Vulgate

The definitive scholarly edition of the Vulgate in use today is the Biblia Sacra Vulgata. Editio quinta, edited by Robert Weber and Roger Gryson. This edition presents the reconstructed Latin text of the Bible, accompanied by a comprehensive critical apparatus of textual variants. It thus provides not only a reliable textual foundation for the study of the Latin Bible but also valuable insights into the transmission history of the Vulgate.

The first edition of the Biblia Sacra Vulgata was published in 1969 by the Württembergische Bibelanstalt. It complemented the other concise scholarly editions issued by the same publishing house: Kittel’s Biblia Hebraica, Rahlfs’ Septuagint, and, in a smaller format, the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece. The aim of the edition was to present the original text as faithfully as possible—including its overall structure—while also documenting the most significant textual variants in an extensive critical apparatus.

The Biblia Sacra Vulgata thus represents a scholarly recension based directly on the manuscripts, informed by the major critical editions: the Benedictine edition of San Girolamo in Rome for the Old Testament, and the Oxford edition by J. Wordsworth and H. J. White for the New Testament. The text of these editions was adopted wherever available, after careful examination and, where necessary, improvement. Likewise, H. de Sainte-Marie’s edition was used for the Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos.

The texts of the Prophets, the Books of the Maccabees, the Oratio Manasse, III–IV Esra, and the Epistle to the Laodiceans were newly compiled on the basis of manuscript reproductions, collations, and other preparatory materials provided by the Abbey of San Girolamo in Rome and the Vetus Latina Institute in Beuron. Additional sources include D. De Bruyne’s edition of the Books of the Maccabees, R. L. Bensly and B. Violet’s edition of IV Esra, and J. B. Lightfoot and A. Harnack’s edition of the Epistle to the Laodiceans.

Forty years after its initial publication, this critical yet concise edition of the Vulgate has reached its fifth edition, published in 2007. It has firmly established itself as the standard scholarly text of the Vulgate. The current principal editor is Roger Gryson. The fifth edition includes a revised critical apparatus for the Books of Ruth, Isaiah, and Revelation.