BIBLE. - A collection of books considered sacred, differing in number between Jews and Christians.
CONTENTS:
I. Names and divisions
II. Sacred character
III. Canon
IV. Original texts
V. Ancient versions
VI. Modern versions
VII. Polyglot Bibles
VIII. Interpretation of the Bible
IX. Reading of the Bible
X. The Bible in literature
XI. The Bible in the Divine Office
XII. The Bible in art.BIBL.:
(Translations of connective words only; names and titles remain in original language.)
I. NAMES AND DIVISIONS
The term is the transcription of the Greek βιβλία (plural of βιβλίον) "books," signifying the books par excellence, the sacred books that form the aforementioned collection. In vulgar Latin, as in analogous cases, it became a feminine singular, biblia, from which it further passed into the various modern languages: Italian bibbia, French bible, Spanish biblia, English bible, etc. The same collection, by a similar process, is also called Scripture par excellence, or Sacred Scripture. This term corresponds to the Greek ἡ γραφή (αἱ γραφαί, αἱ ἱεραὶ γραφαί, etc.), which was already employed in antiquity and is still in use among the Greeks.This collection of books differs in quantity among the Jews and among Christians, and among Christians it differs between Catholics and non-Catholics. Christians, without distinction, divide the collection into the Old (or Ancient) Testament, which is of Hebrew origin, and the New Testament, which is of Christian origin; because of this origin, the Jews reject the New Testament. In turn, Protestants agree with the Jews in the number and quantity of books that constitute the Old Testament, differing from Catholics.
Ancient Jews divided the books of the Bible (Old Testament) into three groups: the Tōrāh "law," that is, the Pentateuch; the Nēbhī'm "prophets," that is, their writings; and the Kēthābhīm, "writings (sacred)," that is, the hagiographa. This grouping is very ancient and is already evident in the 2nd century B.C. from the prologue prefixed to the book of Ecclesiasticus by its Greek translator; it is the most used by modern Israelites to designate the Bible, less frequently referred to by them with the comprehensive terms sēphārīm, "books (sacred)," kithbhē haq-qōdeš, "holy writings," and the like.
Referring to content, the books of the Old Testament can be grouped into legal or historical-legal books, which contain especially the sacred legislation of the Hebrew people; historical books, which narrate the history of that people; prophetic books, containing writings composed by the Hebrew prophets; and wisdom or didactic books, which impart especially practical norms for behaving honestly and wisely.
As to literary form, the books of the Old Testament are prose or poetry: some, especially the legal books, use only prose; others, like the book of Psalms, only poetry; others mix the two at times, usually giving more or less prominence to poetry, as in Job and the prophetic books.
The New Testament, in terms of content, consists of historical writings, such as the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles; didactic writings, such as the various Epistles or Letters; and one prophetic writing, which is the Apocalypse.
The term Testament, with which Christians designate the two parts of the entire Bible, has a historical-theological meaning, as it alludes to the two great periods in which divine Revelation was accomplished. The term corresponds to the Hebrew bērīth and the Greek διαθήκη, indicating a "covenant" or "alliance" concluded among several persons, and more recently the "testament" made by a dying person regarding their possessions. Thus, as Old Testament (cf. Hebr. 8, 13) was designated the ancient period of Revelation in which God had made a "covenant" or "alliance" with the nation of Israel alone; as New Testament (cf. Mt. 26, 28; II Cor. 3, 6), instead, was designated the second and final period, in which the old "covenant" was replaced by the new and all nations were called indiscriminately to participate in the fruits of the redemption of Jesus Christ. And since such redemption is the effect of the death of Jesus Christ, the new "covenant" is at the same time his "testament" (cf. Hebr. 9, 15-17).
Today all the books of the entire Bible are divided into chapters, and each chapter is divided into short passages called "verses"; chapters and verses are numbered in progressive order, and according to this numbering they are cited: e.g., Gen. 3, 15, indicates verse 15 of chapter 3 of Genesis. This division into chapters was introduced at the beginning of the 12th century by the English cardinal Stephen Langton in the text of the Latin Vulgate Bible, from which it was later transferred to the Hebrew and Greek texts; Latin and Greek manuscripts prior to Langton's time follow other criteria for chapter division, while the Hebrew text is divided in relation to the public reading to be done in synagogues and according to the norms of the rabbinic schools of the first centuries of Christianity. The division into verses also has the same origin for the Hebrew text; for the New Testament, various divisions into verses were attempted over the centuries, until the one introduced by Robert Estienne (Stephanus) in the Latin Bible prevailed in the mid-16th century. Often neither the division into chapters nor that into verses logically corresponds to the concepts of the text, and it would be easy to improve them in many points: but today they have an exclusively practical value, for citations and comparisons.
Here, then, is the list of books that constitute the Catholic Bible (the asterisk indicates the deuterocanonical books, the asterisk in parentheses [] indicates books that have deuterocanonical passages):
OLD TESTAMENT: A) Pentateuch (Historical-legal books): Genesis; Exodus; Leviticus; Numbers; Deuteronomy. B) Historical books: Joshua; Judges; Ruth; I and II Samuel (or I and II Kings); I and II Kings (or III and IV Kings); I and II Paralipomenon (or Chronicles); I and II Esdras (or Ezra and Nehemiah); Tobias; Judith; () Esther; I and II Maccabees; C) Wisdom or didactic books: Job; Psalms; Proverbs; Ecclesiastes; Song of Songs; Wisdom; Ecclesiasticus. D) Prophetic books: Isaiah; Jeremiah; Lamentations; Baruch (with the Letter of Jeremiah); Ezekiel; () Daniel; 12 Minor Prophets (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi).
NEW TESTAMENT: A) Historical books. Gospels: Matthew; Mark; Luke; John; Acts of the Apostles. B) Didactic writings. Letters of Paul: Romans; I Corinthians; II Corinthians; Galatians; Ephesians; Philippians; Colossians; I Thessalonians; II Thessalonians; I Timothy; II Timothy; Titus; Philemon; Hebrews. Catholic Letters: James; I Peter; II Peter; I John; II John; III John; Jude. C) Prophetic book: Apocalypse.
This is the series according to which, except for I-II Mach., the books of the Bible are arranged in modern editions of the Latin Vulgate version. However, for the Old Testament, this series does not correspond to that followed in the Hebrew Bible and, to a lesser extent, in the Greek Septuagint version, from which the Latin Vulgate depends. The series of the first five books (from Genesis to Deuteronomy) is constant, constituting in the Hebrew Bible the first group, called Tōrāh ("law"); the second group, called Nēbhī'm ("prophets"), is divided in the Hebrew Bible into "former" and "latter": the former contains the books from Joshua to all the Kings, the latter contains the 12 Minor Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; finally, the third group, called Kēthābhīm ("writings," or hagiographa), contains in order Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, Chronicles. The five books, from Song of Songs to Esther inclusive, constitute a small collection called the Five Scrolls (or Megillot: Heb. Mēgillāth).
The books of the Old Testament contained in the Hebrew Bible are thus 24; to these the Latin Vulgate Bible, conforming to the Greek Septuagint version, adds the 7 "deuterocanonical" books (8, if the Letter of Jeremiah is separated from Baruch).
II. SACRED CHARACTER
At this point, a fundamental question naturally arises: why have only the books just listed, and no others, become part of the collection called the Bible? What was the criterion by which these alone, unlike others, were selected, or by what quality were they admitted into the collection called the Bible?The general criterion for their selection was that ancient tradition, first Jewish and then Christian, recognized them as "sacred" books, unlike other books that were not so recognized. The basis of this recognition—that is, the intrinsic quality by which a book was acknowledged as "sacred"—was the "inspiration" of the book itself, whereby it is not a human book but a divine one, having God as its principal author and man as its secondary or instrumental author. However, this quality of the books of the Bible is so significant, from both a historical and theological perspective, that it must be studied separately (v. ISPIRAZIONE).
