Jewish Questions on Genesis

The essay “Jewish Questions on the Book of Genesis” was written by Bl. Jerome of Stridon in 391-392. in the genre of “questions”, close to scholia, and has a methodological character. The interpretation is made on the basis of the differences between the Greek translations and the Hebrew text. The book is valuable for biblical criticism and exegesis. Blzh. Jerome pays attention to biblical archaeology, history, geography, chronology, and makes apologetic arguments against various heresies, etc. *The title of the work in Latin is Liber Quaestionum hebraicarum in Genesim. 1. Review of modern research Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 40 41 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 The work of Blessed Jerome “Jewish Questions on the Book of Genesis” occupies a special place not only among the patristic literature, but also among the works of Jerome himself. The series of “Jewish Questions” he conceived for each of the biblical books remained unfulfilled and is limited to only the first volume. However, it also provides us with an amazing opportunity to look into the creative laboratory of the creator of the Vulgate, where Blessed Jerome appears as a linguist, philologist, textual critic, and exegete. If we consider that the author of “Jewish Questions on the Book of Genesis” also pays attention to biblical archaeology, history, geography, chronology, reveals familiarity not only with the Christian, but also with the rabbinic tradition, makes apologetic arguments against various heresies, etc., then one can only wonder why such an important and unique work of a learned father has not yet been translated into Russian. I believe that the reason largely lies in the complexity of the text and the issues addressed in it. The Latin text of “Jewish Questions...” is replete with Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic phrases and words, and in order to understand and adequately reveal the content of the work, a good knowledge of biblical textual criticism, Christian and rabbinic sources, and theological debates of that time is necessary. Overcoming all of the above difficulties, a graduate of the Moscow Theological Academy, Sergei Zhukov, masterfully coped with the task assigned to him and made an excellent, intelligible translation, which testifies not only to high language training (proficiency in classical and Semitic languages, and also, importantly, Russian), but also to a certain erudition in the field of biblical and theological disciplines 1 . With this publication we open the “Biblical Exegesis” series, within the framework of which we plan to publish new translations of the exegetical works of the holy fathers and teachers of the Church, as well as modern research on this topic. Archpriest Leonid Grilikhes A significant amount of scientific research, but mainly foreign, has been devoted to the work of Blessed Jerome of Stridon “Jewish Questions on the Book of Genesis” (“Quaestiones Hebraicae in Genesim”, hereinafter QHG). Among domestic works, one can only point to the book by E. Ya. Polyansky 2, in which the works of Blessed Jerome, including QHG, are analyzed from the point of view of their significance for biblical archeology. The attentive reader will also notice that a number of the commentaries on Genesis contained in the Expository Bible edited by Lopukhin 3 correspond exactly to the remarks of Blessed Jerome made in QHG. Among foreign authors, a monograph specifically dedicated to QHG was the first in the mid-19th century. released M. Rahmer 4. The book examines the question of QHG's rabbinic sources. Ginzberg 5 and Krauss 6 worked on the same problem. A number of studies have been devoted to the biography of Blessed Jerome with a general assessment of the contribution of the holy father to Christian literature. Here it should be noted the books whose authors are: in German - Grützmacher 7, in French - Cavallera 8 and in English - Kelly 9. Of particular value is the book Jay 10, which, although it does not directly concern QHG, can serve as an example of a scientific study of the exegetical methods of Blessed Jerome, carried out using the example of an analysis of the interpretation of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. A fundamental study is Brown's 11, which goes into great detail on many aspects of Jerome's exegesis, including examples from QHG. But the most valuable and informative works devoted to QHG are currently two books published in the 90s. The first of these comes from the pen of A. Kamesar 12, a scientist who combined deep knowledge of the two scientific fields that intersect at QHG. On the one hand, Kamesar is a major specialist in the field of interpretation of the Hebrew Bible and an expert in rabbinic literature, on the other hand, being a classical philosopher, he demonstrates extraordinary erudition in Greco-Roman literature, both pagan and Christian. His research is replete with fascinating details and unexpected parallels and aims to determine the place that QHG occupy in the space of Greco-Roman culture. The second book is an English translation of QHG, provided with detailed commentary 13 . Its author, R. Hayward, is a major British biblical scholar and a great expert in rabbinic literature. The extraordinary erudition of the author of the monograph