Will there be a modern translation of the Latin Vulgate?

[Jolly_Joe]

The Dead Sea Scrolls are not a monolithe. At least three groups are represented. The majority support the masoretic. Some are more Septuagint, and some really seem to be from a third tradition, I don’t remember for sure which manuscript family the third is so I won’t say.

If one were to make an overall statement, it would be that the DSS support the Masoretic text.

The most significant way that they do that is at this point. Anyone who walks around saying that the Masoretic text was intentionally altered to take away support from the Christians just isn’t paying attention. In my humble opinion.

JJ

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

The Dead Sea Scrolls are not a monolithe. At least three groups are represented. The majority support the masoretic. Some are more Septuagint, and some really seem to be from a third tradition, I don’t remember for sure which manuscript family the third is so I won’t say.

If one were to make an overall statement, it would be that the DSS support the Masoretic text.

The most significant way that they do that is at this point. Anyone who walks around saying that the Masoretic text was intentionally altered to take away support from the Christians just isn’t paying attention. In my humble opinion.

JJ

Actually, this is the first time I’ve come across this opinion.
My impression was that DSS supported the contrary view.
Certainly the Gospels support LXX against massoretic, and the tradition of Alexandria is that the translators of the LXX text were the best professors of their time, in the employ of Ptolomy, Each being a well qualified person, and there being 72, not 70, as LXX infers, being six from each of the twelve tribes, all cross-checking eachothers’ works.
Ptolomy’s commission of LXX was a thorough-going professional work, of the best scholastic ability of its time.
Of that time, mark you, it was natural for one thing, to consider a young woman of mariagable age to be a virgin, so in its context, parthenos was not an error, but a good reflection of the ethos of the time.
What we now see as error, is actually the result of linguistic drift, just as the darkness not comprehending the light.

 

[mangy_dog]

Not exactly an answer to your question, but a good article to read when considering the Latin Vulgate.

Uncomfortable Facts about the Douay-Rheims by Jimmy Akin

Peace

As far as I’m concerned the Douay-Rheims, the Jerusalem are the best for English and the Nacar-Colunga and maybe the Latinoamerica for Spanish.

Nothing else. Call me an onlyist - it doesn’t matter.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum.

 

[Jolly_Joe]

Actually, this is the first time I’ve come across this opinion.
My impression was that DSS supported the contrary view.
Certainly the Gospels support LXX against massoretic, and the tradition of Alexandria is that the translators of the LXX text were the best professors of their time, in the employ of Ptolomy, Each being a well qualified person, and there being 72, not 70, as LXX infers, being six from each of the twelve tribes, all cross-checking eachothers’ works.
Ptolomy’s commission of LXX was a thorough-going professional work, of the best scholastic ability of its time.
Of that time, mark you, it was natural for one thing, to consider a young woman of mariagable age to be a virgin, so in its context, parthenos was not an error, but a good reflection of the ethos of the time.
What we now see as error, is actually the result of linguistic drift, just as the darkness not comprehending the light.

Well there’s a very vocal Septuagint crowd out there, somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of the DSS biblical manuscripts could be called protoSeptugint probably closer to the 5, half to 2/3 could be called protoMasoretic. You’d never know it from what you read on the web though.

Take Isaiah A, it’s in just amazing agreement with the Masoretic text, yet mostly what I hear about is one place where it supports the Septuagint.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Well there’s a very vocal Septuagint crowd out there, somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of the DSS biblical manuscripts could be called protoSeptugint probably closer to the 5, half to 2/3 could be called protoMasoretic. You’d never know it from what you read on the web though.

Take Isaiah A, it’s in just amazing agreement with the Masoretic text, yet mostly what I hear about is one place where it supports the Septuagint.

I think that what is perceived here is due to a modernistic translation being made of DSS, which is to be expected, and that being compared to the Masoretic, which, compared to LXX, is modern.
There will also be a tendency of pro-masorites to read the ancient text in a pro-masorite style, and for the pro-LXX to read it in a pro-LXX style.
I noticed this form of artefact when reading H. W. Hogg’s translation, from Arabic into English, of the Vatican manuscript of the purported Diatessaron. His work looks and reads like a KJV style translation, and is full of Latinistic constructs, which would not be expected in an Arabic source. Hogg was a clergyman, steeped in the dialect of KJV, and he would naturally have had the KJV phraseology floating through his mind as he translated an equivalent passage.
To be fair, the DSS should first be translated Alexandrian Greek, and compared with LXX in that language.
Yes, as I understand the Isaiah passage, the intent was this:
A virgin will become with child, (quite by the natural cause of things, by ceasing to be a virgin), and bring forth her first-born.
Thus the emphasis is upon this being her first experience of the process, and so expressing the wonder of it.
Other people have read into this passage according to their beliefs, or lack of them.
When you find 66% support for Masoritic, is that not also the same 66% that supports the LXX, for over 95% of LXX is identical with Masoretic?
We need to be certain that you are only comparing points of dispute, and that these are real points of dispute, not just new interpretations of the same substantives, as in the case of the virgin.

