Page 39 - Yahwehs Book

I will share a judgment on the correspondence that appears above. I believe that Jerome argues well
from the perspective of one who is a lover of truth and who wants to produce an authentic and
accurate translation of the Bible. Jerome is not concerned about the approval of men. He desires to
be faithful to the testimony of the evangelists (those who wrote the Gospels) and the apostles. In
many places the evangelists and apostles quoted Old Testament passages. Many of these Old
Testament passages are not to be found in the Septuagint, or they are obscured by a poor translation,
yet Jerome declared that they appeared in the Hebrew Scriptures that were extant at the time and
present among all the Jews in their synagogues.

Saint Augustine - Catholic Theologian

On the other hand, Augustine is arguing from the perspective of one concerned with politics. He is
concerned lest there be a division between Latin and Greek factions of the church. He argues that
if the Latin Scriptures that Jerome is laboring to produce should deviate from the Greek Scriptures
that “differences” will arise. Such an argument is unworthy of one who proclaims to be a follower
of Christ. Truth, not politics, should be the guiding principle for the disciple of Christ. It matters not
whether there be irreconcilable differences between the Septuagint and a new Bible translation, as
long as the new translation is accurate to the original autographs of the prophets, and consistent with
the inspired quotations of the Gospel writers and apostles.

Jerome mentions that he has been inspired by the zeal of Origen, one of the early church fathers and
the creator of the Hexapla, the six translation Bible previously mentioned. Origen used a system of
asterisks and obelisks to mark where the Greek translations deviated from the Hebrew. Origen
marked with an obelisk and asterisk where words or sentences had been added or omitted in the
Greek text. Some of the additions and omissions were deliberate, and done with evil intent. Jerome
describes Theodotion, who produced one of the Greek translations, as “a man who, after the passion
of Christ, was a Jew and a blasphemer.” That is to say, Theodotion denied that Yahshua was the
Christ, the Son of God. Theodotion made deliberate alterations to the Greek Scriptures to obscure
those passages in the Old Testament that would lend credence to the truth that Yahshua was indeed
the Son of God and the Jew’s promised Messiah. These alterations had made their way into the
Septuagint of Jerome and Augustine’s day. In a follow-up letter Jerome asks Augustine why, if he
is so zealous for the Septuagint, does he not use the original version of that translation ascribed to