What's in the Vulgate?

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What books of the OT are included in the Latin Vulgate?

Specifically, are the deuteron-canonicals included? What about the apocrypha?

I was reading a book the other day (Protestant author) that stated that the Catholics only settled on an OT cannon at the Council of Trent. The implication of course is that it was a knee jerk reaction to the Reformation.

I know, I know … Councils don’t invent doctrines, they merely clarify contested beliefs e.g. the Trinity.

But this got me to thinking … some Catholic sources I have encountered say that the early Church adopted the Septuagint as the OT cannon. That can’t be completely correct however since, to my knowledge, the Septuagint contained both those books called deuteron-canonicals and apocrypha. Since we don’t regard the apocrypha as inspired, I don’t think it is completely fair to throw a inspired blanket over the Septuagint and claim it in totality as the Word of God.

I certainly realize that there was almost unanimous consent on the canonicity of certain deuteron-canonical texts by the early Fathers. But did the Church ever infallibly define a list of canonical texts prior to the Council of Trent? I have heard some references made to the Council of Florence but I dunno.

Thanks in advance!
 
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RodK:
What books of the OT are included in the Latin Vulgate?

Specifically, are the deuteron-canonicals included? What about the apocrypha?
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Yes, the vulgate contains the deuterocanonicals
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RodK:
I was reading a book the other day (Protestant author) that stated that the Catholics only settled on an OT cannon at the Council of Trent. The implication of course is that it was a knee jerk reaction to the Reformation.

I know, I know … Councils don’t invent doctrines, they merely clarify contested beliefs e.g. the Trinity.
Click to expand...
The Council of Trent declared the existing canon inspired and bound it.

catholic.com/library/Old_Testament_Canon.asp
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RodK:
But this got me to thinking … some Catholic sources I have encountered say that the early Church adopted the Septuagint as the OT cannon. That can’t be completely correct however since, to my knowledge, the Septuagint contained both those books called deuteron-canonicals and apocrypha. Since we don’t regard the apocrypha as inspired, I don’t think it is completely fair to throw a inspired blanket over the Septuagint and claim it in totality as the Word of God.
Click to expand...
There was not just one scroll of the Greek translation called the Septuagint. Some of them had only the books found in the Palestinian canon, others had many more books even ones that the Catholic and Orthodox churches do not accept as scripture. The Ethiopian Jews still accept the Old Testament that the Catholic church uses today and three additional books that neither the Catholic nor Orthodox churches regard as scripture.

(Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 6, p. 1147)."The group of Jews which met at Javneh became the dominant group for later Jewish history, and today most Jews accept the canon of Javneh. However, some Jews, such as those from Ethiopia, follow a different canon which is identical to the Catholic Old Testament and includes the seven Deutero Canonical books "

As for the Jewish “council” of Javneh, Catholic and Protestant apologists are now questioning if that gathering around 90 AD defined the canon that the European Jews use today.

catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0409fea4.asp
 
Thank you Psalm45:9! I think that pretty much closes the book on that one.
 
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RodK:
What books of the OT are included in the Latin Vulgate?

Specifically, are the deuteron-canonicals included? What about the apocrypha?

I was reading a book the other day (Protestant author) that stated that the Catholics only settled on an OT cannon at the Council of Trent. The implication of course is that it was a knee jerk reaction to the Reformation.

I know, I know … Councils don’t invent doctrines, they merely clarify contested beliefs e.g. the Trinity.

But this got me to thinking … some Catholic sources I have encountered say that the early Church adopted the Septuagint as the OT cannon. That can’t be completely correct however since, to my knowledge, the Septuagint contained both those books called deuteron-canonicals and apocrypha. Since we don’t regard the apocrypha as inspired, I don’t think it is completely fair to throw a inspired blanket over the Septuagint and claim it in totality as the Word of God.

I certainly realize that there was almost unanimous consent on the canonicity of certain deuteron-canonical texts by the early Fathers. But did the Church ever infallibly define a list of canonical texts prior to the Council of Trent? I have heard some references made to the Council of Florence but I dunno.

Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...
Florence listed the same books that were later listed a Trent and what had been previously listed by the Synod of Hippo. What Trent did was Authoritatively CLOSE the Canon.
 
The same books are those which were listed by Agustine in his On Christian Doctrine, also if I remeber right the Third Council of Carthage also listed the same books as Canon
 
The Vulgate was interpreted by St. Jerome, and St. Jerome at one time didn’t feel the deuterocanonicals should be included. One reason he didn’t feel it was necessary, was that there were no translations in Hebrew of these books, only Greek.