allowed him to collect and present to readers an impressive amount of material directly or indirectly related to QHG. Blessed Jerome himself pointed out the literary originality of his work, describing it as opus novum, inauditum tam Graecis tam Latinis 14. Therefore, it is no coincidence that many modern researchers, trying to determine the genre, purpose of writing, possible sources of QHG, have faced serious problems. A brief acquaintance with various views on these problems will allow us to gain the necessary understanding of the book itself and come closer to understanding the nature of the biblical studies of Blessed Jerome. The fact that QHGs, although called questions, do not have the typical question-and-answer structure characteristic of works with that name was first noted by Bardy 15 . Despite the fact that this author identifies about 220 questions that Blessed Jerome indirectly placed in his work, he still defines the genre of the work as commentaries in the form of scholia. According to Bardy, the treatise consists of many descriptions of various exegetical difficulties, followed by their resolutions. However, Bardy still tends to believe that QHG is discussing the real issues that may arise from comparing the Hebrew text of Genesis with the Greek translation of the Seventy. That the question-and-answer form had the greatest influence on St. Jerome in writing the QHG has recently been shown by Kamesar 16 . He, in particular, cited facts confirming that in the literature of questions the standard question-and-answer form is not always strictly used and that questions can be hidden, without a clearly expressed statement. Although Kamesar believes that QHG as a whole cannot be considered as a work typical of the genre of questions, he nevertheless shows that this genre could be understood quite broadly already in the period of ancient literature. Thus, Kamesar suggests that the QHG is a creation of a mixed genre that combines the question and answer form in its most general form with excerpta or scholia and is a short treatment of difficult passages of Scripture. Hayward 17 draws attention to the use in QHG of such words as ask (quaero), question (quaestio), decide (solvo), decision (solution), together with the mention of various Jewish traditions (traditio, Hebraei tradunt) or hypotheses (coniectura). As Hayward notes, the word quaestio can mean not only "question" but also the process of inquiry, scientific inquiry, evaluation of evidence, discussion of controversial opinions. This author shows with examples that Blessed Jerome strives to present his book as the result of scientific research. Thus, according to Hayward, QHG can in some cases be seen as a study of authoritative Jewish interpretations within the mixed genre defined by Kamesar. Blessed Jerome himself, in the preface to QHG, sets himself several tasks. First, he speaks of a desire to change the negative attitude of his Christian contemporaries towards the Hebrew text of Scripture, which, in his opinion, contributes to a better understanding of the Bible and allows one to eliminate many of the ambiguities of the Greek and Latin texts: “_The purpose of my efforts will be, on the one hand, to refute the errors of those who make various conjectures about the Hebrew books. And on the other hand, to return the true meaning to those [distorted] passages that are present in great abundance in Greek and Latin books.” Blessed Jerome further notes that turning to the Hebrew original is necessary to clarify the etymologies of those Hebrew words that are given in transliteration in the Greek and Latin texts: “In addition,” continues the holy father, “[my goal will be] to explain the etymologies of the names of objects, names and places that mean nothing in our language, by considering the language that is native to these words.” Outwardly, such work resembles what modern textual critics do: “And so that improvement [of the text] can be comprehended with greater ease, first I will offer quotations from our books. And then, by comparing them with other [text samples], I will show what is missing from them, what they contain that is superfluous, or what is written differently in them.” In the scientific literature of modern times, Simon 18 was the first to speak out about the purpose of writing QHG. He suggested that the creation of this work was associated with the new translation undertaken by Blessed Jerome of the books of the Old Testament into Latin directly from Hebrew. The QHG was thus an apology for the Vulgate and a criticism of the Latin translations based on the Septuagint. At the beginning of the twentieth century. Schade 19 attempted to argue that the first part of the QHG reflected their author's balanced view of the differences between the Septuagint and the Hebrew text. This researcher proceeded from the assumption that the writing of the QHG began with a preface where Blessed Jerome explicitly states that the Seventy are not guilty of the errors contained in their translation. In the first part of the book the holy father took a neutral position regarding the features of the Septuagint, but he interrupted his work on the QHG to begin translating Origen's discourses into the Gospel of Luke and writing the Book of Hebrew Names (Liber Interpretationis Hebraicorum Nominuni). By the time he resumed work