local translations: in other words, local church A would be using a different Latin translation than local church B is using. (To transpose this in a modern context, it would be comparable to different dioceses or parishes producing their own translations of the Bible: St. Joseph’s just down the street would be using a translation different from what St. Mary’s on the other side of town or St. Andrew’s on the suburbs is using.)

Jerome’s project was really to clean up all of the textual variants in the various copies of the Vetus Latina of his day and come up with one standardized Latin version. To do that he consulted various manuscripts of the Vetus Latina, but mostly seems to have relied on the “Hexapla”—a side-by-side comparison of six different versions of Scripture. Jerome usually follows the Greek text that he had available, but sometimes “corrects”/defers to the Hebrew text when it seems more clear or sometimes even just more interesting. Just like now, changing/correcting the words of the Bible, even if it’s just here and there, was pretty controversial. So he tried not to rock the boat too much.

You also have to remember that Jerome’s translation works were all done separately and with different motivations and purposes. It’s common to conflate them all together, but really, his translating OT books out of the Hebrew isn’t exactly the same project Pope Damasus asked him to do (to correct the Latin translation of the gospels and the Psalms used in Rome at the time using Greek manuscript). By the time Jerome was translating OT books from Hebrew (and Aramaic) twelve years later, Damasus was dead, and Jerome had left Rome for good and was living as a hermit in a cave in Bethlehem. It was Jerome’s friends that was pestering him to make OT translations out of the Hebrew. And the project as a whole apparently has an apologetic bent: to give the Latins a taste of what Jews had in Hebrew, specifically for the reason of theological discussion.

 

[irenaeuslyons]

Thanks Patrick!

Originally Posted by Dave Noonan View Post
Of course, now with the DSS we have Hebrew texts available today that are much older than anything Jerome had.

Hi Dave,
Just curious. How do you know that the DSS were older than what Jerome had access to?

 

[patrick457]

By the time of the Protestant Reformation, both a critical Greek text and a Hebrew text were readily available. The critical Greek text (Textus Receptus) was developed by Erasmus, a Catholic scholar, and was published (printed) in, I believe, 1516. Don’t forget that the printing press speeded things along substantially in this regard.

There are actually different editions of the Textus Receptus. Erasmus’ version is known as the Novum Instrumentum (notice he didn’t call it Novum Testamentum on purpose, though he reverted back to the traditional title for the second edition). The ‘other’ Textus Receptus is the one by Robert Estienne/Robertus Stephanus, the Editio Regia.

Fun fact: the Greek manuscript of Revelation Erasmus used for his first edition lacked the last leaf (which contained the final six verses). As he had no time to fetch another manuscript, what he did was, he simply back-translated the relevant portion of the Vulgate Revelation (which isn’t really Jerome’s, but a Vetus Latina version) into Greek!

 

[ProVobis]

There are actually different editions of the Textus Receptus. Erasmus’ version is known as the Novum Instrumentum (notice he didn’t call it Novum Testamentum on purpose, though he reverted back to the traditional title for the second edition). The ‘other’ Textus Receptus is the one by Robert Estienne/Robertus Stephanus, the Editio Regia.

Fun fact: the Greek manuscript of Revelation Erasmus used for his first edition lacked the last leaf (which contained the final six verses). As he had no time to fetch another manuscript, what he did was, he simply back-translated the relevant portion of the Vulgate Revelation (which isn’t really Jerome’s, but a Vetus Latina version) into Greek!

Most interesting. Thanks a bunch. Very enjoyable-to-read thread.

It seems more can be written about the history behind the Bible than the Bible itself.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

In other words, it basically amounts to early Christians noticing the differences between the two texts and then saying, “Aha! You Jews have edited the Scriptures to take Jesus out!”

Right, I agree. But now that we know pretty definitely via the DSS that Jews weren’t by and large editing Jesus out of the Old Testament, I think it’s well past time to put that particular canard to bed–one that, if anything, smacks strongly of anti-Judaism.