### III. CANON.
The Greek word canon (κανών), meaning "rule" or "norm," has been used since the 4th century to designate the collection of sacred books of the Bible. From then on, books are referred to as canonical in contrast to non-canonical, depending on whether they are part of the aforementioned collection or canon. The terms proto-canonical and deutero-canonical, on the other hand, are of more recent formation: they date back to Sixtus of Siena (16th century), who in this way sought to distinguish, among the books composing the canon of the Old Testament, those that were universally recognized as part of the collection from those over whose inspired character some doubt had arisen over the centuries. This distinction is used almost exclusively among Catholics, since Protestants and Jews call the deutero-canonical books apocryphal, excluding them from the biblical canon. As mentioned above, these books are: Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the two books of Maccabees, and certain passages of Daniel (3:24-90; 13; 14) and Esther (10:4-16:24).
Since it is a supernatural character, only the Church, as the depositary of Jesus Christ's doctrine, has the authority to infallibly declare which book is endowed with the character of inspiration and is therefore to be included in the biblical canon. Thus, the sure criterion for knowing whether a book should be part of this collection is tradition, which must trace back to the apostolic age. In practice, this criterion also underlies, in various aspects, the one proposed by some Catholics, namely the prophetic or apostolic origin of the books composing the Bible.
1. Canon of the Old Testament. — It is undeniable that this tradition, even when its apostolic origin can be securely demonstrated, was not always free from doubt, especially regarding the canon of the Old Testament. Among the Jews in the 1st century A.D., we find a notable divergence, which perhaps dates back to an even earlier period.
The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (Contra Apionem, I, 8-9) transmits, without explicitly naming the individual titles, a canon that excluded the deutero-canonical books. On the other hand, the Greek version known as the Septuagint, made by Alexandrian Jews some centuries before Christ, also contains the deutero-canonical books, which demonstrates that these books were read in synagogal assemblies and considered inspired. The divergence seems due to the rigorism of the Palestinian scribes and rabbis, who did not tolerate any book originally written in Greek, and who were also suspicious of books originally composed in Hebrew or Aramaic when they did not appear to be due to an author endowed with the prophetic charism (cf. I Mach. 4:46; 14:41). Thus, the indispensable requirements of a sacred book were almost fixed in the Hebrew language, the prophetic quality of the supposed author (prior to Ezra), and the Palestinian origin of the book. This rigorism was not shared by the Hellenized Jews of the diaspora, who generally read the Bible in the Greek version. Moreover, there are indications suggesting that even among Palestinian Jews, these books, especially the older ones, were initially admitted. It suffices to recall that the Jews of the diaspora must have originally received their canon from their coreligionists in Palestine, the center of all Judaism, and thus also received the deutero-canonical books from there. However, when later the rigorism of the Palestinian scribes reduced the canon to the proto-canonical books alone, the Alexandrians also accepted this decision, rejecting the ancient Septuagint version. Regarding Jesus Christ and the Apostles, although they did not leave an official catalog of inspired and canonical books, their allusions preserved in the New Testament and the frequent use of the Septuagint version show in practice that they also considered the deutero-canonical books as inspired. Such is also the norm of the earliest Fathers, who cite or use both series of books indifferently (Clement of Rome, Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Cyprian). Thus, for the first two centuries, there is no evidence of any uncertainty regarding the inspiration and authority of the deutero-canonical books. Only toward the end of the 2nd century did the frequent controversies with the Jews, who by then unanimously rejected the deutero-canonical books, lead the apologists not to draw their arguments from these writings, which were not admitted by their adversaries. This was a practical norm to follow rather than a theoretical principle; nevertheless, true doubts soon arose among some Christians as well. We find symptoms of this in Melito of Sardis (ca. 160-180), who in a passage preserved by Eusebius of Caesarea (Hist. eccl., IV, 26) reports the Palestinian canon as authentic, explicitly stating that he obtained this information during a journey to Palestine. The same canon is reported by Origen, who nevertheless used the deutero-canonical books as inspired. In later times, this opinion spread more noticeably in the Greek Church; it was adhered to by Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Epiphanius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and some others in compiling the list of sacred books, although in practice they did not strictly adhere to that opinion, since it is not difficult to find in their works quotations from deutero-canonical books as inspired.
Then a triple distinction of biblical books began to circulate among the Greeks: they spoke of books certain or admitted by all (ἀναλογοῦμεν), of controversial ones (ἀντιλεγόμεναι), and of spurious or apocryphal ones. The second term included our deutero-canonical books. But how little the rejection of these books was rooted is confirmed by their unconditional acceptance by numerous other Church doctors and by the decision of the Council of Constantinople in 692, called Trullan, which, though in a not entirely clear form, referred to the complete canon, always maintained unchallenged in the Greek Church, at least until the rise of Protestantism.
In the Latin Church, the first to adhere to the Jewish canon were Hilary of Poitiers, Rufinus of Aquileia, and Jerome. The first two were influenced by the example of Origen, of whom they professed to be disciples; the third, who before going to the East seems to have held the complete canon, with his authority engendered doubts in later authors. Nevertheless, the great majority of writers categorically maintained the inspiration and canonicity of the controversial books. A representative of this opinion was Augustine, who, through his personal work and the conciliar proclamations he promoted, preserved the genuine tradition of the Church. The Roman See, already with Innocent I (405), pronounced decisively in favor of these books; some years later, the Decree, erroneously called Gelasian, marked the constant norm of faith for the following centuries, until the ecumenical Councils of Florence (1441) and Trent (1546) solemnly sanctioned II. However, the authority of Jerome, who had caused some hesitation and deviation in the Middle Ages (Hugh of St. Victor, Nicholas of Lyra, and a few others), is still felt in St. Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence (d. 1459), and in Cardinal Cajetan (1532), who denied the deutero-canonical books a binding authority in matters of faith.
Martin Luther, while rejecting ecclesiastical tradition, showed some hesitation in repudiating the deuterocanonical books, and contented himself with relegating them to the end of his translation. However, Andreas Karlstadt soon proved more resolute: in his work De canonicis Scripturis (1520), he adopted the Jewish canon, which quickly became universal among Protestants. Thus, they excluded the disputed books from their editions of the Bible, labeling them as apocryphal. The Protestant stance was also rejected by the schismatic Greek Church, which condemned some of its followers inclined toward the Reformers' opinion (Cyril Lucaris and Metrophanes Critopoulos). Nevertheless, in the 17th century, hostility toward the deuterocanonical books spread in Russia, Slavic countries, and even in Greece, where it counts many representatives, as the question of the canon was declared a free and non-dogmatic issue by ecclesiastical authority.
For rationalist criticism, which denies inspiration, this question assumes a secondary character, since all books of Scripture are treated like any profane book.
2. Canon of the New Testament
The formation of the New Testament canon is better documented. Here, the inspired authors themselves often indicate the occasion and other circumstances that led to the composition of a writing. We also find clear references to the formation of more or less extensive collections containing at least a part of the apostolic writings. St. Peter speaks of St. Paul’s letters as if they enjoyed the same authority as the books of the Old Testament (2 Pt. 3:15-16). The Apostolic Fathers did not transmit a complete catalog of the books comprising the New Testament; often, even in their citations—made more by sense than literally—it is difficult to determine precisely which book they refer to. Nevertheless, the ever-growing number of such citations, more or less direct, in the writings of Clement of Rome, Polycarp, and Ignatius allows us to hold that these authors, especially the latter, possessed a complete corpus at least of St. Paul’s writings. Other authors testify to the existence of other books, such as Papias of Hierapolis for the Gospels, fromthe Codex Sinaiticus, ed. by H. V. Lake, Oxford 1911.
BIBLIA - Greek Text. Codex Sinaiticus (8), 4th century.