on the QHG, Blessed Jerome had come to the conclusion that it was inappropriate to revise the old Latin translation based on the Septuagint and changed the direction of his scientific research towards the study of the Hebrew text. Thus, in the second part of the book, the author of QHG abandons any attempt to consider the Septuagint as the standard of Scripture and demonstrates his respect for the Hebrew original. In other words, the work on the QHG strengthened Blessed Jerome's decision to translate the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew. The Schade hypothesis has many shortcomings 20 . First, there is no evidence that the preface to QHG was written before the rest of the book. Secondly, the remarks in defense of the Septuagint contained in the preface to the QHG are very similar to the corresponding remarks in the preface to the Vulgate, in writing which Blessed Jerome already had a strong conviction regarding the superiority of the Hebrew text over the Septuagint. Thirdly, it can be noted that the beginning of the book contains a considerable number of critical statements about the Septuagint. Kamesar shows that those passages that Schade presents as “neutral” actually contain approval of the Hebrew text 21 . As Hayward notes, there is not a single example in the QHG of favoring the Septuagint version used by Blessed Jerome over the Hebrew text 22 . Cavallera 23, like Schade, also considered QHG to be a transitional work. This was the starting point on the path to creating a translation of the Bible independent of interpretation, on the one hand, and writing full-scale commentaries, on the other. When Blessed Jerome began to carry out the second task, he abandoned the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bcreating “Jewish Questions” on all the books of the Old Testament, as was originally planned, since most of the solutions to philological problems were already presented in the Vulgate. Grützmacher 24 believed that the QHG were written primarily to eliminate the suspicious attitude towards the Hebrew text of the Bible that existed among the Christian contemporaries of Blessed Jerome. This author viewed the book as a rich treasury of aggadah, explanations of names and names of geographical objects using data from the Hebrew language. This is agreed by Kelly 25, who takes the view that in writing the QHG, Blessed Jerome gave preference to the Hebrew text over the Septuagint. However, Kamesar has shown 26 that viewing the QHG as a “transitional” work overlooks the early Roman letters (382–385), in which the turn taken by Blessed Jerome towards the idea that knowledge of the Hebrew language is necessary for the correct interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is already noticeable. Kamesar 27 revived Simon's old hypothesis, giving it a significantly corrected, extremely complicated, but at the same time strictly reasoned character. In his opinion, the QHGs were written to defend the new philological system that St. Jerome used when creating a translation of the Bible. This system was built on the translations of Aquila, Simachus and Theodotion, and also relied heavily on rabbinic explanations of grammar, syntax, and the meanings of words and phrases. The creation of the Vulgate required a novum scribendi genus 28 . QHG and were the understanding of such a new philological approach to the interpretation of Sacred texts. Hayward 29 considers Kamesar's concept incomplete. He provides interesting statistics that cast doubt on whether the QHGs were compiled to provide a philological justification for translating the Old Testament directly from Hebrew. Thus, Hayward counts 99 cases of agreement between the QHG and the Vulgate when translating the same Hebrew word or phrase and as many as 80 cases of divergence, of which in 24 cases the Vulgate follows the Septuagint. The conclusion about the purpose of writing QHG, which this researcher comes to, is that Blessed Jerome tried in this way to justify his contacts with the bearers of the Jewish tradition - the Jews, who, as Hayward noted, suffered persecution from the Christian society. The QHG expresses Blessed Jerome's concern that neglect of the Jewish exegetical tradition may lead to a partial loss of the correct understanding of not only the literal, but also the sacramental, representative meaning of Scripture. And the expression veritas Hebraica, “Jewish truth,” which appears repeatedly in the pages of QHG, best demonstrates the desire of the Holy Father to reveal to Christian readers the positive side of the content of Jewish interpretations. In the 19th century Rahmer 30 , Ginzberg 31 and Krauss 32 addressed the issue of QHG's rabbinic sources. They showed that much of what is presented by Blessed Jerome as “Jewish traditions” is also reflected in the aggadic commentaries of the tannic Midrash, Midrash Rabba, both Talmuds and later Midrash. Sometimes what Blessed Jerome reports coincides almost word for word with surviving Jewish sources. In other cases he gives us only a general outline of a known aggadah, combined with materials not recorded in extant rabbinic literature. Bardy 33 and Brown 34 have shown that sometimes Blessed Jerome claims to have borrowed some information from Jewish sources, although in fact it may have come from the hands of other Christian writers. Hayward 