I read Genesis as the unified work of a single author, and I do so knowing its complicated textual history. There were many early manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible that were eventually collected and reconciled by the Masoretes into a single Hebrew text. So too were there many early Greek and Latin Bible translations.1 Yet by providence the Bible2 we have today is whole and good and true.
Unfortunately, the great collection of old Hebrew and Greek versions of the Old Testament, Origen’s Hexapla, survives only in fragments. LXX is the original translation of the Greek Torah completed independently by seventy translators, whose translations came out identically. Aquila of Sinope, a proselyte and follower of Rabbi Akiva, produced another Greek translation centuries later. The Vetus Latina is the name given to all the pre-Jerome Latin translations; it is not a single text or the work of a single translator. Finally, the Vulgate is the work of St. Jerome, who consulted Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Aramaic manuscripts to produce his translation.
Here is the opening verse of Genesis in these four versions, with major differences between them in bold.
LXX (c. 250 BC): Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.
Aquila of Sinope (c. 120 AD): Ἐν κεφαλαίῳ ἔκτισεν ὁ Θεὸς σὺν τὸν οὐρανὸν (καὶ) σὺν τὴν γῆν.
Vetus Latina (c. 200-300 AD): In principio fecit Deus coelum et terram.
Vulgate (c. 384 AD): In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram.
The LXX and Aquila translate בְּרֵאשִׁית as Ἐν ἀρχῇ and Ἐν κεφαλαίῳ, respectively. The first letter of בְּרֵאשִׁית is בְּ, a prepositional prefix meaning a number of things, including “in” (a good example of Hebrew’s brevity; prepositions, possessives, etc can be added to a word as a prefix or suffix). That’s what’s translated as “Ἐν” in the Greek. From there the translations differ. LXX gives ἀρχῇ, and Aquila, κεφαλαίῳ. Both are interesting choices. Meanings for the former range from beginning, origin to power or sovereignty; the latter comes from κεφαλή, head, a nod to the root, רֹאשׁ, of the opening Hebrew, בְּרֵאשִׁית. I talk about ἐποίησεν in my opening post. Aquila uses the verb κτίζω, which means to produce, build, or create, and in future posts I’ll write about the imagery of building used elsewhere in the Bible to describe creation. The final difference is that Aquila makes the eccentric choice to translate the untranslatable Hebrew particle as אֵת as σὺν.
The Latin translations agree on the first word, which they translate as in principio. Principio has a similar range of meaning as ἀρχῇ. Where they differ is in translating the first verb, בָּרָא. Fecit can mean to make or build, and like ἐποίησεν, it can also mean to compose a poem. Creavit means to create. Latin lacks definite articles, so both Latin translations match the word count of the Hebrew (where the Greek ones go well beyond it).
Aside from Aquila’s אֵת/σὺν experiment, the elements of these translations are defensible and interesting. I’m especially fond of Ἐν κεφαλαίῳ, one of the few translations of בְּרֵאשִׁית to convey the meaning of the root, רֹאשׁ. If forced to choose, I would take ἐποίησεν over ἔκτισεν and fecit over creavit. More on why in posts to come.
Next up, I translate the days of creation.
St. Augustine testifies to this in De Doctrina Christiana: “Latin volumes of the Old Testament, as I had started to say, should be corrected where necessary according to the authority of the Greek ones, and particularly of the Seventy who are held to have translated in unanimous agreement. But as for the books of the New Testament, if there are any hesitations about the text due to the variety of Latin translations, nobody doubts that one should bow to the authority of the Greek texts, and of those especially which are to be found in the more learned and careful Churches.”
Saint Augustine, Teaching Christianity (De Doctrina Christiana), ed. John E. Rotelle, trans. Edmund Hill, vol. I/11, The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press of the Focolare, 1996), 147.
Although even if you restrict yourself to Orthodox Christian canons, never mind Jewish or Protestant, you must still ask which Bible? The Bibles used by the Oriental Orthodox churches predate the split at the Council of Chalcedon, and the Vetus Latina is quoted by the Latin Fathers. The Vulgate of St. Jerome is equally Orthodox, even if it is by tradition associated with the Roman Catholic Church. Thankfully, for this project, every biblical canon of every denomination accepts and begins with Genesis.