Bible Book: Psalms

Summer is my only time to really focus on writing, so I'm working hard now on the follow-up book to the Latin Via Proverbs book which I published last summer. It will be a collection of sayings from the Latin Vulgate, organized grammatically, just as in the first book. Over the past two days, I've been pulling verses, or parts of verses, from the book of Psalms to include.

One of the problems I face with the Book of Psalms in Latin is that there are MULTIPLE versions of the Psalms in Latin. So, that is what I thought I would do my post on today, since it gives some insight into the nature of the Book of Psalms in the Hebrew Bible, and also to the fascinating story of the Vulgate and the Latin tradition of Bible translation.

The "psalms" are songs, intended for musical accompaniment. The name itself, "psalm," is a Greek translation from the Hebrew, meaning "song played on a stringed instrument." There is a detailed article at wikipedia about the types of songs contained in the book and their intensive use in both Jewish and Christian worship.

In the Roman Catholic tradition, the old Liturgy of the Hours - matins (vigils, nocturns), lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, and compline - provided a schedule for the recitation (the canonical hours) of psalms throughout the day.

Written originally in Hebrew, the Psalms were translated into Greek and included in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible). Then, in the second century C.E., the Greek version of the Psalms was translated into Latin. This is the so-called "Itala" or "Old" Latin Psalter (Psalterium Vetus) translation, and it survives only in the form of quotations found in the ancient Church fathers, along with some limited manuscript evidence.

Then, in the late fourth century, Pope Damasus asked Jerome to revise the Old Latin translation of the Psalms, making corrections so that it matched the Septuagint (Greek) version more closely. This became known as the "Roman Psalter" (Psalterium Romanum) but Jerome was very unhappy with the results. He believed that the version he was revising was itself so full of errors that the project of revising it was simply misguided. Yet the Roman Psalter is still used in the Vatican, even today.

Jerome then did another version, starting from scratch, using this time the famous Hexapla edition of the Bible, created by the great scholar Origen, which gave Jerome access to multiple Greek translations of the Hebrew, along with the Hebrew text itself. This second version by Jerome is now referred to as the "Gallican Psalter," and it is included in the Vulgate Bible. You can find many beautiful medieval psalters based on this text online, such as the lovely Burnet Psalter. Here is an initial image from the Burnet Psalter showing King David, the putative author of many of the psalms, kneeling with his harp before an altar.



Finally, Jerome completed a third version of the Psalter, done directly from the Hebrew, the "Versio juxta Hebraicum," "Version according to the Hebrew" (Jerome at this point was living in Bethlehem, where he had learned Hebrew; Jerome settled in Bethlehem in the year 388 and he died there in 420). This version of the Psalms is used by scholars today as a way to understand the Hebrew text as it existed in the late fourth century, although the Latin translation itself has no official role in the liturgy of the Catholic Church and it is not part of the Vulgate Bible.

In 1945, Pope Pius XII sponsored a new translation of the Psalms, called the Novum Psalterium, the "New Psalter." Although it is based on the Hebrew, it uses a classical Latin style, rather than imitating the style of the Hebrew in the Latin. This neo-classical Latin version of the Psalms has had both its defenders and its critics, although it is increasingly less well-known since the Catholic Church issued yet another translation in 1969, the Nova Vulgata version, or "New Vulgate" version. This one follows the Hebrew text and also imitates the style of Jerome's Gallican psalter. It is this verison which is printed today in the Roman Catholic liturgy.

The Psalms are truly beautiful, in whatever language you read them. Many phrases from the King James version of the Psalms in English are among the gems of the English literary tradition.

Meanwhile, here is a random quote from the King James version of Psalms - although I've not provided chapter and verse number here, you'll find it easy to Google the words and look up the King James version online (if you are reading this post via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog in order to see the script in action):

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If all goes well, I should have one or more Bible books to report on each day over the rest of the summer!