35 details the apparent and implied sources of the QHG, which are: the translations of Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion (recentiores); the works of Philo, Josephus, Origen, occasionally - St. Ambrose of Milan, Blessed Augustine, Tertullian, Hieromartyr Hippolytus of Rome, as well as Eusebius of Emesa, Diodorus of Tarsus and other exegetes of the Antiochian direction; Aramaic Targums and various aggadic interpretations, the similarities with which were pointed out by Rahmer. At the same time, the attitude of the QHG author to various sources is not the same. Thus, there is great sympathy for the Targums, recentiores, in many cases for Josephus, and, for example, a sharply negative attitude towards the interpretations of Eusebius of Emesa. But in any case, Hayward notes the creative approach of Blessed Jerome to citing sources, suggesting a cautious and even critical attitude to the information provided, their refinement and modification in the light of his own scientific and spiritual experience. Determining the time of creation of QHG is given a place in several scientific studies already mentioned above, dedicated to Blessed Jerome. According to the most recent version 36, the writing of QHG should be attributed to the period from the second half of 391 to the first months of 393. However, previous scholars dated QHG somewhat earlier. Thus, Grützmacher 37 determines the time of writing of three works (Liber Interpretationis Hebraicorum Nominum, QHG, Liber Locorum) as the period between 386 and 392. Cavallera 38 dates QHG to 389–392. Kelly 39 suggests that Blessed Jerome worked on creation in 389–391. The justification for the above chronological framework follows from the consideration of a considerable amount of biographical data, which can be found in the indicated literature. Text edited by D. Vallarsi, published in volume 23 of PL J.-P. Migne (Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Stridonensis Presbyteri Liber Hebraicarum Quaestionum in Genesim. Paris, 1865), was made on the basis of five manuscripts 40. Oddly enough, the more serious critical edition edited by P. de Lagarde (Leipzig, 1868), reprinted in Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina under the patronage of P. Antin (Tournai, 1959), contains many errors, typos and inaccuracies, as Hayward and Kamesar repeatedly point out. Nevertheless, the critical apparatus included in this edition is of great value. The translation of QHG that we presented to the reader was made from the text in the Vallarsi edition, which was also preferred by Hayward, the author of the English translation of QHG. At the beginning of the book I should introduce the theme of all subsequent work. But before that, I am forced to respond to insults directed at me. Thus, I support a certain initiative of Terence, who staged the prologues of his comedies on stage for the purpose of self-defense. Because he was persistently persecuted by Luscius Lanvin, who resembles my Luscius, and accused him of being a poet-thief who steals from the public [literary] treasury. Due to the machinations of his rivals, the Mantuan singer also had to experience the same thing: he was called “the thief of antiquities” because he translated some of Homer’s poems word for word. He answered them that only with the help of the greatest efforts can the club be wrested from the hand of Hercules. And even Cicero, who stands at the pinnacle of Roman eloquence, as the king of orators and as the man thanks to whom the Latin language shone in all its beauty, is accused by the Greeks of having in his work something subject to exclusion [in favor of other authors]. Therefore, it is not surprising that unwashed pigs grunt at me, a meaningless little person, and trample pearls under their feet. After all, even against people who were distinguished by great learning, exorbitant anger flared up, and they had to defeat the envy of others with their glory. However, this happened to them deservedly: their eloquence thundered in theaters, in the Senate building, at public meetings, from the rostral platform; and undisguised valor always finds rivals, [Horace, Odes II, 10, 10]. But although I live far from cities, the forum, courts and public assemblies, envy, as Quintilian says, even in this situation overtook me, hidden from everyone [DM 13, 2]. Therefore, I implore the reader - If someone is my essay [Virgil, Bucolics VI, 9-10]—so that in the books of the “Jewish Questions,” which I intend to write for the whole of Holy Scripture, he seeks neither eloquence nor rhetorical grace. But let him better answer my enemies instead of me like this: “New work deserves a favorable attitude.” After all, just as I am a simple and rather poor person (I do not have my own riches, and if others give me, I do not consider it worthy to accept), so let it be known to my enemies that it is impossible for them to master the knowledge of the Scriptures, that is, the riches of Christ, just as it is impossible for [me] to master the riches of this world. So, the purpose of my efforts will be, on the one hand, to refute the misconceptions of those who make various guesses about Jewish books. And on the other hand, to return the true meaning to those [distorted] passages that are present in great abundance in Greek and Latin books. In addition, explain