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IOSOT 2022

Bis repetita placent. Jerome’s translation of Psalm quotations in 1 Chronicles 16

Martjin Jaspers (Leuven)

Saint Jerome (ca. 347-420) has made two translations of the Psalter that have come down to us: (1) the Psalterium iuxta Septuaginta (ca. 390), based on a Greek Vorlage, and the Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos (ca. 392), based on a Hebrew Vorlage. When he was translating the Hebrew text of 1 Chronicles (ca. 396), however, Jerome was confronted with several lenghty Psalm quotations (from Ps 95, 104 & 105) in this book, so that he had to translate these Psalms for a third time. In this presentation, I will examine Jerome’s translations of these Psalm quotations in 1 Chronicles 16, and compare these ‘late’ renderings with the Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos he translated earlier. Although Masoretic versions of these passages in the Psalter and 1 Chronicles are throughout very similar, they contain some important differences as well. I will examine to what extent Jerome has taken these differences and similiarities into account when translating these texts. Moreover, it will appear that his Latin translations of Psalter verses in 1 Chronicles 16 sometimes differs, without any apparent reason motivated by the Vorlage, from the parallel verses in the Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos. I will delve deeper into the mechanisms that caused these deviations, and make some concluding remarks about what these different versions of two similar source texts can tell us about (the evolution of) Jerome’s translation technique and its value for textual criticism of the (Hebrew) Bible.

Website Martjin Jaspers

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