Oxford Classical Monographs Jerome, Greek Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible

Jerome produced the first Latin translation of the Bible which was made not from Greek but directly from the Hebrew. This book considers the origins of this project through analysis of the "Quaestiones Hebraicae in Genesim", a commentary on the book of Genesis published at about the same time. Jerome (c. 345-420) was one of the greatest Bibilical scholars of antiquity. Among his achievements was his Latin translations of the Bible `according to the Hebrew', or iuxta Hebraeos. This translation came to constitute the major part of the Vulgate, the standard Bible of Latin Christendom. The author here considers the origin of this project through an analysis of the Quaestiones Hebraicae in Genesim, a commentary on the book of Genesis published at approximately the same time as the first instalments of the translation. The primary focus of the book is the question of Jerome's dependence on Greek scholarship both before and during his own time.