ANOTHER BIBLE TRANSLATION: THE LATIN VULGATE

 Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.

 The term Vulgate, often abbreviated as Vg, comes from the Latin, vulgatus, meaning “commonly known.” It is the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church.

 In 382 CE, Pope Damasus I , commissioned Jerome (born as Eusebius Sophronius Hieronimus, in Dalmatia, Croatia, 340 or 342 CE), his secretary, to produce an authoritative version of the Bible in Latin. Jerome did this in stages. After he moved to Bethlehem, he first translated the New Testament, using the Septuagint, namely, the Greek version of the Bible,  and then, having studied with many Hebrew tutors, he translated many books of the Hebrew Bible from the Hebrew original.  At the beginning, his renditions were not universally accepted but in 1546, the Council of Trent, the ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, declared the Vg to be the exclusive Latin text of the Bible for the Catholic Church. In 1965 a commission was established  by the Vatican Council to revise the Vg, and the new version was published in 1979, called Nova Vulgata.

 The Vg contains the Hebrew Bible , the New Testament and the Apocrypha. It has been very influential in the history of Bible translations. Like other versions, however, it reflects the thinking and style of its time.

For example, when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai holding the two tablets of the Law, the Hebrew Bible reads, “the skin of his face shone (Ex 34: 29).” The Hebrew is, QARAN  OR PANAV. When Jerome translated this verse, he used the expression, cornuta esset facies, literally, “his face was horned.” Based on this rendering, the famous Italian sculptor and painter, Michelangelo (1475-15640, placed two horns on Moses’ face, in his famous sculpture found in the Church of St. Peter- in- Chains of Rome. Many readers, even today, think that Moses had horns! In our time, some anti-Semites even believe that Jews have horns. But, as Lee M. Jefferson, in his recent article in the Biblical Archaeology Review  (Spring 2023, p. 59)  stated that , “It is debatable whether Jerome had any malicious intent in using the word cornuta (“horned”), but it seems unlikely.” He probably used the best Latin word of his time to indicate that Moses was glorified after meeting God.

 The Italians have an expression, traduttore, traditore, meaning, that every translator is like a traitor who does not reflect the real meaning of the original text. The same applies to contemporary readers. If they have a negative view of the Jews, they see horns; if they have a positive attitude toward Jews, they see glory!

 SONSINO’S BLOG, rsonsino.blogspot.com