the etymologies of the names of objects, names and places that mean nothing in our language, by considering the language that is native to these words. And so that improvement [of the text] can be achieved more easily, I will first offer quotations from our books. And then, by comparing them with other [text samples], I will show what is missing from them, what they contain that is superfluous, or what is written differently in them. But I do not blame the Seventy Interpreters for mistakes, as my ill-wishers bark at me, and I do not consider that my work is a reproach for them. Because they did not want to convey to Ptolemy, king of Alexandria, all the secrets of Scripture, and especially those in which the Coming of Christ was promised, so as not to create the impression that the Jews also worshiped some second god. After all, this famous follower of Plato had a high opinion of the Jews because they were spoken of as worshipers of the One God. But the evangelists, and our Lord and Savior, as well as the Apostle Paul, pronounce much that seems to be from the Old Testament, but is not contained in our books. I will talk about this in more detail in my place. From this it is obvious that those textual samples that are consistent with the authority of the New Testament deserve greater confidence. It is worth mentioning here that, according to the testimony of Joseph, who recounts the history of the Seventy Interpreters, they translated only five books of Moses. These books, from my point of view, are more in tune with the Hebrew ones than all other books of Scripture. And those translators who appeared later, I mean Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion, offer even more differences compared to our accepted reading. And finally (which may also soften my ill-wishers), foreign goods are delivered by sea only to those who seek to purchase them, and those who do not leave their village all their lives have no opportunity to buy balsam, pepper, or dates. I'm not even talking about Origen, whose name is If you can compare with small [Virgil, Georgics IV, 176] - is even more hostile than mine. Because in his conversations delivered to the people, he follows the generally accepted text, but in written works, that is, in the most important part of his reasoning, he sometimes still seeks help from a foreign dialect. The fact is that he himself, of course, was conquered by the Jewish truth, but he was surrounded on all sides by hordes of “his own.” I will only say that I would like to have not just naked hostility to his name, but also [based on] knowledge of Scripture, so that I would not value at all the images and shadows of those ghosts about which they say that they scare children and rumble in dark corners. See Zhukov S. Biblical studies of Blessed Jerome of Stridon in the work “Jewish Questions on the Book of Genesis”: Dissertation for the degree of candidate of theology. Sergiev Posad, 2005. Polyansky E. Ya. The works of Blessed Jerome as a source for biblical archeology. Kazan, 1908. Explanatory Bible / Ed. Lopukhina A. P. T. I: The Pentateuch of Moses. Petersburg, 1904. Rahmer M. Die hebräischen Traditionen in den Werken des Hieronymus durch einen Vergleichung mit den jüdischen Quellen, ï Die Quaestiones in Genesim. Breslau, 1861. Ginzberg L. Die Haggada bei den Kirchenvätern und in der apokryphischen Literatur // Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums 6 (1898), s. 537–550, 7 (1899), 17–22, 61–75, 117–125, 149–159, 217–231, 292–303, 409–416, 461–470, 485–504, 529–547. Krauss S. “The Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers” // Jewish Quarterly Review 6 (1984), p. 225–261. Grützmacher G. Hieronymus Eine biographische Studie zur alten Kirchengeschichte, 3 vols. (Studien zur Geschichte der Theologie und der Kirche; i, Leipzig, 1901; ii-iii, Berlin, 1906–1908). Cavallera F. Saint Jérômë Sa vie et son o_euvre. 2 vols, Paris, 1922. Kelly J. N. D. Jeromë His Life, Writings and Controversies, London, 1975. Jay P. L’Exégèse de saint Jérôme d’après son “Commentaire sur Isaïe” Paris, 1985. Brown D. Vir Trilinguis: a study in the biblical exegesis of Saint Jerome. Kampen, 1992. Kamesar A. Jerome, Greek Scholarship, and the Hebrew Bible. Oxford, 1993. Hayward C. T. R. Saint Jerome's Hebrew Questions on Genesis. Translation with introduction and commentary. Oxford, 1995. Bardy R. “La Littérature patristique des “Quaestiones et Responsiones” sur l’Écriture Sainte” // Revue biblique 4 J (1932), p. 210–236, 341–369, 515–537: RB 42 (1933), p. 14–30, 211–229, 328–352. Kamesar, op. cit., p. 82–88. Hayward, op. cit., p. 4–7. Simon R. Histoire critique du Vieux Testament. Rotterdam, 1685. Schade L. Die Inspirationslehre des heiligen Hieronymus. Freiburg i. B., 1910, s. 149–153. Kamesar, op. cit., p. 77–80. Hayward, op. cit., p. 9. Cavallera F. Saint Jerome, op. cit., i, p. 144–146. Grützmacher G. Hieronymus, op. cit., ii, s. 62–63. Kelly J. N. D. Jerome, op. cit., p. 155–156. Kamesar, op. cit., p. 41–43. Hayward, op. cit., p. 10–14. Ginzberg L., "Die Haggada", op. Op. Bardy R. "Saint Jerome", op. cit., p. 145–164. Brown, op. cit., p. 71–82. Hayward, op. cit., p. 15–23. Ibid., p. 23–27; Kamesar, op. cit., p. 73–76. Grützmacher G. Hieronymus, op. cit., i, s. 63. Cavallera F. Saint Jerome, op. cit., ii, p. 26–28. Kelly J. N. D. Jerome, op. cit., p. 153.