Saint Jerome (347–420)

Jerome's translation of the Old and New Testaments into Latin. This edition does not contain the deuterocanonical books.

Jerome was a master of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and it shows in his translation. He received flak for translating the OT out of the Hebrew MT and not based on its Greek Septuagint translation (LXX) used by the Apostles. There are times, though, when it is clear that Jerome is influenced by the LXX when his understanding of the MT is not as clear. There would be later show more distortions and misinterpretations of Biblical notions because of the way the Latin in various passages would be interpreted, but it is hard to fault Jerome for that.

This Kindle edition is basic but accomplishes its purpose: each verse is given its own line and the Latin text is rendered without notes or a critical apparatus.

As a reading resource the work is recommended, but still keep a critical edition around for greater study. show less

I scanned this but was uninterested in the Hebraisizing text. Perhaps there are nuggets concealed in a preface or somewhere in the text.

Generally uninteresting because of its Hebraicizing text. The translator, Scheck, provides some useful tables and comments in his introduction, and St. Jerome's preface to his book two of Micah is a locus classicus defending his compilatory method in commentary. I took photos of those pages.

Wonderful writings of a saintly man in the early Church.