II John 7b-13; III John; Rev. 1-6.
which Tatian composed his Diatessaron toward the end of the 2nd century. Proof that among the earliest Christians a canon of New Testament books was already in use is the reaction against Marcion (v.), when he sought to compile another according to his own personal and heterodox principles. From the replies of Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus, it is clear that Marcion was not the first to establish a collection of inspired writings, as A. Harnack would have it, but merely a reformer of the common canon according to his particular ideas. It may be, however, that his audacity prompted the Church to express its traditional thought more precisely; indeed, from that time (ca. 170-80) comes a document of the Roman Church most important for the history of the New Testament canon, namely the Muratorian Fragment or Canon, discovered by L. A. Muratori in 1740: it testifies that 4 Gospels were recognized as inspired (the first is not mentioned, and of the second only a hint survives, the document being mutilated at the beginning), 13 letters of St. Paul (it does not mention that to the Hebrews), the Acts, two or three letters of John, the letter of Jude, the Apocalypse, and perhaps two letters of Peter, one of which would have been controversial.
If one adds the doubts and dissensions that arose here and there regarding some Catholic letters, namely James, Jude, II Peter, II and III John, one may count even for the New Testament 7 controversial books (ἀντιλεγόμενα). But such disagreement, due to other reasons but in part also to the difficulty of originally distributing all the individual brief inspired writings to all the Churches, was less profound than that which occurred for the canon of the Old Testament.
Gradually the divergences smoothed out, doubts diminished; especially in the West, distrust of the letter to the Hebrews vanished, following the teaching of the great doctors who spoke in favor of the contested works. Jerome and Augustine, the Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397 and 419) resolutely supported their admission; Pope Innocent I (405; Denz-U, nn. 92, 96) expressed himself in the same sense. In the East, however, doubts persisted longer; especially in the Church of Antioch, and among the Syrians who received their direction from it, there was hesitation in recognizing the canonicity of the Apocalypse and some Catholic letters (II Peter, II and III John, Jude). By the time of Justinian, every disagreement in the Byzantine Empire had vanished. Among the Syrians, recognition came more slowly, since their version initially lacked the contested books; the Nestorians never admitted the Apocalypse, II Peter, II and III John, Jude, as testified by Išōʿdād of Merv (850) and Ebediesu (1318).
Luther initially opposed in particular the letter of James, calling it the "epistle of straw," because it contradicted his theological cornerstone of salvation by faith alone. In practice, at the beginning of the Reformation there was great dissent on this point among the most authoritative Protestants; subsequently, little by little, the disputed books were readmitted, so that from the 17th century onward there was no difference in the New Testament canon between Catholics and Protestants.
For writings not admitted into the biblical canon, V. APOCRIFI.
IV. ORIGINAL TEXTS
An essential presupposition in the study of any ancient writing is the fidelity and accuracy of the documents that have preserved II. In this regard, no profane text has had as many investigators of its transmission history as the Bible, especially the New Testament. The inquiry naturally extends to both the original texts and the most important ancient versions.1. Old Testament. — It was written mostly in Hebrew (with some brief passages in Aramaic), and only a few of its books, such as II Maccabees and Wisdom, were originally composed in Greek; likewise, we possess the other deuterocanonical books only in this latter language, though they were originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic.
The history of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament is quite simple if we begin from the first Christian centuries, when this text took on a precise form that was subsequently transmitted almost perfectly unaltered. Very little, however, is known about the preceding period, when the text underwent significant modifications that we can now only vaguely assess. Biblical scrolls from the 2nd century B.C. discovered among the mountains of Judah were announced in 1948. Many Hebrew codices, though not very ancient—none dating back beyond the 10th century A.D.—were painstakingly collated by scholars, among whom Gian Bernardo De Rossi (v.) excels around 1800; but such extensive work has yielded a homogeneous Hebrew text, since the rare variants are entirely secondary and never deeply affect the meaning.
Thus, this meticulous examination testifies to a text that was already uniform at the time of the composition of our oldest Hebrew codices. However, this certainty does not extend to the thousand and more years separating our codices from the original writings. By comparing ancient versions and following the testimonies of ancient Jewish and Christian writers, we can still trace back to the first centuries of the Christian era; and even for this period, the most scrupulous investigations only confirm the faithful transmission of the text, protected by the meticulous "hedge of the Tōrāh," as the vast work of the Masoretes (v.) was defined.
But going back to the pre-Christian period, textual divergences appear both evident and significant. For this period, we possess the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Septuagint version—which is the most important and was based on a Hebrew text earlier than the Masoretic one—the very brief Nash Papyrus, and the writings of Flavius Josephus; in addition, the Hebrew text of the Bible itself provides clear evidence that in ancient times the transmission of the biblical text was neither careful nor precise. We find, in fact, passages repeated multiple times, even within the same book (as in the Psalms), which often testify to textual differences that can hardly be attributed solely to copyists' oversights. Furthermore, the greater abundance of variants in the books forming the last two collections of the Hebrew Bible (that is, the "Prophets" and the "Writings") demonstrates that these collections arose at a time when the activity of scribes, which began in the Persian period, was still not very effective. Nevertheless, such textual divergences, though serious in individual books like Samuel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Proverbs, do not affect the overall substance of the individual works. The modifications, when not due to the carelessness of copyists or the freedom of redactors, sometimes depend on a misunderstanding of the text, which was often caused by the imperfections of Hebrew writing that lacked vowels. The introduction, in fact, of special signs (around the 6th century A.D.) to indicate Hebrew vowels contributed greatly, along with all the work of the Masoretes, to faithfully preserving the established text; it is the text that, as we have said, was transmitted with remarkable precision until the invention of printing.
In 1525, the first complete Hebrew Bible was published in Venice, edited by Jacob ben Chajjim (Rabbinic Bible); from that edition to the critical editions of C. D. Ginsburg (London 1908-26) and R. Kittel (Leipzig 1906; 3rd edition by P. Kahle, completely revised based on the oldest codices, Stuttgart 1929), printed editions have multiplied, always with the utmost fidelity. Therefore, we can say that we now have in hand the Hebrew text as it was read in the 1st-2nd centuries A.D., that is, a substantially—but not literally—reliable copy of the lost original autographs. Comparison with ancient versions, particularly the Septuagint, can often suggest appropriate corrections; at other times, a prudent and well-founded conjecture may restore the original reading.
2. New Testament. — If for the Old Testament we have a large gap in the history of manuscript transmission, for the New Testament we are more fortunate. No ancient text, not even the most celebrated classical authors, can boast as many codices of such high antiquity as the New Testament, whose codices number over 4,000; some of these date back to the 4th century, while more or less fragmentary papyri (Chester-Beatty, Egerton, etc.) take us back even to the 2nd century. The multitude of codices does indeed present us with an extraordinary number of variants, perhaps exceeding the number of words, but this disagreement is much more apparent than real. In fact, most of the variants are either obvious copyists' errors or insignificant alterations due to particular spellings in the Koine Greek dominated by "iotacism."
(from British Museum, The Codex Alexandrinus, London 1948)
BIBLE - Greek Text. Codex Alexandrinus (A), 5th century.
Mt. 28:19-20 and the series of chapters in Mk.
According to the calculation of expert scholars (Westcott-Hort), the portion of the New Testament text that shows any divergence in the codices amounts to only one-eighth, compared to seven parts that are literally identical; but the divergences in this one-eighth are mostly such that they do not alter the meaning, e.g., inversions in the sequence of words, additional or missing conjunctions, and the like. The divergences that truly affect the sense of the text are approximately one-thousandth of the entire New Testament.
This remarkable abundance of codices has made the text of the New Testament the subject of lengthy and learned studies for over two centuries. After Erasmus of Rotterdam published the first Greek edition in 1516, based on codices of limited value, that same text continued to be reprinted for a long time, pompously called the textus receptus; but once scholars began to examine and collate the better and older codices, this text was increasingly discredited by critics, until it was definitively abandoned and replaced with others obtained through the aforementioned studies. Regarding these new texts proposed by critics, the almost perfect agreement reached by various scholars is symptomatic, despite the different criteria adopted.