Yet this “theory” keeps on resurfacing, particularly among Catholics who are very pro-Vulgate, I think in an attempt to make the Vulgate seem superior in some sense to MT.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Thanks Patrick!

Hi Dave,
Just curious. How do you know that the DSS were older than what Jerome had access to?

Paleography dates the DSS as early as 200 BC. I suppose it’s possible? that Jerome had access to older texts but they would have to have been around 600 years old, which would be nearly miraculous.

The importance of the DSS in this discussion is that it had been long assumed in the West that 1) Jerome translated his OT directly from Hebrew and 2) any discrepancies between later Hebrew texts and Jerome’s translation were due to Jerome’s having had superior manuscripts. Part of the assumption of “1” was spurred by the fact that very few Christians in the West could even read Hebrew, even at Jerome’s time(!) and that ability wasn’t regained in the West until near the beginning of the Renaissance.

Now the picture of what Jerome’s project is much clearer, also helped along with a broader examination of his translation notes to the book of Genesis and with the DSS. Discrepancies between the Vulgate and the Hebrew are primarily due to Jerome having followed the Greek text, which already differed from the Hebrew text of his time, not from the fact that his Hebrew manuscripts were better than the Hebrew manuscripts that we have today.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

It was Jerome’s friends that was pestering him to make OT translations out of the Hebrew. And the project as a whole apparently has an apologetic bent: to give the Latins a taste of what Jews had in Hebrew, specifically for the reason of theological discussion.

I know you and I have discussed this before, but if you take a look at Jerome’s notes on Genesis, it’s pretty clear that Jerome’s not doing a translation directly from the Hebrew text. I think the best you could say is that the Hebrew text at times informs his translation—but it’s still one that largely follows and often favors (for no real scholarly reason) the LXX that he had available.

The net effect was that people in the West thought that they were receiving a Latin text translated directly from the Hebrew text. But there was really no one around with enough knowledge at the time to check his work.

 

[irenaeuslyons]

Paleography dates the DSS as early as 200 BC. I suppose it’s possible? that Jerome had access to older texts but they would have to have been around 600 years old, which would be nearly miraculous.

The importance of the DSS in this discussion is that it had been long assumed in the West that 1) Jerome translated his OT directly from Hebrew and 2) any discrepancies between later Hebrew texts and Jerome’s translation were due to Jerome’s having had superior manuscripts. Part of the assumption of “1” was spurred by the fact that very few Christians in the West could even read Hebrew, even at Jerome’s time(!) and that ability wasn’t regained in the West until near the beginning of the Renaissance.

Now the picture of what Jerome’s project is much clearer, also helped along with a broader examination of his translation notes to the book of Genesis and with the DSS. Discrepancies between the Vulgate and the Hebrew are primarily due to Jerome having followed the Greek text, which already differed from the Hebrew text of his time, not from the fact that his Hebrew manuscripts were better than the Hebrew manuscripts that we have today.

I have to disagree with this assumption that it would be miraculous. Is it more miraculous than a small monastery having 1700 year old Codex Sianiticus or Thrice sacked Rome with codex Vaticanus. There existed libraries in many of the major metropolitan areas i.e. Rome/ Caesarea/ Alexandria/ Constantinople etc, etc. There was nothing miraculous about access to ancient texts. There were also churches that prized them as relics. Incidentally, have you ever seen that famous map that was copied from the library in Constantinople(by a muslim scholar) before it was destroyed? It had Antarctica without its ice sheet. We are talking several thousand years old.

Your claim that Jerome used primarily the Greek for the OT is not believable. Having a single “almost” complete book out of 46 OT books in the DSS does not allow you to make that claim.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

I have to disagree with this assumption that it would be miraculous. Is it more miraculous than a small monastery having 1700 year old Codex Sianiticus or Thrice sacked Rome with codex Vaticanus. There existed libraries in many of the major metropolitan areas i.e. Rome/ Caesarea/ Alexandria/ Constantinople etc, etc. There was nothing miraculous about access to ancient texts. There were also churches that prized them as relics. Incidentally, have you ever seen that famous map that was copied from the library in Constantinople(by a muslim scholar) before it was destroyed? It had Antarctica without its ice sheet. We are talking several thousand years old.

