4. The Latin Version
Version: This exemplifies very
much the same errors in transmission as have
come to light in examination of the other
versions.
Inconsistent translations of the same expression
occur (cf.
Neh. xii. 31, 40
with verse 38). On the
other hand Jerome renders by the same expression
different words (cf. Neh. viii.? and 11,
silentiurn
faciebant).
And apparent lacunae are filled in to
make the Latin
construction complete. He did
not follow blindly the instruction of his Jewish
teachers, often following the Greek; sometimes
rendering mistakenly, as when he wrote
de igne
Chaldcsorurra
for "Ur of the Chaldeea." But his
main reliance was the Hebrew text and the Greek
versions which came nearest to it. Sometimes
he combined in a conflate reading the rendering
of two versions, as in
Ezra i. 11,
where the readings
of Lucian and the Septuagint are united. Occasionally where a word was ambiguous, two
possible
renderings are presented
(
Neh. v. 10
b, 11 b).
5. The Hebrew Text
The foregoing study of the
versions gives as a result the greater value of the
Hebrew and Aramaic, though the errors ass numer-
ous. For errors and omissions in the text the
pseudo-Ezra is sometimes serviceable
(
Ezra v. 15).
Many of the lacunte in the text are evident, and
occasionally the evident
completion of the sense
may be gathered from the context
(
Ezra iii. 12-13).
It is quite likely that the lacuna between
Ezra iv. 23
and 24 is not to be laid to the charge of the author,
but to carelessness or to arbitrariness on the part
of copyists. That changes have taken place in
the person of the verb, particularly from the
first to the third, is one of the matters of which note
must be taken in a critical discussion of the text.
