The Vulgate and Jerome’s Biblical Exegesis

Abstract

In the recent annotated German translation of the Vulgate produced by the Vulgata Verein, (Hieronymus. Biblia Sacra vulgata: Lateinisch-deutsch, vols. I-V, Andreas Beriger, Widu-Wolfgang Ehlers and Michael Fieger, edd., Boston: De Gruyter, 2018), Manfred Niehoff’s and Michael Margoni-Kögler’s versions of Isaiah 1-11 and 12-22 respectively incorporate references to Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah. The rarity of such intertextual reading of the Vulgate and Jerome’s biblical commentaries in this German translation correlates with sporadic attention to the topic in monographs on the commentaries and the Latin translation. Close comparison of the Vulgate and Jerome’s biblical exegesis rarely happens. The lacuna is surprising because Jerome composed his commentaries and exegetical letters before, during and after his work on the biblical translation. Moreover, Hebrew Questions on Genesis, Book of Places, and Book of the Interpretation of Hebrew Names represent preliminary tools for the version according to the Hebrews and broadly outline his translation techniques. Likewise, numerous references to Latin grammatical technical terms in his writings strongly suggest that grammatical categories informed his translation. Through a consideration of select examples, this paper recommends intertextual reading of the biblical translation by demonstrating the value of comparing specific renderings of the Vulgate to Jerome’s exegetical comments. Namely, such comparisons clarify noteworthy features of the translation and offer evidence of how readers may have interpreted his renderings.