Remember that’s it’s much much easier to preserve a codex than a scroll. To have scrolls that are 600 years old would to me be something approaching a miracle. You can think what you want.

Your claim that Jerome used primarily the Greek for the OT is not believable. Having a single “almost” complete book out of 46 OT books in the DSS does not allow you to make that claim.

That part has nothing to do with the DSS. That Jerome followed the Greek text (mostly) is quite clear from his translation notes. That’s really not even in dispute.

 

[patrick457]

Right, I agree. But now that we know pretty definitely via the DSS that Jews weren’t by and large editing Jesus out of the Old Testament, I think it’s well past time to put that particular canard to bed–one that, if anything, smacks strongly of anti-Judaism.

Yet this “theory” keeps on resurfacing, particularly among Catholics who are very pro-Vulgate, I think in an attempt to make the Vulgate seem superior in some sense to MT.

I’d correct that to “an attempt to make the Septuagint seem superior in some sense to MT.” The Fathers were making this (admittedly poor) argument even before Jerome was born. (Another hole in this idea is: how were all Jews worldwide able to suddenly remove or obscure any prophecy about Jesus out of all the Hebrew texts available?)

I think it can be chalked up into some misunderstanding.

Hebrew Isaiah has almah ‘young woman’ (even the DSS Isaiah has almah - look it up), which the Greek Isaiah translates as parthenos ‘virgin’. Parthenos may not be a literal translation of almah, sure, but at the same time one needs to remember that Greek Isaiah is not so much a literal translation but a somewhat free one (to be more precise, the book is of uneven quality: sometimes the translator translates literally, but more often, the translator felt free to give a more loose rendering), so you gotta give the translator some slack. That doesn’t necessarily make the translation ‘wrong’ as some people would claim, only interpretative. I mean, c’mon, in those days many or most young maidens would have been virgins anyway, so I don’t think the issue is as big as people seem to make it.

What happened really was, in the Jewish translations of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion almah was translated as neanis ‘young girl’ rather than parthenos (almah is translated by neanis in some other places in the Greek, cf. Exodus 2:8 or Psalms 68:25). There could be an anti-Christian bias behind this translation decision (the “almah doesn’t necessarily translate to parthenos” argument was already known back then), but then again, it could also simply be just an attempt to give a more literal translation of the Hebrew word. But whatever the real reason was, it rubbed Christians the wrong way: they thought the prophecy about the virgin birth was being obscured by the Jews. (Origen - he of the Hexapla - took a different tactic: he claimed that almah was used in the sense of parthenos ‘virgin’ in Deuteronomy 22:23-26. All well and good, but apparently somebody forgot to tell Origen that the word parthenos doesn’t translate almah in the Hebrew of Deuteronomy 22, but bethulah.)

 

[irenaeuslyons]

Remember that’s it’s much much easier to preserve a codex than a scroll. To have scrolls that are 600 years old would to me be something approaching a miracle. You can think what you want.
That part has nothing to do with the DSS. That Jerome followed the Greek text (mostly) is quite clear from his translation notes. That’s really not even in dispute.

If the OT Vulgate followed “mostly” the Septuagint, that is only because the Septuagint was a translation of a similar text. As I recall, Jerome was criticized for not using the Septuagint by his contemporaries.

One other thing. If its “quite clear” from his own published notes that he used the Greek first. How could 1600 years of scholars and their commentary on Jerome have thought otherwise?

 

[patrick457]

That part has nothing to do with the DSS. That Jerome followed the Greek text (mostly) is quite clear from his translation notes. That’s really not even in dispute.