Among the early critics who attempted to restore a better text than the receptus, it suffices here to mention J. J. Wettstein (1751), to whom the cataloguing of codices according to a system still partly in use is owed, namely the designation of uncial codices by means of capital letters. Among the more recent critics, B. F. Westcott, F. J. A. Hort, C. von Tischendorf, and the aforementioned von Soden stand out. The first two offered a text based on codices they called "neutral" (B and companions); Tischendorf is credited with the discovery and use of the important Codex Sinaiticus (s, or S, or ℵ¹), which is naturally the most represented in the text of his monumental edition Octava maior. Von Soden, finally, devised a new system for distin-
guishing individual codices (a system, indeed, rather complicated and thus little adopted) in his erudite work Die Schriften des N. T. (4 vols., Berlin-Cottbus 1902-12). However, such labor did not fully satisfy scholars; therefore, a commission, led by E. von Dobschütz, proposed to offer a new critical edition of the New Testament.
Numerous manual editions have contributed to the dissemination of the critically examined text: such as the minor edition of von Soden (1913), the widely circulated edition of E. Nestle, based on the comparison of the three major ones (Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort, B. Weiss), and those of Catholic scholars M. Hetzenauer (1892-1900), E. Bodin (2nd ed. 1918), H. J. Vogels (2nd ed. 1922), and A. Merk (1933, 6th ed. 1948).
Taking into account the works of von Soden and other critics, there is now a tendency to group codices into three or four classes according to the various books, distinguished by peculiar characteristics. The first of these classes, which von Soden designated with the siglum H (= Hesychius), is considered the best, as it is free from contaminations due to influences of parallel passages and less retouched by purists: the principal codices representing this class are the Vaticanus (B) and the Sinaiticus (s). The second class, marked by von Soden with the siglum I (= Jerusalem) and represented by Cod. D (Beza), has various peculiarities of amplifications, paraphrases, omissions, etc., that characterize the so-called Western text. The third family, designated with the siglum K (= Koiné, "common"), has characteristics proper to the Antiochene school, due in particular to the influence of Lucian: this family is distinguished by linguistic refinement and a tendency toward additions, and its principal representative is Cod. A (Alexandrinus). Finally, many codices, according to various scholars, depend on the school of Caesarea in Palestine, such as the Lake and Ferrar groups, with particular notes. This classification, proper to the Gospels, undergoes slight variations when applied to the other books of the New Testament. Often a single codex, depending on the different books, is to be catalogued in various families and classes. Of all the classes, the best is the first, proper to Egypt, on which critical editions are principally based (v. CRITICA D'ARTE).
BIBL.:
H. von Soden, Die Schriften des N. T., Berlino 1902-12; B. F. Westcott - F. J. A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek, Londra 1881; C. von Tischendorf, Novum Testamentum Graece, Lipsia 1869-72; E. Nestle, Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine, Stoccarda 1898; A. Merk, Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine, Roma 1933; E. von Dobschütz, Zur Geschichte des neutestamentlichen Textes, in Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1928; H. J. Vogels, Handbuch der neutestamentlichen Textkritik, Münster 1923; K. Lake, The Text of the New Testament, Londra 1900; F. G. Kenyon, Handbook to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, Londra 1901; J. H. Ropes, The Text of Acts, Londra 1926.
ANCIENT VERSIONS
The Bible is today the most widely disseminated book in the world; however, this diffusion was achieved over the centuries only minimally through its original Hebrew and Greek texts, and largely through the numerous versions in various ancient and modern languages. Indeed, the original Hebrew text could be read and understood only by a small number of people, as the Hebrew language was known to few among the Jews settled outside Palestine, and even by not many of those in Palestine already a few centuries before the Christian era. The Greek texts, including the entire New Testament, were accessible to a much broader circle of people, as Greek was the international language of the Roman Empire in the last centuries B.C., even for the Jews of the diaspora. Nevertheless, as Christianity spread to regions where the popular language was not Greek, and later as new idioms emerged in areas already reached by Christianity, the Bible was gradually translated into other languages so that during liturgy the people could understand the content of the sacred books. Indeed, the common reason for which the various ancient translations were prepared, first among the Jews and then among Christians, was to comprehend the Bible in public liturgical reading and secondarily in private reading.
The long series of versions includes translations in ancient and modern languages. While some ancient versions began to emerge when the canon of the Old Testament was not yet fixed and closed, modern versions continue even today and will continue in the future. Ancient versions enjoy particular importance as documents for the verification or critical reconstruction of the primitive biblical text, and their importance is usually greater the older the version. Modern versions, in their earliest period, are distinguished monuments of their respective languages, since the complete or partial translation of the Bible into the vernacular is almost always one of the first products of the various European literatures. In their more recent period, modern versions may have an exegetical value, as attempts at interpreting the biblical meaning.
Since the ancient versions will all be treated individually elsewhere, we provide here a collective summary presentation, referring for each to its respective entry.
The first translations of the Old Testament were into the Greek language. The oldest, the only one preserved in its entirety, is that called the Septuagint (v. SEPTUAGINT), whose beginnings date back to the 3rd century B.C. With the rise of Christianity, this version was adopted by Christians, who drew from it the biblical quotations in their polemics against the Jews. This was the main reason why, during the 2nd century A.D., the Jews repudiated the Septuagint as unfaithful (although previously they had surrounded it with particular veneration) and replaced it with other Greek versions, complete or partial, made by Jews and preserved only fragmentarily (v. GREEK VERSIONS of the Bible).
Almost contemporaneously with the Septuagint, likewise among the Jews, translations into Aramaic were being formed, which, after the Christian era, began to be written down, thus giving rise to that complex of versions generically called Targumim, or "translations" (v. TARGUMIM).
Meanwhile, in the West, with the spread of Christianity there, the need was felt to have the Bible translated into Latin, particularly into popular Latin. This need began to be addressed already in the 2nd century A.D. with one, or perhaps more than one, Latin version, made however not from the Hebrew text but from the Greek text of the Septuagint. The history of these initial Latin versions, sometimes collectively referred to by the inaccurate term Itala, is extremely complex and still little explored. They were later partly supplanted and partly incorporated into the new version made from the Hebrew text by St. Jerome, now called the Vulgate (v. VULGATE).
Already in the 3rd century, for the use of Egyptian Christians, versions in Coptic began, that is, in that language formed by a mixture of ancient Egyptian and Greek spoken there by the lower classes. There are Coptic versions in the southern dialect, or Sahidic, in the dialects of Middle Egypt, namely Fayyumic and Ahmimic, and in the northern dialect, or Bohairic, based on the Greek text of the Septuagint, and only partially preserved (v. Bible).
In Syriac, the Old Testament began to be translated between the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. directly from the Hebrew text; the translation of the deuterocanonical books was then made from the Greek of the Septuagint, and the complete series was called the Pēšitā version, "simple." The New Testament was translated several times with various criteria: the oldest translation is that of Tatian's Diatessaron (v. TATIAN), in which he fused together the four Gospels, hence called "mixed." Shortly thereafter, but still in the 2nd century, the Gospels were translated individually, hence called "separated," of which we have two different recensions, the Curetonian (from its discoverer W. Cureton [v.]) and the Sinaitic (from Mount Sinai, where it was found). In the 5th century, a new version, or radical revision, of the New Testament appeared, attributed to Rabbūlā of Edessa, which was united with the Pēšitā of the Old Testament. Rabbūlā's text lacked the deuterocanonical books of the New Testament, which were added later. Later Syriac versions include the Philoxenian (6th century), from the text of the Septuagint according to the recension
(from Codex Bezae - photographic representation, Cambridge 1591)
BIBBIA - Greek-Latin Text, Codex Bezae (D), 6th century.