Bible Book: Genesis

Well, it's July - and I'm not sure if I will be able to accomplish my goal of finishing a book this summer (this move to North Carolina made everything topsy-turvy!), but I've started in on a follow-up book to the Latin Via Proverbs book which I published last summer. It will be a collection of sayings from the Latin Vulgate, organized grammatically, just as in the first book. So, I've started going through the Bible looking for likely verses or parts of verses to include. I did the Book of Genesis yesterday, which is always a pleasure to work on.

There are so many marvelous stories in Genesis, and those stories in turn have provoked a huge body of legends and tales outside the Bible, filling in the gaps in the Biblical narrative or amplifying on the stories that are already there. The great scholar Louis Ginzberg compiled a collection of these extra-Biblical stories in his monumental Legends of the Jews.

Luckily for all of us, this book is now available at several websites, including Sacred Texts Archive. The book was originally published in six volumes, with four volumes of stories and two volumes of notes to the stories. Unfortunately, only the four volumes of stories are available online. To consult the notes, you will need to acquire a printed copy, although there are inexpensive paperback editions available of the notes volumes, along with a helpful index volume for all six volumes.

The stories that Ginzberg collected in conjunction with the Biblical book of Genesis occupy the entire first volume and the first half of the second volume! So, for example, if you have always been curious about the legend of Lilith, Adam's first wife, here is Ginzberg's account of that legend:

The Divine resolution to bestow a companion on Adam met the wishes of man, who had been overcome by a feeling of isolation when the animals came to him in pairs to be named. To banish his loneliness, Lilith was first given to Adam as wife. Like him she had been created out of the dust of the ground. But she remained with him only a short time, because she insisted upon enjoying full equality with her husband. She derived her rights from their identical origin. With the help of the Ineffable Name, which she pronounced, Lilith flew away from Adam, and vanished in the air. Adam complained before God that the wife He had given him had deserted him, and God sent forth three angels to capture her. They found her in the Red Sea, and they sought to make her go back with the threat that, unless she went, she would lose a hundred of her demon children daily by death. But Lilith preferred this punishment to living with Adam. She takes her revenge by injuring babes--baby boys during the first night of their life, while baby girls are exposed to her wicked designs until they are twenty. days old The only way to ward off the evil is to attach an amulet bearing the names of her three angel captors to the children, for such had been the agreement between them.

That's just one example out of the literally thousands of stories which Ginzberg collected from the Talmud, Midrash and other traditional sources.

Meanwhile, here is a random quote from the King James version of Genesis - although I've not provided chapter and verse number here, you'll find it easy to Google the words and look up the King James version online (if you are reading this post via RSS, you'll need to visit the blog in order to see the script in action):

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If all goes well, I should have one or more Bible books to report on each day over the rest of the summer!

Bible Book: Ecclesiasticus (Sirach)

This Bible book is known by several names. It is called Ecclesiasticus (not to be confused with the canonical book, Ecclesiastes). It is also called "The Wisdom of Ben Sira," or "The Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach," and so on. Sometimes it is simply called "Sirach."

Within the book itself, the author declares himself to be Yeshua (Jesus, Joshua), the son of Sira, a Jewish scholar living in Jerusalem. It appears that the book was probably written sometime in the early 2nd century B.C.E. The preface to the book, written by Yeshua ben Sira's grandson, explains that the book was originally written in Hebrew, and that the grandson translated it into Greek. You can read more about the dating of the book in the wikipedia article. There is also detailed information in the Jewish Encyclopedia online and the Catholic Encyclopedia online.

This book is not part of the Hebrew Bible, although it is known in the Hebrew tradition and is quoted in the Talmud. In Protestant versions of the Bible, such as the King James version, it is included with the apocryphal writings.

In Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, however, it is a canonical book, the last of the wisdom books, which appear in this order: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom, and Ecclesiasticus (Sirach).

If you are familiar with the book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible, you will feel right at home in Ecclesiasticus, since it has much in common with Proverbs. The book is a collection of ethical teachings and maxims. There is also a long section at the end of the book, beginning with the words "Let us now praise famous men," which offers a history of Jewish heroes, praising all the patriarchs and judges and prophets.

