Ancient Hebrew Poetry Pt 6

Although this series is almost entirely about Pagnini's Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible, the title does not indicate that. Here is a little rationale. First, Pagnini appears in Google also as Pagninus, and Pagnino. Second, Pagnini's name is about the last thing that anyone would ever put into Google anyway. More than one Hebrew expert has remarked that they have never heard of Pagnini apart from this blog. Third, I intend to return to certain features of Hebrew Poetry when I need a break from Pagnini. I hope that this series will be somewhat broader than Pagnini.

In any case, I first became acquainted with the Pagnini translation when I was reading a Hebrew-Latin Psalter that had been left to me by my mother. It had been in her family for many generations, and had originally been printed in Lyon, France in the 1600's. This is at least a century after Pagnini published his entire Latin translation of the Bible, so it may very well have some revisions in it.

Subsequently I have learned a fair amount about the time in which Pagnini lived and wrote. I have become acquainted with the incredible influence that the study of Hebrew had on the Reformation and Reformation Bibles. However, there is a significant lack of detailed study of this translation. Apart from the fact that every Bible translator in Europe referenced almost every translation that preceded the one that they were working on, I don't have much specific data about the particular ways that Pagnini's translation influenced following translations.

In addition to Pagnini's translation, there are several other Latin translations that were made subequent to his. Another one is by Tremellius and Junius, and the book of Genesis can be viewed here. The unique and important factor regarding Pagnini's translation is that it was the only Latin translation other than the Vulgate to have been used by Coverdale, who produced the first translation of the entire Bible into English. As such, the history of the Bible in English must reference the Vulgate, Pagnini, Luther (who also used Pagnini) and the Zuercher Bible.

This is a rough timeline for translations of the Hebrew Bible available at the time.

Vulgate 4th century
Pagnini - 1527
Zuercher Bible - 1531
Luther - 1534
Coverdale - 1535

I do not have information as to how much these translators shared among themselves before their translations were printed as complete Bible. Coverdale and Luther both refer to Pagnini's translation so we do know that they used it as a source.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry Pt 5

Here is Psalm 77: 4-6 in Pagnini's translation and Jerome's translation from the Hebrew.

Recordabar Dei, & tumultuabar: loquebar, & angustiis afficiebatur spiritus meus. Selah.	recordans Dei conturbabar loquebar in memet ipso et deficiebat spiritus meus.	אֶזְכְּרָה אֱלֹהִים וְאֶהֱמָיָה; אָשִׂיחָה, וְתִתְעַטֵּף רוּחִי סֶלָה.
Tenuisti vigilias oculorum meorum: contritus sum, nec loqui potui.	prohibebam suspectum oculorum meorum stupebam et non loquebar	אָחַזְתָּ, שְׁמֻרוֹת עֵינָי; נִפְעַמְתִּי, וְלֹא אֲדַבֵּר.
Tunc supputavi dies qui fuerunt a principio, annos seculorum.	recogitabam dies antiquos annos pristinos	חִשַּׁבְתִּי יָמִים מִקֶּדֶם-- שְׁנוֹת, עוֹלָמִים.

Here is this passage in the King James Version,

3I remembered God, and was troubled:
I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.
⁴Thou holdest mine eyes waking:
I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
⁵I have considered the days of old,
the years of ancient times.

In comparison to Jerome's translation, Pagnini has retained more of the parataxis, that is the use of "and" or "&" rather than using subordinate clauses. Pagnini also kept the "selah" and stays closer to the Hebrew for holding the eyes awake, or "on watch."

In verse 5, he struggles with Hebrew expressions which he interprets as "from the beginning" and "of eternity."

Ancient Hebrew Poetry Pt 4

The Pagnini Latin Bible was listed as a source text for not only the Coverdale Bible, but also the Bishop's Bible, the Reina-Valera Bible and the Olivétan Bible. It stands firmly at the centre of the Reformation translation tradition. Not only was it impossible for a translator at the time of the Reformation to view the Greek New Testament without also viewing Erasmus' Latin translation, but it was also unlikely that any translator did not also use an interlinear Hebrew-Pagnini Latin text.