Latin text of Mk. 1:38–2:5.
by Luciano; the Syro-Hexaplar (7th century), from the Septuagint text according to the Hexapla recension of Origen; and some other minor versions (v. SYRIAC VERSIONS, of the B).
VI. MODERN VERSIONS
Italian. - The first attempts to translate the Bible into the vernacular in Italy date back to before Dante. More than true translations, these are usually amplifying and explanatory paraphrases, made for devotional purposes, and extended to individual books or mere excerpts, especially from the Gospels. The vernacular employed is usually Tuscan, sometimes Venetian. The text from which they translate is normally the Latin of the Vulgate, in some cases represented by one of the recensions prior to that established at the University of Paris in the early 13th century, which soon spread to Italy as well: this would suggest that some of these vernacular renderings date back to the beginning of the 13th century; exceptionally, translations were also made from French versions. These early attempts, almost all unpublished, have not yet been sufficiently explored and studied.In the 14th century, the first complete Bibles in the vernacular begin to appear, resulting from the union of previous partial translations, mostly anonymous; thus, depending on the choices made by different compilers, complete copies could differ in the various translated books. These Bibles, still transmitted in manuscript form, are now very rare and, due either to the incompleteness of the original collection or to the ravages of time, often lack some books. Sometimes individual books bear the name of the translator at the beginning: among the various names mentioned, the most worthy of mention is Fra Domenico Cavalca, to whom the translation of the Acts is attributed; this attribution is also found in isolated copies of that book, but there may always remain the doubt that Cavalca was not the translator but only the authoritative reviser of a previous translation of the Acts, as seems to result from the comparison of the texts contained in the various copies. Other famous names put forward regarding the 14th-century vernacular Bible, such as Iacopo da Varagine and Iacopo Passavanti, have no justification in the manuscript tradition. A famous example of these complete Bibles is the one once owned by Francesco Redi (now preserved only from Genesis to part of the Psalms: Florence, Laurenziana Ashburnham 1102, from the year 1466); Redi used it for his annotations to his Ditirambo, and the Accademia della Crusca used it for its Vocabolario.
With the invention of printing, the complete vernacular Bible soon came to the forefront with two editions in 1471, both in Venice. The first appeared on 1 August ("B. d'ag.") from the press of the German printer Vendelino da Spira under the title B. dignamente vulgarizzata per il clarissimo religioso duon Nicolao Malermi Veneziano..., 2 vols. in-fol., in 2 columns; the second appeared on 1 October ("B. d'ott.") under the title La B. sacra del Testamento Vecchio e Nuovo in lingua volgare tradotta, 3 vols. in-fol., in 2 tomes, without place or printer's name, but certainly issued from the press of the French printer Niccolò Jenson (others attribute it to Adamo di Ammergau). The Camaldolese monk Malermi (or Malherbi, Manermi), to whom the "B. d'ag." is attributed, was more a compiler than a translator; he employed various partial translations from the 14th century, including that of the Acts attributed to Cavalca, and retouched them here and there in accordance with the Latin text of the Vulgate, not without replacing Tuscan words and expressions with corresponding Venetian ones.
The complete Bible thus obtained certainly showed a fidelity and uniformity that the individual partial translations could not have, but it also considerably spoiled their 14th-century language, thereby significantly diminishing their almost sole merit. Nevertheless, the Malermi Bible met with great favor, with 11 editions in the incunabula period and nearly 20 throughout the 16th century; the edition published in Venice in 1773, although still bearing Malermi's name, is in reality a reworking by the Paduan Alvise Guerra, of Jansenist tendencies, who largely replaced the ancient translation with his own or others' translations. The "B. d'ott.", that is, the Jensonian Bible, employed 14th-century manuscripts without altering them—as far as can be seen—but perhaps supplementing them where they were lacunose with passages taken from the "B. d'ag.": it is certain that the two Bibles agree almost word for word in the New Testament and also in the Psalms, while they differ considerably in the Old Testament. Because of its roughness and varied origin, the Jensonian Bible met with no favor and was never reprinted, becoming extremely rare. It was, however, edited anew during the 19th century, due to the rekindled love for vernacular texts from the "good century" of the language: but a first attempt by the Società Veneta dei Bibliofili came to a halt at the first volume (B. volgare, testo di lingua secondo l'edizione del 1471 di Nicolò Jenson, Venice 1846) due to difficulties with the ecclesiastical authority and the printer, and all copies ended up destroyed in the print shop or dispersed; Carlo Negroni, however, succeeded in preparing a complete edition (La B. Volgare secondo la rara edizione del 1 ott. MCCCCLXVI, 10 vols., Bologna 1883-87). The text of the Jensonian Bible has value not for biblical criticism, but only for the history of the Italian language, although even on this point there has been some exaggeration.
Many editions of 14th-century versions, especially of the Psalms, were then printed during the 19th century out of love for linguistic texts: these are therefore of interest to philologists.
In the age of Protestantism, biblical versions of a new kind also begin to appear in Italy. Almost contemporaneously with Luther's German Bible, the version by the Florentine Antonio Brucioli appeared in Italy, first limited to the New Testament (Il Nuovo Testamento di Cristo Jesu Signore e Salvator nostro, di greco nuovamente tradotto in lingua toscana, Venice, Lucantonio Giunti, 1530, later reprinted several times) and shortly thereafter extended to the entire Bible (La B., quale contiene i sacri libri del Vecchio Testamento tradotti nuovamente da la hebraica verità... Coi divini libri del Nuovo Testamento, in-fol., Venice, Lucantonio Giunti, 1532).
Brucioli was of marked Protestant tendencies, although he officially did not break with the Church, and his version, soon becoming common among exiled Italian Protestants, was placed on the Index as early as 1559; as for its literary character, it is a rough and uncultured version, and its claimed derivation from the original texts was in reality achieved through assiduous use of the Latin version of Sante Pagnini for the Hebrew text and that of Erasmus for the New Testament. It was reprinted several times, also with Brucioli's commentaries in which his Protestant tendencies appear more clearly; a new edition with extensive modifications was prepared for the use of Protestants in Geneva (there, by Francesco Durono, 1562) by Filippo Rustici.
(from Codice Bublonicus Petropolitanus, ed. by H. Struck, St. Petersburg 1856)
BIBL.:
For the early vernacular versions: G. B. GIANNINI, Le traduzioni italiane della B. nel sec. XIV, in Studi e Testi, 139, Città del Vaticano 1947; G. VOLPI, La B. volgare in Italia nei secoli XIII e XIV, in Studi religiosi, 1905; A. RONCAGLIA, La B. volgare nel Trecento, in Storia della letteratura italiana, dir. da E. Cecchi e N. Sapegno, II, Milano 1965, pp. 515-530. For the Malermi Bible: G. B. GIANNINI, La B. del Malermi, in La Bibliofilia, 1940; A. SEGARIZZI, La B. del Malermi, in Giornale storico della letteratura italiana, 1903. For the Jensonian Bible: C. NEGRONI, La B. volgare del 1471, Bologna 1883-87; G. B. GIANNINI, La B. jensoniana, in La Bibliofilia, 1941. For Brucioli: G. SPINI, Tra Rinascimento e Riforma: Antonio Brucioli, Firenze 1940; A. ROTONDÒ, Per la storia dell'eresia a Firenze nel sec. XVI, in Rivista storica italiana, 1963.
G. B. GIANNINI
BIBLE – Hebrew Text. Codex Petropolitanus (year 1009), II. 20, 1-21, 6. It contains, in addition to the Hebrew text, the marginal masora. The vowel signs are those of the Babylonian system, preceding the Tiberian one, which is in use today.
On the Catholic side, shortly after Brucioli’s version, there appeared that of the Dominican from the Florentine convent of San Marco, Sante Marmochino (La B. nuovamente tradotta dalla Hebraica verità in lingua Thoscana per Maestro Santi Marmochino, folio, Venice, Lucantonio Giunti, 1538).
