Ancient Hebrew Poetry

Jerome to Paula and Eustochium (394): Text and Translation

    The text of Jerome’s letter of dedication to Paula and Eustochium of his translation from the Hebrew of 1 Samuel – 2 Kings presented here is from the Biblia Sacra Vulgata (Robert Weber, ed.; Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1984) 364-66. I collated the translations of W. H. Freemantle (see Michael Marlowe’s note 2) and Kevin Edgecomb, to which I am indebted, but the translation I present is my own. My goal throughout has been to bring Jerome’s wit back to life, however imperfectly, through a close translation of his words, with transliterated Hebrew and Greek, Greek in Greek script, and the Wortlaut of the Latin names of biblical books accurately preserved. For an introductory discussion, go here; for Jerome’s grasp of Hebrew, go here.

Jerome’s Twenty Two Books: The Alphabet of the Doctrine of God

    Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus (347-420), referred to as Jerome in English, is one of the most significant figures in the history of the reception of the Bible. In an age not known for polyglots, Jerome was a vir trilinguis who translated from Greek to Latin and, his crowning achievement, from Hebrew to Latin. The Christian movement of the first centuries was gifted with no greater scholar of Hebrew. 

How well did Jerome know Hebrew?

A recent post by Mississippi Fred MacDowell correctly notes that Jerome knew Hebrew well. This is true, and we know this for certain, but not for the reason he suggests: that there were not enough aids available at the time for Jerome to pass off the Vulgate as a translation from the Hebrew even if it wasn’t. Such aids were available, and Jerome used them to the hilt. But it remains true: he knew Hebrew very well. How do we know this?