There is a standard "critical edition" which I do not have at hand; I'm
sure others will respond. But I quote it only when I'm referring to a
text my author does not quote himself. When I'm quoting a text the author
does have, I quote (and translate) directly from the author in question,
because there were so many variants of the "Vulgate" floating around in the
medieval world. The modern critical edition is not the text medieval
writers had, and I think it's important to work with the version your
author uses. This is complicated further by the fact that often a writer
relies on memory, and even if his or her memory is faulty, the text they're
working with is the one in their mind, not the one in the late-twentieth
century edition. It's complicated yet further when they're working on or
from Augustine or Tertullian or Ambrose or some other late antique author
who themselves worked from one of the Old Latin versions.
This principle holds, too, for the simpler problem of translating. When
translating a text for an audience other than myself, I try to avoid the
temptation of giving the RSV, KJV, or other (modern) translation of
biblical quotations, instead always translating directly from the medieval
author's Latin. Needless to say the differences between their medieval
text and the RSV or KJV can sometimes be jarring. My favorite
undergraduate professor was translating Augustine's Tractates on John for
the CUA series and in the first volume always used the RSV, but again and
again ran into the differences of nuance and of substance between the RSV
and Augustine's Latin. He eventually went back and translated all of Aug's
biblical quotations directly from Aug's Latin.
For what it's worth.
Patrick Nugent
>All the recent discussions of the Vulgate has me wondering. What is the
>closest modern edition to Jerome's bible or the bible used in the Middle
>Ages? Which version should one quote in a scholarly article?
>
>Clint
>
>Clinton Atchley
>University of Washington
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__________________________
Patrick J. Nugent
Department of Religion
Earlham College
Richmond, Indiana 47374 USA
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