During the same 16th century, numerous partial versions appeared, especially of the New Testament, some published even outside Italy, and many in verse. Almost all lack any scientific value, and those in verse also lack literary merit; some betray Protestant tendencies. Yet how widespread vernacular versions of the Bible were in Italy, even before the rise of Protestantism, is evident from the preface that the regular canon Isaia, or "Esaya da Este Patavino," placed before his Esposizione sopra la cantica di Salomone, printed in Venice in 1504 "per Bartolameo de Zanni da Portese." There, justifying his decision to write this biblical exposition not in Latin but in the vernacular, he asserts that it was "also necessary: for by the convenience of printing books, the most sacred Bible had been reduced to this baseness: and by the little women among the distaffs and spindles, among the spinning wheels for wool, in the gatherings (companies, chatter) of neighbors, it was sung. In which even the Canticle was contained." It is possible that the author, speaking of "the most sacred Bible," alludes to the two Venetian editions of 1471, the only complete ones existing in his time, but he certainly also intends to refer to other partial editions that had appeared here and there after those, which together constituted almost as many complete Bibles. Most significant, however, is the fact that these versions were widely disseminated among the common people, so much so that they were sung "by the little women among the distaffs and spindles."
Curious, then, is the news provided by a biography of Sixtus V (preserved in an unpublished manuscript, consulted by the author of this article), according to which the Pope, shortly before his death (1590), "wished that the Bible be printed in the Italian language, in which language it would be known to all and that they might read it, and this his will was observed in the printing house of His Holiness." But since such a vernacular translation seemed inopportune to various cardinals and to Philip II, king of Spain, the latter sent his ambassador in Rome to remonstrate with the Pope, who, however, rejected the ambassador in a violent manner. Yet no trace of this Roman edition exists (cf. on this point J. Le Long, Bibliotheca Sacra, I, Paris 1723, pp. 357-58).
A long period followed in which Catholics in Italy ceased to produce new translations or editions, due to the rule established in 1559 and reaffirmed in 1564 by the Index to halt the spread of Protestantism—a rule that required a special written permission to read the Bible in the vernacular. During this period, the most important Protestant version appeared, Diodati (v.), published with notes in 1607 in Geneva.
By this time, vernacular Bibles in Italy were represented practically only by Protestant texts. This concerned Benedict XIV, who, with a decree of the Index on June 13, 1757, modified the previous rule, permitting
the reading of vernacular versions approved by the Holy See or published under the supervision of bishops. Moreover, the same Pope, privately, recommended the preparation of a new Italian version conducted in accordance with these norms. This greater freedom soon produced its effects, and within a few years, three new Italian versions were published. The first was that which appeared in 1773 as a reprint of the Malermi, though in reality it was almost entirely a new work by Alvise Guerra, of whom mention has been made above. The second derived from the French Bible known as that of Port-Royal, by Isaac Louis Le Maistre de Sacy, and appeared under the title Sacra Scrittura giusta la Volgata in lingua latina e volgare colla spiegazione del senso letterale e del senso spirituale tratta dai Santi Padri e dagli autori ecclesiastici dal Sign. Le Maistre de Sacy (Venice 1775-85). However, in the Italian edition, while the notes are those of Le Maistre de Sacy, the text is translated not from the French but with great fidelity from the Latin of the Vulgate.
The third MARTINO V, PAPA (v.), who produced an entirely new work, most worthy for its time. Of it, the New Testament first appeared (6 vols., Turin 1769-71), dedicated to King Charles Emmanuel III and soon reprinted, followed by the Old Testament (16 vols., ibid. 1776-81). Praised by most, met with such fierce hostility by some that attempts were even made to have it prohibited by the Church, Martini’s version was commended by a brief of Pius VI, addressed to the author on March 17, 1778. However, the Tuscan Jansenists sought to appropriate it, beginning a counterfeit edition, which, however, was limited to the New Testament and a minimal part of the Old (11 vols., Florence 1779-83). The very many editions, complete or
(courtesy of Dr. N. Plan)
A page from the Forty-Two-Line Bible, commonly known as the Gutenberg Bible, decorated after printing with rubrication and miniatures. This work, completed no later than 1456, is attributed to Gutenberg, who is said to have initiated it, and to his associates Fust and Schoeffler, who are believed to have brought the project to completion. Example from the Vatican Library.
me amassio: et reddidilio quia
ego a bro ruii «Sui a pè v uè
ni mùdi: veru rìnuquo mù-
dù: e uado ad pènu. Dùunt ri
bìgupnì rùu «Sè nùr palom
lùgnè: e purbù nùlù bìdo-
lùr tùm² qà tío onlìa: e nò
quos èl dii ut èe e iùrogr-
la bor eròim²: qà a bro rìsì-
fùpùdi: rìo lùrùsò. Ilò do re-
bùsò: Sèe uòni bòra: e rìi uòf-
u bìgupnìnìi omòquìsì: in
propùa: iùr folù rìsìquano-
Sè nò fùm folùsò: qà pàre me-
ni èl «Sè: lorune fùm uòbìo:
ut in me pàr habetào. In mù-
to pìlùrì habetào: sò nòfòlì-
rego uìa mùdù.
«Sè: lorune èl tùsùsò: e rì-
lùsò
a omnia quì bròchì mùdù abo
sè fùm «Sè: uòrò quì bròchì
mùdù tòlì: e rìpì anpènt
vognouent: uèe qà a rìuò:
e rebòtè: quìa nùr mùdù-
sò: pro rìo rogo. Nò pro mù-
to rogo: sò pro bìro qà bròchì
mùdù: qà a fùm «Sè: mùdù
nù fùm: e nùr mùdù: e rìsì
rìsìbùsò fùm in rìsì «Sè: nò fù
in mùdù: e rìpì in mùdù fùm: e
rìo a bè rìnò. Dùre fùmè:
sè: nòsì nòsì: e rìo qòsò brò-
bìchì mùdù: e fùm: e nòsì fùm: e
nòsì «Sè: nòsì: e rìo qòsò brò-
bìchì mùdù: e rìsì: e nòsì fùm: e
(by courtesy of Dr. X. Vian)
The page of the extremely rare 36-line Bible, without rubrics or miniatures, as it came off the press. The work is attributed to Gutenberg, who is said to have printed it around 1460. Copy from the Vatican Library.
Partial revisions that Martini’s version later underwent usually depend on the one he, having become Archbishop of Florence in 1781, oversaw there for the Old Testament (17 vols., 1782-87) and for the New (6 vols., 1788-92); editions of it were also published by the British and Foreign Bible Society. It was declared a “language text” by the Accademia della Crusca on 28 July 1885.
An excellent scientific version of the Bible could have been prepared by Gian Bernardo De Rossi thanks to his exceptional expertise in the Hebrew language and literature; but he limited himself to publishing in Parma the translations of the Psalms (1808), Ecclesiastes (1809), Job (1812), Proverbs (1815), and the Lamentations (1823), accompanying the translation from the Hebrew text with a few philological notes, rendered with rare insight.
It seemed that the task not undertaken by De Rossi would be carried out by the priest G. Ugdulena (v.), professor of Hebrew in Palermo; but of it, under the title La Sacra Scrittura in volgare riscontrata nuovamente cogli originali ed illustrata con breve commento, only two volumes were published (Palermo 1859-62), containing the books from Genesis to Kings. This published portion is clear and faithful in translation, rich in philological and historical scholarship in the commentary, which aims at the literal sense and is updated with the most recent studies of his time. Highly praised by A. Manzoni and encouraged by Pius IX, Ugdulena instead allowed himself to be distracted by politics and abandoned his project.
