What are the main differences between Clementine and Nova Vulgates?

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Thomasbradley312

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Hi all.
I have been looking to purchase a Latin Vulgate. Baronius Press seems to sell a Clementine Vulgate and Douay Rheims Bible side by side and it seems like something worth purchasing.
My question is, is the Clementine Vulgate still okay for Catholics to read however? I have read there is a Nova Vulgate that came out in 1979. How do they differ?
In the Catholic Church is there an official Vulgate where when the Nova was released the Clementine became obsolete or is it more of a case of that reading both are totally fine?
I’ve read positives on both versions, but the more traditional Catholic websites seem to say to stay away from the Nova Vulgate and something called the Stuttgart Vulgate and that the Clementine is the only Vulgate that is true to Saint Jeromes Vulgate. Was wondering if anyone may know more about this?

This is the Bible I am interested in purchasing.

https://www.baroniuspress.com/book.php?wid=56&bid=50#tab=tab-1
 
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The Nova Vulgata is based on the Greek and Hebrew texts, so it is not a continuation of the Latin scriptural tradition. Get the Celementine Vulgata at Baronius; it was used in the Church for hundreds of years, and is based on many older Latin versions of Scripture. The Stuttgart Vulgate was mainly prepared by Protestants and uses modern textual criticism to make changes to the text of the Bible, including removing words, phrases, and whole verses found in the Clementine Vulgate.
 
In regards to the Stuttgart, some ommitted verses would be Acts 15:34 I assume? And the Johannine Comma? I also like the Clementine Vulgate has the three traditional apocrypha texts that were in the Vulgate.
 
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Yah. I actually have been reading into it a little online the past hour. I guess there is quite a simple way to know which version you are reading.
Heva-Clementine Vulgate
Hava-Stuttgart edition
Eva-Nova Vulgata
 
Thomasbradley312 said:
the Clementine is the only Vulgate that is true to Saint Jeromes Vulgate.
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The Nova Vulgata does not try to be true to St Jerome’s translation. It is an attempt to translate the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Classical Latin; it tries to do what St Jerome would have done if he had a modern understanding of the biblical text. It is true to St Jerome, but not to the translation he produced.

Apparently, Vatican II specifically requested a revised translation of the Psalms be finished quickly, which led to the creation of NV (SC 90-1)
by virtue of this Letter we declare the New Vulgate edition of the Holy Bible as “typical” and we promulgate it to be used especially in the sacred Liturgy but also as suitable for other things, as we have said.
Finally we decree that this Constitution of ours be firm and forever efficacious and be scrupulously observed by all concerned, notwithstanding any obstacles whatsoever.
John Paul II. Scripturarum Thesaurus.
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It wouldn’t however be typical in the EF. The 1962 Missale and Breviary is based off of the Clementine Vulgate.
 
Dovekin said:
The Nova Vulgata does not try to be true to St Jerome’s translation. It is an attempt to translate the original Greek and Hebrew texts into Classical Latin; it tries to do what St Jerome would have done if he had a modern understanding of the biblical text. It is true to St Jerome, but not to the translation he produced.

Apparently, Vatican II specifically requested a revised translation of the Psalms be finished quickly, which led to the creation of NV (SC 90-1)
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I will never understand this.
The Psalm numbering was fixed for centuries. Why do we have to conform to other groups?
 
Thomasbradley312 said:
The Psalm numbering was fixed for centuries. Why do we have to conform to other groups?
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The psalm numbering in the NV is per what is in Hebrew OT, which the Church acknowledges as inspired.

The Vulgate, on the other hand, uses what is in the LXX which (for whatever reason) has different psalm numbering.
 
Bithynian said:
The psalm numbering in the NV is per what is in Hebrew OT, which the Church acknowledges as inspired.

The Vulgate, on the other hand, uses what is in the LXX which (for whatever reason) has different psalm numbering.
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I’m not sure this is true. Translations are never “inspired” per se as far as the Church has decreed, to the best of my knowledge. I am sure the Church considers the OT as inspired however. The Masoretic text, called “the Hebrew” version, is certainly a standard base for the organization and text, and is certainly derived from original Hebrew texts, however modified and corrected by the Masoretes. Yet, there are SO many different Hebrew Texts, that all differ by additions and omissions etc., that it is on shaky ground that one says the Masoretic text itself (as we currently have it) is inspired as opposed to all of the other Hebrew texts that are extant. Same goes for the Septuagint. We have variations on that text as well, though they differ unanimously with the Hebrew in some respects.

St. Jerome actually DID do what today’s Bible editors/translators try to do; viz: correct the LXX with comparisons to the Hebrew texts. This even caused some heated arguments in St. Jerome’s own lifetime, as many considered the LXX to be inspired, and not to be tampered with.

The Clementine Vulgate itself gradually wandered away from St. Jerome’s text over the centuries due to many various factors. That is why the Clementine itself represents a correction of the Vulgate.

Still, it is sometimes helpful and illluminating to have the new versions even when we continue to use the old. I prefer the D/R myself for devotional reading. But there are obscurities even there which modern translations make clearer.
 
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The Hebrew Bible doesn’t even contain some books that we accept that are in the LXX so I don’t think this is the case really.
 
AmbroseSJ said:
I’m not sure this is true.
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Oops, I definitely phrased myself unclearly. By Hebrew OT I meant “the OT as it is written in Hebrew”: this is the text to which I refer when I wrote “inspired” (in contrast to translations which are not).

Mind you, it is - I suppose - only the original autographs, which are otherwise lost to history, that are inspired.

In addition, there is also some of the ambiguity regarding the nature of the LXX in the Western Church. I suppose it is “partially inspired”, as it were, where it contains our Greek-only deuterocanonical books (like Judith) and the supplementary text added to the Hebrew text of Esther and Daniel.
 
Well yah I mean the Church and the canon are so complex. For example the Church includes some books from the Septuagint, the deuterocanonical books, but not others which are regarded by Orthodox.
 
Thomasbradley312 said:
The Hebrew Bible doesn’t even contain some books that we accept that are in the LXX so I don’t think this is the case really.
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As I worded myself far too ambiguously, I thought it better to rephrase what I wrote.

Where there exists both Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of OT texts, and where they date closely in time, the Western Church has generally regarded the Hebrew manuscript to be authoritative (i.e. “inspired”).

There are exceptions, of course: (1) the Hebrew texts of Esther and Daniel are supplemented with material from their respective LXX translations; (2) some deuterocanonical books have especially messy textual histories. Tobit only survives as a complete text in the LXX, but Jerome indicated that he made the Vulgate translation based on an Aramaic text (no longer extant), and partial fragments of Hebrew and Aramaic of Tobit have been found at Qumran. Likewise it is unclear if Judith was originally written in Greek or Hebrew: our Hebrew manuscripts date much, much later (early Middle Ages).

In any case, that’s why the Church has reorganised its numbering system: to be consistent with the Hebrew text which is regarded as authoritative.
 
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