Protestants, such as Martin Luther, site St. Jerome protests as a reason for not including these books, as well.

What they fell to mention are two things:
A) St. Jerome gave in to the will of the Church on this issue (which may bring up the issue of Church Authority?).
B) One of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered within the last 1 or 2 centuries contains a copy in ancient Hebrew of one of the seven books (I don’t know which one).

NotWorthy
 
I would just like to add alittle to the other fine responses. The Vulgate is the name that has been given to the translation of the translation of the Bible by St. Jerome. Originally, Jerome was commissioned by a Pope (I cannot remember his name right now) to correct the errors that were found in the Bible at use at the time. Jerome, found so many errors (remember this was before the printing press and everything was handwritten so errors were bound to happen) that he started over from scratch and translated the bible from all the original sources he had available in Hebrew and Greek. There was no problems with the NT which was written entirely in Greek (although Matthew may have been originally in Aramaic - there wasn’t a text of Matthew in Aramaic at that time). The OT was different because there were several works that were written originally in Greek not Hebrew. These are known as known as Duterocanonical. At the end of the 1st. Century Jewish leaders who were developing there own Canon of inspired books of the Bible rejected these 7 books as inspired because of their being written in Greek and not Hebrew and that they were written outside of Palestine and were to recent. Jerome, agreed with this, however, these books were considered Inspired by the Church and included in the Canon at the Council of Hippo(?) because of their use both by the Church Fathers and the Church in its Liturgical celebrations. During the Protestant Reformation, Luther rejected these books as Inspired, giving them the name Apocrytha, thus they are not included in the Protestant Canon of Inspired Books. It should be noted that it seems a motivating factor for Luther was the doctrine found in these books conflicted with his (so I guess he felt they couldn’t be inspired if they disagree with him) However, for Roman Catholics, the Council of Trent finalized the Canon and they the dutercanonical books were included. One final point for clarification, since I’m writing this off the top of my head I forgot - when it came to these books, for some of them it was only parts were rejected by Luther as not being inspired (I will let you guess why he rejected those parts.).
 
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TOME:
I would just like to add alittle to the other fine responses. The Vulgate is the name that has been given to the translation of the translation of the Bible by St. Jerome. Originally, Jerome was commissioned by a Pope (I cannot remember his name right now) to correct the errors that were found in the Bible at use at the time. Jerome, found so many errors (remember this was before the printing press and everything was handwritten so errors were bound to happen) that he started over from scratch and translated the bible from all the original sources he had available in Hebrew and Greek. There was no problems with the NT which was written entirely in Greek (although Matthew may have been originally in Aramaic - there wasn’t a text of Matthew in Aramaic at that time). The OT was different because there were several works that were written originally in Greek not Hebrew. These are known as known as Duterocanonical. At the end of the 1st. Century Jewish leaders who were developing there own Canon of inspired books of the Bible rejected these 7 books as inspired because of their being written in Greek and not Hebrew and that they were written outside of Palestine and were to recent. Jerome, agreed with this, however, these books were considered Inspired by the Church and included in the Canon at the Council of Hippo(?) because of their use both by the Church Fathers and the Church in its Liturgical celebrations. During the Protestant Reformation, Luther rejected these books as Inspired, giving them the name Apocrytha, thus they are not included in the Protestant Canon of Inspired Books. It should be noted that it seems a motivating factor for Luther was the doctrine found in these books conflicted with his (so I guess he felt they couldn’t be inspired if they disagree with him) However, for Roman Catholics, the Council of Trent finalized the Canon and they the dutercanonical books were included. One final point for clarification, since I’m writing this off the top of my head I forgot - when it came to these books, for some of them it was only parts were rejected by Luther as not being inspired (I will let you guess why he rejected those parts.).
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Some of the Deuterocanonical books were found with the Dead Sea Scrolls and they were written in Aramaic. This shows that these books were being circulated in Palestine at the time of Christ. Protestants will degrade this by saying there were found with other apocryphal work that the Catholic Church does not accept. But the point is that these books were circulated in Israel durring the Apostolic age and people did dispute their canicity.
 
Psalm45:9 thanks for pointing out about the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Deuteroconanical books. Two thinks about that, first your point is important and I hope others read and understand its importance. Second, I often am amazed by the fact that through the science of Archeology today we sometime know more about the acient world than the people living at that time. Thanks again.
 
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