The Greek, Latin and English texts are available side-by-side at the Sacred Texts Archive. I've prepared a script with random quotes from this book of the Bible which should give you some idea about what the book is like (if you are reading this via email or via RSS, you may need to visit the actual blog to see the random quotes):

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Bible Book: Wisdom

The Book of Wisdom (also called The Wisdom of Solomon) is included in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, but it is not part of the Hebrew Bible. In the Protestant Bible, the book is considered to be an apocryphal book. You can see the Greek and Latin texts, along with English, at the Sacred Texts website.

One of the dominant themes in the book is the transitoriness of life, a theme very familiar from the canonical Book of Ecclesiastes. Consider this beautiful passage:

What hath pride profited us? or what good hath riches with our vaunting brought us? All those things are passed away like a shadow, and as a post that hasted by; And as a ship that passeth over the waves of the water, which when it is gone by, the trace thereof cannot be found, neither the pathway of the keel in the waves; Or as when a bird hath flown through the air, there is no token of her way to be found, but the light air being beaten with the stroke of her wings and parted with the violent noise and motion of them, is passed through, and therein afterwards no sign where she went is to be found; Or like as when an arrow is shot at a mark, it parteth the air, which immediately cometh together again, so that a man cannot know where it went through.

Wisdom, on the other hand, Greek sophia, is not transitory or elusive:

Wisdom is glorious, and never fadeth away: yea, she is easily seen of them that love her, and found of such as seek her.

The book is written by "Solomon," that king who is famous for having asked God to give him wisdom above riches and power:

I preferred her before sceptres and thrones, and esteemed riches nothing in comparison of her. Neither compared I unto her any precious stone, because all gold in respect of her is as a little sand, and silver shall be counted as clay before her. I loved her above health and beauty, and chose to have her instead of light: for the light that cometh from her never goeth out.

Just what does wisdom involve? As you can see from this list, wisdom definitely includes what we would call science today:

For he hath given me certain knowledge of the things that are, namely, to know how the world was made, and the operation of the elements: The beginning, ending, and midst of the times: the alterations of the turning of the sun, and the change of seasons: The circuits of years, and the positions of stars: The natures of living creatures, and the furies of wild beasts: the violence of winds, and the reasonings of men: the diversities of plants and the virtues of roots:

As the virtues and actions of wisdom are recounted, you can see that she is present throughout the Biblical narrative, even if she is not named. She is the one who made it possible for Noah to build the ark, for example:

For whose cause the earth being drowned with the flood, wisdom again preserved it, and directed the course of the righteous in a piece of wood of small value.

Although the book is not considered part of the Protestant canon, there are many profound connections between the teachings of the Book of Wisdom and the writings of the New Testament. In particular, wisdom is described in this book with many of the qualities of the holy spirit:

For wisdom is more moving than any motion: she passeth and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness. For she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty: therefore can no defiled thing fall into her. For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness.

This last passage, "the unspotted mirror" (Latin, speculum sine macula, "the immaculate mirror") was easily adapted into the symbolic attributes of Mary. Here is an emblem of the immaculate virgin which takes its text from the Book of Wisdom:

Widget: Bible Books

I've created another widget - this time it is a collection of information about the books of the Bible, which can be displayed either as a "Bible Book of the Week" or a "Bible Book at Random."

Each item contains links to the text of the book online in original languages and in English translation, along with a link to the Wikipedia article about the book, plus a brief passage selected from the book which appears in italics.

I'm hoping this would be something useful to help people become familiar with the books of the Bible - including wonderful books like Tobit and Wisdom which are not included in the Hebrew and Protestant Bibles, but which are part of the Catholic and Orthodox canons.

You can find this widget and related widgest at the SchoolhouseWidgets.com website. I hope that for anyone with a course website devoted to Bible-based courses could find the information and links useful in exposing their students to basic information about all the books of the Bible.

You can see the widget in action in the right-hand column of this blog! And here is the random version of the script:

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