This spring, I visited the Erasmus collection in Toronto and held a copy each of the first few editions of his New Testament. There was no way to access the Greek without reading also the Latin translation and notes of Erasmus. Then a short walk took me to the Thomas Fischer Library to read Pagnini's Latin Bible.

Pagnini also shaped the Bible for further generations by being the first to use verse annotations, and by placing the apocryphal books between the Old and New Testament.

The study of Pagnini's Bible has revised my impression of the Reformation as a time when the Bible was translated by a select group of brilliant individuals from the original Hebrew and Greek into the vernaculars of Reformation Europe. Rather two movements were afoot. On the one hand, the Greek and Hebrew originals were retranslated into Latin, the lingua franca of Europe, by scholars who were steeped in classical Greek and rabbinical Hebrew. And on the other hand, those who had some knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, but were not recognized as international scholars of these languages, men such as Luther, Tyndale, de Reyna, and Olivétan, translated the Bible into the vernacular languages of Europe.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry Pt 3

While some scholars and translators may not feel that they owe much to the Pagnini translation of the Bible, none are without the influence of Pagnini's Thesaurus Linguae Sanctae. Daniel Shute, writing about the influences on Peter Martyr, explains,

Massive and meticulously documented, it can double as a fairly complete concordance. Some of its entries, which run on for pages, can be profitably studied by the Latin-Hebrew reader even today. The dictionaries of Reuchlin and Münster are so brief as to render it impossible to trace their influence in Martyr's exposition. Pagnini's lexicon, on the other hand, has word studies so detailed that its influence is traceable.

Keil and Delitzsch (original here) express the following opinion of Pagnini's importance,

Justinianus, Pagninus, and Felix were the three highest authorities on the original text at the commencement of the Reformation. The first two had gained their knowledge of the original from Jewish sources and Felix Pratensis, whose Psalterium ex hebreo diligentissime ad verbum fere translatum, 1522, appeared under Leo X, was a proselyte.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry (my series on Pagnini) Pt 1, Pt 2

Ancient Hebrew Poetry Pt 2

In my previous post I suggested that Pagnini's (Pagninus/Pagnino) translation is the missing link between ancient Hebrew poetry and the language of the King James Bible. The first thing to establish then is that the early translators of the Bible had access to Pagnini's translation and that his translation was distinctive.

Pagnini, an Italian Domican scholar, translated the entire Bible into Latin and published it in 1528. This makes it the first major translation of the Hebrew Bible into Latin since the Latin Vulgate. He also published a Hebrew Latin lexicon. Pagnini's translation was commissioned by Pope Leo X and the printing was licensed by Pope Clement VII. It never replaced the Latin Vulgate as the authoritative text of the Roman church, due to the literal nature of the translation.

Pagnini also preached against Lutherism and Waldenianism as heresies, so his translation would not become "popular" with Protestants. Luther felt that his translation displayed too much influence from the rabbincial tradition. While Pagnini's translation was used by Hebrew scholars for centuries, neither Catholics nor Protestants, place his text in the mainstream of their tradition.

And yet, according to Saebo,

Pagninus's edition of the Bible and the Thesaurus were frequently reprinted, and they were widely used by scholars of all Christian persuasions...

Norton also writes,

After the publication of Pagninus’s translation, 1528, few, perhaps none of the translators would have found themselves working from the original languages alone, aided by nothing more than grammars and dictionaries, and never would they have found themselves working without an already vast knowledge of the text in their heads: most knew the Vulgate intimately.

Pagnini's Latin translation was frequently printed as the Latin text in a Hebrew-Latin Bible, sometimes as the interlinear Latin text to aid in the study of the original Hebrew. While the Complutensian polyglot has the Latin Vulgage between the Hebrew and the Greek of the Old Testament, the Antwerp polyglot also provides Pagnini's Latin as an interlinear text above the Hebrew.

