Old Latin Version

Overview

"Old Latin version" is not a term found in the biblical text; it belongs to the history of Bible translation. It does not refer to a single, fixed translation. Rather, it is a collective name for Latin biblical texts translated independently by different people in different regions. The Latin name Vetus Latina means "Old Latin." The name reflects the fact that these translations preceded the Vulgate, which Jerome produced in the late fourth century.

Background

The church in the early Roman Empire used Greek for the most part. As the number of believers grew in the Latin-speaking West, however, especially in North Africa and Italy, Latin translations are thought to have emerged from around the second century. Latin quotations of Scripture appear in the writings of Tertullian and Cyprian, Church Fathers (theologians and leaders of the early church) from North Africa.

The Old Testament portion was translated not from the original Hebrew but from the Greek translation known as the Septuagint. The New Testament was translated from Greek manuscripts. Because the translation work was not carried out systematically, wording and phrasing varied considerably from manuscript to manuscript. Augustine remarked on the great diversity of Latin translations and referred to one of them as the "Itala." For this reason the Old Latin version as a whole is sometimes called the "Itala," although scholars disagree about exactly what Augustine meant by the name.

Significance in the Transmission of Scripture

This textual confusion was the immediate occasion for the creation of the Vulgate. At the request of Damasus I, bishop of Rome, Jerome revised the Latin Gospels in the late fourth century, and this work led to the Vulgate. Over the following centuries the Vulgate gradually displaced the Old Latin version. Nevertheless, for books that Jerome did not translate anew, such as Wisdom, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), and Maccabees, the Old Latin text is understood to have been retained in the Vulgate.

Today the Old Latin version holds an important place in textual criticism (the discipline that compares manuscripts in order to recover the text closest to the original), because it may reflect a text earlier than most surviving Greek manuscripts. Manuscript fragments and patristic quotations are being collected and edited at institutions such as the institute at Beuron Archabbey in Germany.

Interpretation and Points of Debate

• The Apocrypha and the deuterocanonical books: Because the Old Latin version followed the Septuagint, it includes books not found in the Hebrew Bible. The Catholic Church accepts these books as canonical (that is, recognized as a standard of faith). Protestants generally regard them as apocryphal and exclude them from the canon.
• 1 John 5:7–8: The early evidence for the Trinitarian passage commonly known as the "Johannine Comma" appears chiefly in the Latin tradition. Most critical editions of the Greek New Testament today regard the passage as a later addition. Some supporters of the King James Bible, by contrast, appeal to the Latin evidence to argue that the passage is original. The issue is frequently discussed in the Bible translation debate.

In the Korean Church

The Old Latin version is rarely mentioned in worship or preaching in the Korean church. It comes up mainly in seminary courses on the original biblical texts and on the history of Bible translation.