Concerning source manuscripts, the only thing we know for sure in the process of Jerome’s translation of the OT was that Tobit and Judith were made out of Aramaic texts. Now Jerome apparently didn’t know Aramaic or as he calls it, ‘Chaldean’ (although he admits that “the language of the Chaldeans is close to Hebrew speech”!), so for Tobit he had a “a speaker very skilled in both languages” to translate the thing in Hebrew for him first, which he then translated into Latin (“whatever he expressed to me in Hebrew words, this, with a summoned scribe, I have set forth in Latin words”). As for Judith, Jerome said that he has “given to this (book) one short night’s work translating more sense from sense than word from word.”

Now the thing is, the Aramaic texts Jerome translated from seems to have been later versions or paraphrases of both books, which explains why they are so different from the Greek versions or even the manuscripts of Tobit found in Qumran. (Tobit is notorious for having different versions: the five manuscripts of Tobit found in Qumran are all slightly different from each other, there’s at least three versions in Greek (one of which - the longer version - is more closer to the DSS texts), and there are more in pre-Jerome Latin versions and other languages. Jerome’s translation is a version all by itself.)

 

[Dave_Noonan]

If the OT Vulgate followed “mostly” the Septuagint, that is only because the Septuagint was a translation of a similar text. As I recall, Jerome was criticized for not using the Septuagint by his contemporaries.

There was the infamous “kikayon” incident where Jerome changed something like “melon” (Gk.) to “gourd”(Heb.) in the book of Jonah because he thought that his usage of his particular term was closer to Palestinian fauna. There were massive protests because Jerome “changed the Bible!!!” (ie., he altered the Latin so it no longer agreed with the Greek text.) If anything this validates Jerome’s hesitancy to alter the Greek text for fear of rocking the boat.

One other thing. If its “quite clear” from his own published notes that he used the Greek first. How could 1600 years of scholars and their commentary on Jerome have thought otherwise?

I would guess primarily because prior to the Renaissance scholars in the West couldn’t read Hebrew. After that, they don’t have much of an excuse other than they probably felt obligated to defend the validity of the Vulgate until 1943 and the advent of Divino Afflante Spiritu. I assume you’re talking about Catholic scholars?

Jerome’s translation notes to the book of Genesis are available here. You can read them and evaluate the situation for yourself–no need to take my word for it:

amazon.com/Jeromes-Questions-Genesis-Christian-Studies/dp/0198263503/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1423713995&sr=8-3&keywords=Jerome+genesis

Or if you know Hebrew and Latin and Greek sometime look at a passage side by side and note the various discrepancies in, say, Genesis 3. It’s clear that a huge chunk of the differences are either simple misunderstandings of how Hebrew works (resulting in oddities like morte morieris) or kind of theological “enhancements”—gan (Hebrew) in Latin becomes paradisus instead of hortus. But** **you can’t really blame these klunky translations or just out-and-out errors on Jerome, because *they are already there *in the Greek text. He’s simply following the Greek as best he can.

 

[patrick457]

There was the infamous “kikayon” incident where Jerome changed something like “melon” (Gk.) to “gourd”(Heb.) in the book of Jonah because he thought that his usage of his particular term was closer to Palestinian fauna. There were massive protests because Jerome “changed the Bible!!!” (ie., he altered the Latin so it no longer agreed with the Greek text.) If anything this validates Jerome’s hesitancy to alter the Greek text for fear of rocking the boat.

I would guess primarily because prior to the Renaissance scholars in the West couldn’t read Hebrew. After that, they don’t have much of an excuse other than they probably felt obligated to defend the validity of the Vulgate until 1943 and the advent of Divino Afflante Spiritu. I assume you’re talking about Catholic scholars?

Jerome’s translation notes to the book of Genesis are available here. You can read them and evaluate the situation for yourself–no need to take my word for it:

amazon.com/Jeromes-Questions-Genesis-Christian-Studies/dp/0198263503/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1423713995&sr=8-3&keywords=Jerome+genesis

Or if you know Hebrew and Latin and Greek sometime look at a passage side by side and note the various discrepancies in, say, Genesis 3. It’s clear that a huge chunk of the differences are either simple misunderstandings of how Hebrew works (resulting in oddities like morte morieris) or kind of theological “enhancements”—gan (Hebrew) in Latin becomes paradisus instead of hortus. But** **you can’t really blame these klunky translations or just out-and-out errors on Jerome, because *they are already there *in the Greek text. He’s simply following the Greek as best he can.