Coverdale cites this translation as one of his source texts, and it would have been known to the translators of the Bishop's Bible, and King James Bible. According to this record,

The Trinitarian Bible Society in their April - June 1979 Quarterly Record cites this volume as being at the disposal of the translators for the KING JAMES BIBLE. The Book: Pagninus, "Thesaurus Linguæ Sanctæ", Lugduni, 1575. ... Pagninus was perhaps the greatest of Christian Lexicographers and whose work was fundamental as an aid to 16th-century scriptural translators

In fact, translators have always referred to all previous transations and commentaries, as well as the original languages. The Greek New Testament, was first printed as a bilingual edition alongside Erasmus' Latin translation, and the Hebrew was printed typically along with either the Vulgate, or Pagnini, or both.

Factors which may have caused Pagnini's translation to fall into the background, are its association with some heresies. Michael Servetus, burned in Geneva as a heretic, was editor for an edition of Pagnini's Bible. Pagnini's translation was also the first to use the name "Jehovah" for יהוה, instead of "Dominus." Luther felt that Pagnini's translation followed the rabbis too much, as did Katherine Bushnell, who was unhappy with the fact that Pagnini introduced the word "desire" into Gen. 3:16.

But there is no reason for Pagnini's translation to be relatively unknown among Bible scholars today. I would argue that his is the single most important translation of the Bible in the Reformation period. We know for certain that both the translation and the lexical work of Pagnini was known to the translators in the King James tradition. I will continue soon with the distinctive nature of Pagnini's translation.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry

I was reminded recently by a fellow blogger of the fun that we had blogging about Psalm 68 some time ago. I love poetry and so much of the Hebrew scriptures, whether poetry or prose, are full of poetic elements like alliteration, assonance, rhyme and onomatopoeia. These are the elements which relate to the sound of the poetry, and are enough to begin with. The other elements, formed by an arrangement according to meaning, such as parallelism and punning, will have to wait.

But I would say that the first poetic elements, which are usually regarded as relating to the sound of the words, are in fact best perceived, or rather felt in the mouth. The first person to experience alliteration in a poem, is not the passive listener, but the one who writes. And just as the sound of a kiss, is not the same as the kiss itself, so the sound of alliteration, is not the same as the feel of alliteration in one's own mouth and mind.

To write, to speak, to sound out alliteration, one engages the lips and tongue, the words become the placement of the points of articulation, and not the sounds in the ear. And that is the power of alliteration. Don't let the textbooks tell you anything else.

So I dipped into my Pagnini Psalms again, that missing link in the history of translation, and found a few lines where the Dominican (Pagnini that is) showed that he had a sense of the feel of the words. Not surprising, since I suspect that he too loved the alphabet, that out of which the world was created, (if you have read the Book of Formation, Sefer Yetsira, the ur-text of the Kabbalah.)

Here is Psalm 122:6-7 in various translations. I am not going to offer you the Hebrew tonight, but only compare the Latin and English.

6 Rogate quæ ad pacem sunt Jerusalem,
et abundantia diligentibus te.
7 Fiat pax in virtute tua,
et abundantia in turribus tuis. Vulgate

Postulate pacem Jerusalem:
prospere agant diligentes te
Sit pax in antemurali tuo:
prosperitas in palatiis tuis Pagnini

⁶Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
they shall prosper that love thee.
⁷Peace be within thy walls,
and prosperity within thy palaces. KJV

6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
"May they be secure who love you!
⁷Peace be within your walls
and security within your towers!" ESV

6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May those who love you be secure.
7 May there be peace within your walls
and security within your citadels.” NIV

I argue that you can't really understand the history of the translation of the Bible without Pagnini, or without understanding the constraints that poetic elements put on both the original writer, and on the translator. In fact, I would argue that given the presence of poetic elements, there can never be a definitive translation of the Hebrew. Each translation is a new piece of literature.

Ancient Hebrew Poetry Pt 2, Pt 3