Nova Vulgata

In 1907, Pope Pius X commissioned the Benedictine Order to produce as pure a version as possible of Jerome's original text after conducting an extensive search for as-yet-unstudied manuscripts, particularly in Spain.[5] Pope Pius XI established the Pontifical Abbey of St Jerome-in-the-City in 1933 to complete the work.

By the 1970s, the Benedictine edition was no longer required for official purposes because of liturgical changes that had spurred the Holy See to produce a new translation of the Latin Bible, the Nova Vulgata.[6] In consequence, the abbey was suppressed in 1984.[7] Five monks were nonetheless allowed to complete the final two volumes of the Old Testament, which were published under the abbey's name in 1987 and 1995.[8] The Oxford editors had already published a full critical text of the Vulgate New Testament, and no attempt was made to duplicate their work.

The Second Vatican Council in Sacrosanctum Concilium mandated a revision of the Latin Psalter, to bring it in line with modern textual and linguistic studies while preserving or refining its Christian Latin style. In 1965, Pope Paul VI appointed a commission to revise the rest of the Vulgate following the same principles. The Commission published its work in eight annotated sections and invited criticism from Catholic scholars as the sections were published. The Latin Psalter was published in 1969, the New Testament was completed by 1971, and the entire Nova Vulgata was published as a single-volume edition for the first time in 1979.[9]

The foundational text of most of the Old Testament is the critical edition commissioned by Pope Pius X and produced by the monks of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Jerome.[9] The foundational text of the Books of Tobit and Judith is from manuscripts of the Vetus Latina, rather than the Vulgate. The New Testament was based on the 1969 edition of the Stuttgart Vulgate, and hence on the Oxford Vulgate. All of these base texts were revised to accord with the modern critical editions in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.[10] A number of changes were also made where modern scholars felt that Jerome had failed to grasp the meaning of the original languages, or had rendered it obscurely.[11]

The Nova Vulgata does not contain some books that were included in the earlier editions but omitted by the Biblical canon promulgated by the Council of Trent. Those omitted books are the Prayer of Manasses, the 3rd and 4th Book of Esdras (sometimes known by different names: see naming conventions of Esdras), Psalm 151, and the Epistle to the Laodiceans.

In 1979, after decades of preparation, the Nova Vulgata was published, and was made the official Latin version of the Bible of the Catholic Church in the apostolic constitution Scripturarum thesaurus, promulgated by Pope John Paul II on April 25, 1979.[6][12]

A second edition, published in 1986, added a Preface to the reader,[11] an Introduction to the principles used in producing the Nova Vulgata,[13] and an appendix containing three historical documents from the Council of Trent and the Clementine Vulgate.[14] This second edition included the footnotes to the Latin text found in the eight annotated sections published before 1979. It also replaced the few occurrences of the form Iahveh, used when translating the Tetragrammaton, with Dominus; Liturgiam authenticam says it is in keeping with an ancient tradition namely attested in the Septuagint.[15]

In 2001, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments released the instruction Liturgiam Authenticam. This text established the Nova Vulgata as "the point of reference as regards the delineation of the canonical text". Concerning the translation of liturgical texts, the instruction states:

Furthermore, in the preparation of these translations for liturgical use, the Nova Vulgata Editio, promulgated by the Apostolic See, is normally to be consulted as an auxiliary tool, in a manner described elsewhere in this Instruction, in order to maintain the tradition of interpretation that is proper to the Latin Liturgy. [...] [I]t is advantageous to be guided by the Nova Vulgata wherever there is a need to choose, from among various possibilities [of translation], that one which is most suited for expressing the manner in which a text has traditionally been read and received within the Latin liturgical tradition.[16]

This recommendation is qualified, however: the instruction specifies (n. 24) that translations should not be made from the Nova Vulgata, but rather "must be made directly from the original texts, namely the Latin, as regards the texts of ecclesiastical composition, or the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek, as the case may be, as regards the texts of Sacred Scripture". The instruction does not recommend translation of the Bible, or of the liturgy, based solely upon the Latin Nova Vulgata; the NV must instead simply be used as an "auxiliary tool".[17]