Translations of the Old Testament from Hebrew were also made by Italian Jews as early as the 15th century, though they remained only in manuscript form. In 1571, a translation of Ecclesiastes by David de’ Pomis was published in Venice, and in the same city in 1617, one of Proverbs by Ezechia da Rieti. In Vienna in 1821, Isacco Samuele Reggio, rabbi in Gorizia, published a Hebrew-Italian Pentateuch, and in 1831, a poetic version of Isaiah. The renowned Hebraist Samuele David Luzzatto proposed a new translation of the entire Old Testament, but published only Job (Trieste 1853), Isaiah (Padua 1855), Esther (Trieste 1860), and the Pentateuch (ibid. 1861); struck by death in 1865, he left various other parts of the work unfinished. Some of his disciples, using these parts, completed the work, which appeared under the title La Sacra B. volgarizzata da S. D. Luzzatto e continuatori (4 vols., 1872-74). The translation is faithful but stiff and literal, especially since explanatory notes are lacking; thus, the work circulated, albeit sparingly, only in Jewish circles. Among other Jewish translations of lesser importance, such as that of the Psalms by Lelio della Torre (Vienna 1845), Job, Lamentations, and Psalms by Beniamino Consolo (Florence 1874, 1875, 1885), etc., those by David Castelli stand out for their linguistic quality and philological apparatus, concerning Ecclesiastes (Pisa 1866), the Song of Songs (Florence 1892), and Job (ibid. 1897; 2nd ed., Lanciano 1916).
In the Catholic field, C. M. Curci (v.) published Il Nuovo Testamento volgarizzato ed esposto in note esegetiche e morali (3 vols., Naples 1879-80), and Il Salterio volgarizzato dall’ebreo ed esposto in note esegetiche e morali (Rome 1883), works that enjoyed wide circulation in their time but were soon forgotten. Scientific value, however, is found in the Cento Salmi tradotti letteralmente e commentati (Rome 1875) by Fr. F. S. Patrizi. The translation of the Gospels by N. Tommaseo (Milan 1869), with a brief commentary, should not be overlooked.
From the last years of the 19th century onward, translations from the original texts began to appear in Italy, aiming to illustrate the critically translated text with the aids of philology, archaeology, and historical geography. Here we recall the principal ones.
Salvatore Minocchi, I Salmi (Rome 1895; 2nd ed. completely revised, ibid. 1905); Le Lamentazioni di Geremia (ibid. 1897); Il Cantico dei Cantici (ibid. 1898; 2nd ed. completely revised with Ecclesiastes, in Le perle della B., Bari 1924); I Vangeli (Florence 1900); Le profezie di Isaia (Bologna 1907). Giuseppe Ricciotti, Dalla B., antologia letteraria con introduzione e note (Bologna 1921); new ed. under the title: La B. dei letterati (Rome 1947); Il libro di Geremia (Turin 1923); Le Lamentazioni di Geremia (ibid. 1924); Il libro di Giobbe (ibid. 1924); Il Cantico dei Cantici (ibid. 1928); Le lettere di s. Paolo, Rome 1949. Luigi Constantini, Le lettere di s. Paolo, le lettere cattoliche e l’apocalisse, testo greco e versione italiana con note (Rome 1928). Leone Tondelli, Le profezie di Ezechiele (Reggio Emilia 1930). Giovanni Re, Il Santo Vangelo di Gesù Cristo (3rd ed., Turin 1946); S. Paolo, Le lettere (3rd ed., ibid. 1946). Primo Vannutelli, Gli Evangeli in sinossi (2nd ed., Rome 1938); Tutto S. Giovanni, testo greco latino e italiano con note (ibid. 1937).
Two complete Catholic translations of the Bible are nearing completion: one begun by Marco Sales, La Sacra B. commentata (Turin 1911 ff., so far 7 vols., from Genesis to Isaiah, and the New Testament), which uses the Martini translation revised, with extensive introductions and notes; the other promoted by the Pontifical Biblical Institute, translated from the original texts with brief notes, of which the Pentateuch, the historical books (Milan 1923; new ed., Florence 1943; vols. II and III, ibid. 1945 and 1948), and the Poetic Books (by Alberto Vaccari, Rome 1925) have been published. Of a popular nature is La Sacra B. (5 vols., Florence 1939-1940), translated from the Vulgate by various authors, with introductions and notes by G. Ricciotti. The most recent Italian translation with commentary of the Bible is the one initiated under the direction of S. Garofalo, of which Daniele (Turin 1947), Epistole cattoliche (ibid. 1947), Ezechiele (ibid. 1948), and Introduzione generale (ibid. 1948) have so far appeared.
On the Protestant side, there are the various partial translations (New Testament, Psalms, Job) by Giovanni Luzzi, which later flowed into his complete translation La Sacra B. tradotta dai testi originali e annotata (12 vols., Florence 1927-30), largely following the theories of Lucien Gautier.
French. - Evidence of partial translations of the Bible into the langue d’oïl dates back to the 12th century: around 1100, a monk from Normandy translated the Psalms, surviving in two different recensions, and shortly afterward, the Apocalypse and the four books of Kings were translated; around 1250, King Louis IX had a translation of the entire Bible prepared for his personal use, which was reproduced in many copies. New versions, imitating the one ordered by Louis IX, were made by de Sy (ca. 1350), by Raoul de Presles (1380) at the command of Charles V, and partially by others. Translations into langue d’oc, or Provençal, are preserved for the New Testament in 13th-century manuscripts; older, and also extending to the Psalms, were some versions that arose among the early Waldensians of the Metz district (late 12th century), which have not survived.
BIBL.:
For the 36-line Bible: M. Bohatta, Die 36zeilige Bibel, Vienna 1925; A. Ruppel, Die Technik Gutenbergs und ihre Vorstufen, Mainz 1947.
For Martini’s version: G. B. De Rossi, Annali della tipografia romana di G. G. de’ Rossi, Rome 1883; G. Manacorda, Storia della scuola in Italia, I, Palermo 1912, pp. 311-312; G. Gabrieli, La versione biblica del Martini, in Rivista di cultura, 1925, pp. 1-16.
For Ugdulena: A. Manzoni, Lettere, ed. Sforza, Milan 1939, pp. 345-346; G. Gentile, G. Ugdulena, in Studi sulla Sicilia, Palermo 1912.
For Jewish translations: M. Steinschneider, Die hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters, Berlin 1893; U. Cassuto, Gli ebrei a Firenze nell’età del Rinascimento, Florence 1918; D. Castelli, La profezia nella Bibbia, Florence 1892.
For Curci: G. De Luca, Il Cardinale C. M. Curci, Rome 1928.
For modern Catholic translations: A. Vaccari, La Sacra Bibbia tradotta dai testi originali, Rome 1925; G. Ricciotti, La Sacra Bibbia, Florence 1939-1940; S. Garofalo, La Sacra Bibbia, Turin 1947 sgg.
For Protestant translations: G. Luzzi, La Sacra Bibbia, Florence 1927-1930; L. Gautier, Introduction à l’Ancien Testament, Lausanne 1890-1892.
For French translations: S. Berger, La Bible française au moyen âge, Paris 1884; P. Meyer, Les premières traductions françaises de la Bible, in Romania, 1880, pp. 449-485; L. Delisle, Les Bibles de l’abbaye de Saint-Victor, in Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, XXXI, 1884, pp. 209-242.
G. Castellani
The first printed French Bible is the Bible historiale, a work by Guyart des Moulins who, at the close of the 13th century, had compiled a kind of Sacred History, taking as his basis the Historia scholastica by Pietro Comestore, inserting the historical books of the Bible, and publishing this compilation as Livres de la Bible historiale. The biblical books missing from this work—that is, the books not of historical subject matter (Psalms, Prophets, Epistles, Apocalypse)—were later added, drawn from the translation of Louis IX already at the beginning of the 14th century; this heterogeneous version found great diffusion, and with the invention of printing had 12 editions from 1478 to 1542. The first, containing only the New Testament, appeared in Lyon, perhaps in 1478; the first complete edition was published in Paris in 1487 (2 vols. in-fol.) by order of Charles VIII and under the care of his confessor Jean de Rely.
