Vulgate: A LatinStudy Self-Study Group

Vulgate Translation Group

The Vulgate group is coordinated by Gary Bisaga.

Group Overview
The Vulgate group is dedicated to reading the Vulgate (Latin) Bible and discussing it. The primary purpose is to read and discuss the Latin, although theological questions are welcome if the discussions are both limited in extent and kept civil in tone. Extensive theological (or a-theological) discussions should be taken to private email.
Assignments
Assignments are due every other Wednesday (except for weeks off) at about 5:00 PM Eastern Time (either standard or daylight savings), which corresponds to either 2100 GMT (April to October) or 2200 GMT (October to April). I say "about" because I usually do not collate the assignments right at 5:00 PM (sometimes it takes me a day or two to get to it!), but you should have them to me by then. Send them to me at gbisaga@yahoo.com; do NOT post them to the LatinStudy list.
Assignment schedule
All assignments are from the Editio Nova Vulgata:
February 20, 2008: Acts 15:12-35 March 5: Acts 15:36-41, 16:1-15 March 19: Acts 16:16-40 April 2: Acts 17:1-15 April 16: Acts 17:16-34, 18 April 30: Acts 18:1-17 May 14: Acts 18:18-28, 19:1-7 May 28: Acts 19:8-22 June 11: Acts 19:23-41 June 25: Acts 20:1-16 July 9: Acts 20:17-38 July 23: Acts 21:1-16 August 6: Acts 21:17-40 August 20: Acts 22:1-21 September 3: Acts 22:22-30, 23:1-11 September 17: Acts 23:12-35
How to Join the Group
There really isn't much of a signing-up process. To do this, here's all you have to do:
1.	First, pick a 3-letter set of initials, preferably your own. Mine are GJB. Once you've done so, let me know what you've chosen so I can put you in the database and check for duplicates.
2.	Next, please make sure that you join the mailing list where the list is hosted (the "latinstudy" list). That's where assignments and collations will be posted, and where discussion about the assignments (if any) takes place. To sign up, follow the instructions on Kirk's subscription FAQ
3.	Send in your assignment to my email address, gbisaga@yahoo.com. Assignments are due each Wednesday evening at about 5:00 PM Eastern Time (either standard or daylight savings). The assignments are not cumulative in any way (other than the same way any story or letter would be), so you can start at any time.
4.	The format of your assignment is VERY important. Please make sure you read this to get it right. Our assignments must follow a special format because they're collated by means of a very useful Perl script created by Kirk Lougheed and modified by me (so it's slightly incompatible with all the OTHER versions of the script out there ...). Each assignment is collated one verse of the Vulgate at a time. Put your initials, followed by a space, at the start of your translation of each verse. NOTE: The Vulgate, like other translations of the Bible, is numbered in chapters and verses, and the verses may or may not correspond to sentences in Latin, English, or any other language. The verse numbering system is standard (except for a few unfortunate places, most notably in the psalms), and we will use the standard Biblical verse numbering system. Thus, one verse may consist of a single sentence, more than one sentence, or only part of a sentence. Please don't include the Latin you're translating in your assignment! The collation script can't tell the difference between Latin and English, so it gets very confused. Also, don't include verse numbers in your assignments as part of the text. (To keep track of verses, I usually include the Latin text as comment lines starting with "#" characters.) By default, the collation script will wrap the lines of your translation by length and not by sense (though it won't wrap in the middle of words, or anything of that kind). If you'd like to keep the line divisions you've made, put a space, followed by an ampersand (&) at the place where each line should end. Here's an example of some original verses (from the book of Luke) and my translations of them. Note my inclusion of the original text after "#" marks: 1:36 Et ecce Elisabeth cognata tua et ipsa concepit filium in senecta sua, et hic mensis est sextus illi, quae vocatur sterilis, 1:37 quia non erit impossibile apud Deum omne verbum". # 1:36 Et ecce Elisabeth cognata tua et ipsa concepit filium in senecta sua, et hic mensis est sextus illi, quae vocatur sterilis, GJB And behold, Elisabeth your relative - she has conceived a son in her old age, and this is her sixth month (she who is called barren), # 1:37 quia non erit impossibile apud Deum omne verbum". GJB because with God the whole of these words will not be impossible." You may be as literal or as smooth in your English translations as you wish. I find that, in a given group, it is often useful to have people who do both - both fairly literal translations, and looser, more colloquial English translations. It takes all kinds to make a world.
5.	Make sure to use a subject line on your email that looks something like this: Vulgate Nov 26 assignment (XXX) where "XXX" are the 3 initials you picked in step 1. This makes it easier for me to pick out the emails of people taking part in the group (and is used by my email program to automatically sort mails into folders). Other emails about the assignments should also have the word "Vulgate" in the subject line. This is good list citizenry, and allows other people on the list (of whom there are many!) to easily read or ignore our group's mailings. You'll appreciate other people doing this after you've been on the list for awhile!
Text
I will post the Latin text each time to the list as part of the assignment. The text is also available on-line. There are several different versions of the Vulgate in existence. We are using the version posted at the official Vatican web site. I do not necessarily consider this better than any other version, but we are using this version because it is easily accessible and (unlike most other on-line Vulgate versions) provides at least some punctuation.
Holidays
The weeks of Christmas, Easter, Memorial Day (the last Monday in May), Labor Day (first Monday in September), and Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday in November) are holidays in the U.S. We may or may not skip the assignments these weeks; if we so, the skipped assignment will be due on the Wednesdays closest to these dates. Also, sometimes I manage to get away from this vale of tears for a vacation, and since I like to avoid computers during vacations, we won't have assignments those weeks either. I'll let you know in the assignments I send out to the list.
How Should Names Be Translated?
The question often comes up, so I have placed it down here in case anybody is interested in my opinion. (Hey, you never know.) It's always hard to decide whether to translate names or not. My typical practice (which I think many others follow as well, although I have never seen it codified) is to translate very well-known names, and leave more unusual ones untranslated. This is also typical in most Bible translations, where English Bibles would definitely write "Mary" instead of "Maria", but would either not change "Zacharias" (e.g., to "Zachary"), or change it to the original Hebrew form (Zachariah). The idea, I think, is that in reading the Bible, just as in any piece of literature intended to communicate information, that meaning is more important than form. And, to make sure the reader knows that the Maria spoken of is THE Mary, they use the commonly-understood form. Take Luke 1:27, where the Latin has: 1:27 ... et nomen virginis Maria. Should we use the common English ("Mary") or the Latin form ("Maria")? Well, consider that the Greek for Luke 1:27 has: to onoma thV parqenou Mariam i.e. "the name of the virgin was Mariam." Mariam, of course, is the Greek-ized form of the Hebrew "Miryam", So, which of the four forms should we use - Miryam, Mariam, Maria, or Mary? I would use the common English form for this well-known name, i.e. Mary. You can do it any way you wish. If you don't know the English equivalent, of course, you're always safe using the Latin form (even though it may be less like the original language than the common English!) THEOLOGY ALERT: I think this conception of name translation is perfectly Biblical. The original manuscripts of where the New Testament quote the Old don't necessarily follow the Hebrew forms perfectly (as we've seen above). The NT writers (and the translators of the Septuagint, Vulgate, and modern Bible translations as well) were more interested in getting the understanding across than in preserving exact original language forms. Language is primarily important inasmuch as it can help the process of evangelization and discipling.