Funnily enough, Jerome asserted in the Quaestiones that the Hebrew phrase for “you will certainly die” is better translated - somewhat loosely - as mortalis eris (“You will be mortal,” cf. Symmachus’ Greek rendition), but in his actual translation he let the Septuagintal morte morieris to stand. (This wasn’t the only time Jerome translated something in the Quaestiones differently from the actual translation, or some I’ve read: for example, in Genesis 19:14 Jerome retained the Old Latin translation for Lot’s sons-in-law, generos, in the actual translation, but in the Quaestiones he rendered it as sponsos ‘men who are betrothed’.)

Jerome did not want to rock the boat too much, yes. You might say he’s kinda juggling between trying to give a sense of what the Hebrew says and retaining the ‘traditional’ (Septuagint/Vetus Latina) phraseology. (In other words he’s not too different from modern translators: they’re always at the same threat of being lynched by angry Christians.)

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Funnily enough, Jerome asserted in the Quaestiones that the Hebrew phrase for “you will certainly die” is better translated - somewhat loosely - as mortalis eris (“You will be mortal,” cf. Symmachus’ Greek rendition), but in his actual translation he let the Septuagintal morte morieris to stand. (This wasn’t the only time Jerome translated something in the Quaestiones differently from the actual translation, or some I’ve read: for example, in Genesis 19:14 Jerome retained the Old Latin translation for Lot’s sons-in-law, generos, in the actual translation, but in the Quaestiones he rendered it as sponsos ‘men who are betrothed’.)

Jerome did not want to rock the boat too much, yes. You might say he’s kinda juggling between trying to give a sense of what the Hebrew says and retaining the ‘traditional’ (Septuagint/Vetus Latina) phraseology. (In other words he’s not too different from modern translators: they’re always at the same threat of being lynched by angry Christians.)

My point exactly!

Honestly, when I first really started reading the Vulgate, I thought “Man, this Jerome is an idiot–he doesn’t understand Hebrew at all! There’s errors all over the place!” Actually I even wondered whether he even really knew Hebrew and maybe the whole translation was just kind of a ruse. Maybe that’s what set Luther off too(?)–I’ve often wondered but don’t really know.

But then when I started doing comparisons with the Greek text, plus digging through the Quaestiones I realized that Jerome really did understand at least most of the Hebrew. In your example, he knows that morte morieris isn’t really correct and that something else would get much closer to the sense of the Hebrew, which he documents in his notes, but then he lets it go in the translation, preserving the older reading–I think just because he knows people are very resistant to change or to thinking that the Bible they’ve actually been reading all these years was incorrect. So, you’re right, it’s a big juggling act, but he often defers to the Greek/VL, I think for that very reason.

P.S., as I recall his notes also show that the infamous “she shall crush thy head” of Gn 3:15 wasn’t even in consideration.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Funnily enough, Jerome asserted in the Quaestiones that the Hebrew phrase for “you will certainly die” is better translated - somewhat loosely - as mortalis eris (“You will be mortal,” cf. Symmachus’ Greek rendition), but in his actual translation he let the Septuagintal morte morieris to stand. (This wasn’t the only time Jerome translated something in the Quaestiones differently from the actual translation, or some I’ve read: for example, in Genesis 19:14 Jerome retained the Old Latin translation for Lot’s sons-in-law, generos, in the actual translation, but in the Quaestiones he rendered it as sponsos ‘men who are betrothed’.)

Jerome did not want to rock the boat too much, yes. You might say he’s kinda juggling between trying to give a sense of what the Hebrew says and retaining the ‘traditional’ (Septuagint/Vetus Latina) phraseology. (In other words he’s not too different from modern translators: they’re always at the same threat of being lynched by angry Christians.)

