Other ancient versions of the Bible

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

The most ancient of the versions is the LXX, of which we have spoken above. Other
ancient versions of the Bible that deserve to be mentioned at least are the Targum
(the Targumim are very free translations into Aramaic, more of paraphrases in fact),
the Peshitta (in Syriac), Vetus Latina (or the Itala) and the Vulgate.

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

The Targumim are the Aramaic versions of the Bible. When the Jews no longer knew
Hebrew, the readers in the synagogue read the Hebrew text and then translated, or
rather, paraphrased it directly, then and there, into Aramaic. These Targumim were
done orally and an oral tradition developed around them until they were finally
written down by the 5th century AD. We could not really call the Targumim as
translations (although the Aramaic word for translation is targum)…

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

…They are more paraphrases of the Hebrew text. The renderings are very loose, and
the explanations and expansions of the original text are many. So actually the
Targumim’s use in textual criticism is minimal. They are more useful, however, in
knowing the Jewish ways of exegesis and their understanding of the Scriptures
during the Intertestamental period, because the oral traditions on which they were
based went back that early in time.

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

The Peshitta (“simple” in Syriac) is the version of the Bible done in ancient Syria. It
might have been translated in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. This version is very old,
perhaps only next to LXX in antiquity for the OT books. Like the LXX, it is the work of
many translators done over a long period. Most of it was translated from Hebrew,
except for its deuterocanonical books which came from Greek.

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

The name of Vetus Latina or the Itala is given to the various translations of the Bible
into Latin that existed before the spread of the Vulgate (Vg) of St. Jerome and which
were based on the Greek text, which they tried to make slavishly. (Cf. G. Rizzi, Le
antiche versioni della Bibbia. Traduzioni, tradizioni e interpretazioni, 42-44)

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

The Vulgate is the Latin version of the whole Bible. This great work was done by St.
Jerome (c. 342-420) around AD 400, although he did not translate all the books of
the Bible. He translated the NT and the protocanonical books of the OT from their
original languages. The deuterocanonical books of the Vulgate were mostly lifted
from the Itala or from other existing versions in Latin…

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

…The Vulgate gained widespread acceptance among the people because of its
simple but elegant language and its fidelity to the original languages (Vulgatus in
Latin means common or commonly known. The term Vulgata came from versio
vulgate, which means popular or common version)…

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

…St. Jerome was already a master of the Greek and Latin languages when Pope
Damasus (c. 304-384) asked him to translate the Scriptures in Latin so as to have a
reliable text in that language for use in the Church. He went to Palestine and in
Bethlehem, he rigorously studied Hebrew under Jewish rabbis so that he might be
able to translate the Bible from the original languages into common yet elegant
Latin.

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

The Vulgate superseded all the other Latin versions. It became the most common
Bible used among the Christians until the Protestant Reformation of the 16th
century. As a result of the Protestant upheaval, many Bibles came to be translated
into the vernacular. In this atmosphere of confusion, the Church pronounced herself
to be officially for the Vulgate in the Council of Trent in 1546, without excluding the
use of the texts in their original languages…

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

…The Vulgate of Jerome however, had to be updated and revised. In 1592 the
“Sistine-clementine version” of the Vulgate came out. It was the official version of
the Vulgate used by the Catholic Church from that time till 1986 when a new version
of the Vulgate was published. Even up to now the Church uses and reveres the
Vulgate…

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

The Vulgate then stands on the record as the version of the Bible that has been
continually used in the Church as its official text, whether declared or undeclared, for
about 1,500 years. Because of its long history, the Vulgate is important for text-
critical studies. Furthermore, “the investigation of the history of the Vulgate is
fundamental, not only for the study of exegesis in the Latin Church, but also for the
understanding of the growth of western European society.” (D. C. Parker, ADB, 862).

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

From the textual point of view, the Vg is an important witness above all of the
Hebrew and Aramaic text of the OT, because Jerome has translated almost all the OT
books starting from a text that was practically identical to the future MT.

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible

The great exception is the Psalter. The Latin version of the psalms found in the Vg
(and which St. Pius V introduced in the Roman Breviary) corresponds to the so-called
“Gallican Psalter,” which is not a translation from Hebrew, but a revision—made by
Jerome—of the ancient Latin version. Later, St. Jerome made a translation of the
psalter from Hebrew, but curiously it was not transmitted in the Vg. (On these

details, cf. Perrella, Introduzione generale alla Sacra Bibbia, 219-224)

5. Other ancient versions of the Bible
Generally, old versions have great value for textual criticism, because they allow us
to compare textual variants. For example, we know that the Vg is based on a Hebrew
text very similar to MT. But, if in a word the Vg coincides with the LXX and not with
the MT, it is possible to think that it is in the current MT where the text has changed,
while Vg and LXX independently testify to an older variant.