An anonymous translation of the New Testament was printed in Paris in 1523; later supplemented with the other books, the entire Bible appeared in Antwerp in 1530. Its author was the humanist Jacques Le Fèvre d'Étaples (Faber Stapoulensis), who translated from the Vulgate, rarely from the Greek of the New Testament, though he had the Bible historiale in mind. Placed on the Index in 1546 for traces of Protestantism, it received a purged Catholic edition (Leuven 1550), which became the usual version for French Catholics until the 17th century.
In Switzerland, at Serrières near Neuchâtel, the first Protestant Bible in French was published in 1535, the work of Pierre Olivétan, who had largely made use of the versions of Sante Pagnini, Erasmus, and also that of Le Fèvre. The Olivétan translation had various editions, revised by Beza (1551), Bertrand (1588), and others, and finally by J. F. Ostervald: the latter, with further revisions, became the usual text for French Protestants. Other Protestant versions were those of Sébastien Châteillon (Castellio), rough and incorrect (Basel 1555), Le Clerc (Amsterdam 1703), Le Cène (ibid. 1741), and some others of lesser importance. Several Catholic versions of the New Testament appeared during the 17th century.
The most widespread of the French translations emerged from the Jansenist milieu and is the Bible of Port-Royal, commonly known as the "Bible of Sacy" after the name of its principal author (Sacy being the anagram of Isaac Louis Le Maistre). In the work of translation, Isaac Louis was assisted by his brother Antoine and by Antoine Arnauld, while other Jansenists added the greater part of the notes. The New Testament first appeared in 1667 in Amsterdam, concealed under the name of Mons (hence the appellation "Bible of Mons"), and later the Old Testament (Paris 1672-95). Faithful and clear, this version found great favor even among Catholics and was reprinted many times, even without notes. Into the text of this version, p.
Louis de Carrière inserted a kind of explanatory paraphrase (Commentaire littéral, Paris 1701-16): this text was then furnished with a prolix commentary, drawn from various authors, and constituted the so-called "Bible of Vence" (Avignon 1767-73).
The translation by A. Godeau (Paris 1668) is made from the Vulgate in the manner of a paraphrase; that of N. Legros, first published anonymously (Cologne 1739), had a much improved new edition (1753). From the Vulgate translated E. de Genoude (Paris 1820-24), which suffers from inaccuracy; J. J. Bourassé and P. Janvier (Tours 1865), an edition illustrated by Doré; J. B. Glaire (Paris 1871-73), which had wide diffusion; A. Arnaud (ibid. 1881); J. Verduinov (Dijon 1927-30). Still widely circulated today are those of the publisher P. Lethielleux (D. P. Drach, Trochon, and others) in 27 vols. and of L. C. Fillion (8 vols., Paris 1903-1904). Among Catholics, the translation made from the original texts with brief notes by A. Crampon, La S.te Bible (7 vols., Tournai 1894-1904), prevailed above all, later reprinted also in a single volume (revised edition, Paris 1939). Of strictly scientific character is the collection Études Bibliques (ibid. 1903 ff.), in which some books of the Old Testament and almost all of the New have appeared, translated and furnished with ample introductions and commentaries; likewise the series directed by L. Pirot (d. 1939) and A. Tricot, La S.te Bible (ibid. 1935 ff.), still in the course of publication.
From the Jewish side, the translations of S. Cahen (18 vols., Paris 1831-39), which presents the Hebrew text alongside and with critical notes, and that edited by the French rabbinate under the direction of Zadoc Kahn (2 vols., ibid. 1899-1906), very exact in translation and faithful to traditional Jewish exegesis, should be mentioned.
In the Protestant field, the translation by E. Reuss (18 vols., Paris 1874-81) sought to introduce into practice the results of the German critical school, thus disrupting the traditional order of the biblical books according to the presumed chronology of that school; it did not gain wide acceptance. The translation by L. Segond (Geneva 1874, Lausanne 1888, and reprints), however, met with a favorable reception. Of a popularizing character is the Version synodale (Paris 1914 ff.), published under the care of the Société Biblique de France; of scientific character is the Bible du centenaire (ibid. 1916 ff.) under the care of the Société Biblique de Paris.
Spanish. - Spain had translations, at least partial, of the Bible in Castilian very early: a decree of King James I of Aragon, in 1233, prohibits the use of the Holy Scriptures in the vernacular to oppose the propaganda of the Albigensians. Under Alfonso X the Wise (1252-86), other versions appeared, partly based on the Vulgate and partly on the Hebrew text, preserved in manuscripts of the Escorial; Spain was indeed for the Jews in the Middle Ages a distinguished cultural center, and knowledge of the Hebrew language was widespread there. Translated from Hebrew by the rabbi Moses Arragel of Guadalajara (1430) was the Bible, preserved in the famous manuscript of the House of Alba, recently edited (2 vols., Madrid 1920-22). Also translated from Hebrew by Jom Tob Athias and other exiled Jews was the Bible called "Ferrariense," because printed in Ferrara in 1533.
At the time of Protestantism, the severe restrictions imposed by the Spanish Inquisition meant that in the Catholic field only partial translations were prepared, usually of the Gospels and Psalms, which were moreover published only later. Instead, in the Protestant field, outside Spain appeared the New Testament of Francisco de Enzinas (alias Dryander or Duchesne, Antwerp 1543), the New Testament with the Psalms by Juan Pérez de Pineda (Venice, in reality Geneva 1557), and finally the entire Bible by Casiodoro de Reina, translated from the original texts but conforming to the version of Sante Pagnini, printed in Basel in 1569 and called from its initial emblem La biblia del Oso. This translation, revised by Cipriano de Valera and published under his name (Amsterdam 1602), became the usual version for Spanish Protestants.
In more recent times, Catholics published, besides some partial translations, the complete Bible translated from the Vulgate by Felipe Scio de S. Miguel (Valencia 1790-93), reprinted several times, and another, even better, by Felix Torres y Amat (Madrid 1823-25), also reprinted recently (1928). Two translations made from the original texts have recently appeared in Madrid: Nácar-Colunga (1945), J. M. Bover-F. Cantera (1947).
Catalan. - Translations of the Bible in the language of Catalonia must have circulated from the 13th century, revised or partially renewed in subsequent centuries, but remained unpublished. The first printed edition was that of the entire Bible translated by Bonifacio Ferrer, brother of St. Vincent, published with revisions by Jacme Borrel (Valencia 1477), of which only a single fragmentary copy remains. After this, there were only rare partial editions.
In the 20th century, scientific translations from the original texts have been initiated, still in the course of publication.
For Spanish and Catalan versions: A. Morel-Fatio, Les traductions espagnoles de la Bible, in Romania, XXVIII (1899), pp. 198-244; J. Amador de los Ríos, Hist. crítica de la lit. esp., Madrid 1861-65, III, pp. 517-540; F. de B. San Román, Casiodoro de Reina, Madrid 1910; J. F. Montesinos, Sobre la «Biblia del Oso», in Rev. de filol. esp., XX (1933), pp. 289-311; A. Paz y Melia, La Biblia de Alba, in Bol. de la Real Acad. de la Hist., LXXIX (1921), pp. 505-518; L. Usoz y Río, Los Reformistas antiguos españoles, Madrid 1847-80; M. Menéndez y Pelayo, Hist. de los heterodoxos españoles, Madrid 1880-82, I, pp. 775-820; J. Llamas, La Biblia en España, in Estudios Bíblicos, III (1944), pp. 129-156; A. Castro, La peculiaridad lingüística rioplatense, Buenos Aires 1941, pp. 101-110; Biblia medieval romanceada, ed. M. Lazar, Madrid 1965; Biblia de Alba, ed. A. Paz y Melia, Madrid 1920-22.
A. Vaccari