A “just curious what you think” question. Do you think this process/issue of muddy or “juggling” translation is why Biblical scholars (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or otherwise) don’t bother to study the Vulgate? I remember looking at the program book over a couple of years for the Society of Biblical Literature and out of thousands, for the Vulgate–couldn’t find single one. And it’s not like other translations like the Peshitta are ignored in this way. I often think Jerome’s thought process and social situation is pretty interesting and would be worthy of more study.

 

[patrick457]

My point exactly!

Honestly, when I first really started reading the Vulgate, I thought “Man, this Jerome is an idiot–he doesn’t understand Hebrew at all! There’s errors all over the place!” Actually I even wondered whether he even really knew Hebrew and maybe the whole translation was just kind of a ruse. Maybe that’s what set Luther off too(?)–I’ve often wondered but don’t really know.

But then when I started doing comparisons with the Greek text, plus digging through the Quaestiones I realized that Jerome really did understand at least most of the Hebrew. In your example, he knows that morte morieris isn’t really correct and that something else would get much closer to the sense of the Hebrew, which he documents in his notes, but then he lets it go in the translation, preserving the older reading–I think just because he knows people are very resistant to change or to thinking that the Bible they’ve actually been reading all these years was incorrect. So, you’re right, it’s a big juggling act, but he often defers to the Greek/VL, I think for that very reason.

I know I’m preaching to the choir in this one , but you can still see this even today.

Many Bible translations today still retain the established phraseology common since the King James Version and before that: “Let there be light” (Tyndale’s), “Ark of the Covenant” (ultimately Jerome’s) to describe the sacred chest, “mercy seat” (again, Tyndale’s idea - he got it from Luther’s gnadenstuhl ‘throne of mercy/grace’) to describe its lid. Some more recent translations have more courage to translate the Hebrew kapporet (or even its Greek translation, hilastērion ‘atonement’; cf. Jerome’s propitiatorium) into something else other than “mercy seat,” but I only know one translation that translated aron ha-berit into something other than “Ark of the Covenant:” the Good News Bible, with its ‘Covenant Box’. And in fact, it got some flak for it.

Also, don’t you think it’s quite funny that after Jerome died, people started inserting more and more of that ol’ Vetus Latina phraseology into his translations (by force of habit, I guess), which made it even more closer to the versions they were familiar with? Old habits don’t die hard.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

I know I’m preaching to the choir in this one , but you can still see this even today.

Many Bible translations today still retain the established phraseology common since the King James Version and before that: “Let there be light” (Tyndale’s), “Ark of the Covenant” (ultimately Jerome’s) to describe the sacred chest, “mercy seat” (again, Tyndale’s idea - he got it from Luther’s gnadenstuhl ‘throne of mercy/grace’) to describe its lid. Some more recent translations have more courage to translate the Hebrew kapporet (or even its Greek translation, hilastērion ‘atonement’; cf. Jerome’s propitiatorium) into something else other than “mercy seat,” but I only know one translation that translated aron ha-berit into something other than “Ark of the Covenant:” the Good News Bible, with its ‘Covenant Box’. And in fact, it got some flak for it.

Also, don’t you think it’s quite funny that after Jerome died, people started inserting more and more of that ol’ Vetus Latina phraseology into his translations (by force of habit, I guess), which made it even more closer to the versions they were familiar with? Old habits don’t die hard.

For that matter, “In THE beginning…” doesn’t match MT; the very first verse (really the first Hebrew WORD) is already problematic. But most translators won’t touch that traditional KJV wording with a ten foot pole.

It’s an interesting phenomenon. Some people wonder why the editorial seams in the Pentateuch aren’t a little smoother. I think people just didn’t want to mess too much with the received text.

 

[ProVobis]

Do you think this process/issue of muddy or “juggling” translation is why Biblical scholars (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or otherwise) don’t bother to study the Vulgate?

That’s probably not too important to know for those who take most English translations with their multiple variations, meanings, poetry, and interpretations to be gospel truth. But a serious study of the Bible would require IMO some knowledge of the background behind those English translations. Just sayin…