 

[Jolly_Joe]

The divisions are not my idea.

The Biblical manuscripts found in the Qumran, are distributed as follows: 60% Proto-Masoretic texts, 20% Qumran style manuscripts, 10% Nonaligned texts, 5% Proto-Samaritan texts, and 5% Septuagintal type texts. Further more, the Qumran style manuscripts have their bases in the proto-Masoretic texts. The Masoretic type texts were dominant in the time of the Hasmonean period (about 160 B.C.E.). (p172 of Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls by Shiffman)

While Shiffman’s theories of the Dead Sea Scrolls are controversial, I don’t believe there is any great dispute concerning that characterization of the manuscripts.

JJ

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

The divisions are not my idea.

The Biblical manuscripts found in the Qumran, are distributed as follows: 60% Proto-Masoretic texts, 20% Qumran style manuscripts, 10% Nonaligned texts, 5% Proto-Samaritan texts, and 5% Septuagintal type texts. Further more, the Qumran style manuscripts have their bases in the proto-Masoretic texts. The Masoretic type texts were dominant in the time of the Hasmonean period (about 160 B.C.E.). (p172 of Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls by Shiffman)

While Shiffman’s theories of the Dead Sea Scrolls are controversial, I don’t believe there is any great dispute concerning that characterization of the manuscripts.

JJ

Dr Shiffman is a professor of Jewish and Hebrew studies.
His name, and position suggest that he is probably Jewish, and thus part of the pro-masoretic lobby.
This in no way imputes his motive, or his character, merely that his outlook will be tainted by his background.
As I said before, LXX and Masoretic are for about 95% identical in substance, only differing for the most part in use of language and idiom.
Again, most of his analysis is based upon stylistics, and not upon substantives.
If you compare the KJV Gospels with the DR Gospels, you will likewise find very strong linguistic and stylistic similarities.
There is a wide specrum of document age among the DSS, which overlaps with the ages of the document types that Shiffman compares them to. It is quite natural for documents to resemble co-temporal documents in style, especially when they are of the same subject matter.
The LXX pedigree, being produced in Ptolomy’s university at Alexandria, is the finest that can be imagined for its era.
It is also quite clear from the Gospels, that the Hebrew basis of the LXX is indeed the Torah which Our Lord was accustomed to using.

 

[Jolly_Joe]

Which LXX pedigree do you want?

Ever read Origen? He did an rather amazing work, the Hexapla. His rational for doing it was the differences in the various forms of the Septugint that were circulating. He wanted to harmonize the text.

Maybe someone was successful in doing so, but I would still be cautious in going to far in trusting the LXX text as far as even assuming that what we are currently using is completely in agreement with the original LXX.

And yes, I wouldn’t disagree that Shiffman could have some biases, that almost seems to come with the territory of people who are deeply involved in issues such as the DSS. But still, he is no lightweight and he does put numbers on things. Something you haven’t quoted a single source to support for your contention that the DSS favor the Septuagint.

See it’s an easy thing to look at things like the chart which takes cases from the hundreds of manuscripts where one or the other agrees with the Septuagint over the Masoretic and jump to the conclusion that they in general support the Septuagint. But that’s a mistaken impression in my opinion. I believe there’s a reason why you don’t see a flip side. If you took the DSS and charted every place they supported the Masoretic over the Septuagint, it would be a massive work. One which no one has done.

The closest thing I would know of would be the footnotes in the “Dead Sea Scrolls Bible:The Oldest Known Bible Translated For the First Time Into English”, a lot of them point out the areas of agreement. That’s some 450 pages but it of course isn’t just those points of agreement or disagreement. It’s not an easily summarized chart by any means.

Maybe you know of something more extensive or comprehensive?

JJ

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

Dear JJ,
I think we are basicly in the same ball park.
LXX and Masoretic differ only in about 5% of cases in matters of substance.
It is only among these 5% of cases that appeal to DSS is meaningful, unless we are to take DSS against both.
What is really needed is a three column parallel text of Masoretic, DSS, and LXX, presented in the same language and dialect, probably the Greek of Alexandria, or English, taken from that Greek, with substantive differences highlighted, then noting that modern LXX is probably infected with Masoretic, and maybe vv.
I know that this will be a monsterous task.
I am doing something similar with the Gospels, comparing Clementine Latin with the Stuttgart reconstruction of Jerome, and using the CF Gospel as the third text.
I still prefer LXX.
Even if, like the VL of Carthage, it has been subject to centuries of copying errors.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Why do people hate what the Eucmenical Council of Trent led by the Holy Spirit had to say about the Vulgate?

How can anyone hate the Vulgate?

Hate that it is free from doctrinal error?

Hate that it can be used in All Dipsutations?

And do all of these things without also hating the Holy Spirit that spoke these truths through the Ecumenical Council of Trent?