Re: Glorantha digest, Vol 9 #586 - 5 msgs

From: Andrew Larsen <aelarsen_at_mac.com>
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 09:01:39 -0500

> Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:54:56 +0200
> From: Julian Lord <jlord_at_free.fr>
> To: glorantha_at_rpglist.org
> Subject: Biblia
> Reply-To: glorantha_at_rpglist.org
>
> Joerg :
>

>>> Simon :
>> 
>>> The scriptures were also read out in latin in church. So the congregatio
>>>  didn't have a clue what it meant - so what? To read it in vulgar local
>>> language

>
> Actually, wrong. Latin _was_ the vulgar local language.
>
> Latin is a language of peasants and soldiers.
>
> The Vulgate isn't written in classical latin. It's written in a highly elegant
> and literary form of vulgate latin, which was the language of the people,
> and vulgarly local.
>
> The congregation, in fact, had no difficulty whatsoever understanding the
> texts.

    This is a serious oversimplification. At the time that Jerome was translating the Bible into Latin, Latin was the language of most people in Western Europe, so in the 4th and 5th centuries, many people would have understood it if read to them (although it probably would have sounded much like formal high British pronunciation sounds to a farmer in the American south).

    It is true that in France, Italy, and the Iberian Peninsula, the general population in the Early Middle Ages spoke a debased form of Latin which might well have allowed them to understand the written Latin of the Vulgate when it was read out loud. However, pronunciation was already changing, so it is unclear that, say, a French peasant would have fully understood the words he was hearing, because they were being pronounced in a somewhat different manner than the conversations he had around the dinner table. In Italy, comprehension would have been higher.

    By the time we get to the 12th century, the average French or Spanish peasant would no longer have understand the Vulgate readings he heard at church because his vernacular would have diverged too far from its Latin base. Had he been literate he might have been able to recognize related words, but French pronunciation in particular had diverged considerably from Latin. Again, in Italy, there would have been more comprehension, but ever there it is unlikely that a peasant would have understood more than a fraction of what was read to him.

    In Britain, Germany, Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe, there would not have been any comprehension of a reading from the Vulgate at any point, because these people were speaking a language that was totally unrelated to Latin. In the case of an English peasant, he might catch the occasional word familiar through a French or Latin loan word, but this would be minimal.

>> would pollute the supposed purity of the text.

>
> In fact, the doctrine of Biblical purity is an invention of the late Middle
> Ages
> and Renaissance. Previously, it was considered to be a working text
> meant for use (and abuse) by Christians. Many modern Catholics still
> use it like that.

    I'm not sure what you mean by a 'working text', but it certainly wasn't open to emendation. In the 15th century, there was considerable hostility among the educated to the idea of retranslating the Bible, even into Latin. But the way the text was understood by scholars was more complex than it is today. The Bible was not seen as having an exclusively literal meaning. In fact, medieval exegesis recognized 4 distinct layers of meaning in the text, and any one of them was suitable for study and exegesis.

>> A historical aside - which Latin translation of the bible did the catholic
>> church declare as sacrosanct?

>
> The Biblia Sacra Vulgata, translated by a project team managed by Saint
> Jerome.
>
> Biblia Sacra Vulgata can be loosely translated as "A Popular Edition of the
> Holy Books",
> which is to say that they were translated into the day-to-day language of
> ordinary
> people Empire-wide (Hint, Hint) ... ;-)
>
> However, the currently sacrosanct version is the so-called Nova Vulgata,
> which is basically the same work expunged of its philological inaccuracies
> (ie references to Jesus as a historical figure in the Old Testament et
> cetera).
>
> The final volume of the Nova Vulgata was published about 2-4 years ago.
>
> Personally, I'm unimpressed. Saint Jerome's work is a marvel of poetry and
> elegance !

    Yes, but it wasn't the best translation possible. The famous 'horns' of light that Moses had are a good example.

    Incidentally, the translation ascribed to Jerome was not solely his work. The nuns of Bethlehem assisted him in his work and evidence suggests that a fair chunk of 'Jerome's Bible' was actually their work.

Andrew E. Larsen

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