The last historical person listed by
Henry St. John Thackeray, in his Evidence
on the Origin of the Septuagint, is witness number 17, Jerome,
who lived from about 347 to 420, writing over 650 years
after the Septuagint was supposedly made.
Jerome is the last person in a chain of events
that leads to the Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate.
Let's sum up that chain so far.
We start with the story of the Septuagint.
Whether it was made BC or AD, that text is around
by about 50 AD, and continues through the 230s,
up to Origen's Hexapla.
The Hexapla listed Greek translations
of the Hebrew text, from the most literal
to the most free, Aquila being the most literal,
followed by Symmachus and Theodotion,
the most loose translation.
After that, Two-Faced Liar Origen
went two different directions.
One was to critically examine the so-called
Septuagint of his day.
He made that giant multi-volume Hexapla
to tell what was added in the Septuagint Greek,
but not in the Hebrew, and what was missing
in the Septuagint Greek, but clearly in the Hebrew.
He made markings, so anyone could tell
which was which.
Then he wrote commentaries and homilies
that said if it wasn't in the Hebrew Old Testament,
it wasn't really scripture and should be removed.
But Origen also wrote a letter to Sextus Julius Africanus,
saying the opposite.
Origen lied, saying that Jewish leaders
removed from the Bible anything that made them look bad.
But he said that God added it in the Septuagint Greek,
so that the additional words were from God.
And the words that were removed were unnecessary.
And the 72 translators did it all by the Spirit of God.
So Origen wrote to his scholar friends,
saying the Hebrew text was the true Old Testament scripture.
But for the churches of Alexandria, he said the Septuagint
was the actual scripture.
Which one was it?
Jerome had been best friends with Epiphanius,
the Origen hater, since they were in their 20s.
Epiphanius claimed all 80 heresies of his day
had their Origen in Origen.
But he said that Origen's hexaplause was wonderful.
So when Jerome was commissioned in 382 AD
to make an official Roman Catholic Latin Bible,
would he choose the Hebrew text or Origen's Greek text?
Enter Augustine of Hippo, the famous Catholic
you hear about a lot, who later wrote
Confessions and City of God.
He loved Origen's Greek text, and wrote to Jerome
that it would cause division if Jerome's Roman Catholic
Latin Vulgate didn't use Origen's Greek.
Augustine pled with Jerome in letters
over 11 years, from 394 to 405 AD,
to change any places that were different from the 70.
But Augustine didn't have the Septuagint text.
He had Origen's text from the 5th column of the hexapla,
with all his added notes.
So Jerome basically told Augustine,
if you want a pure Septuagint, you can remove
all the places with asterisks.
Where Origen added in Theodotion's
Greek translation of the Hebrew, where sections were missing
in the Septuagint, he called Theodotion
a Jew and a blasphemer, whom Origen
should never have copied.
It sounded from their back-and-forth letters
that Jerome was going to make a Latin Bible
that really matched up with the Hebrew.
That's what my Fuller Seminary professors told me.
They said,
Jerome was the first modern text critic,
ignoring Origen's work on the hexapla.
If Jerome made a Latin text right from the Hebrew
and only the Hebrew, that would have been wonderful!
But surprise!
He didn't!
Now I have checked numerous experts
to find out how Jerome really put together
his Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate Old Testament.
The 39 regular Old Testament books
were loosely translated from the Hebrew,
but clear enough to where you can see
he had the same Hebrew as we have today.
But despite what he said, he also translated
the Apocryphal books.
1. Jerome employed a Jewish man
to translate an Aramaic text of Tobit and Judith,
and read it to him in Hebrew.
Then Jerome paraphrased what he heard into Latin.
2. Jerome translated the additions to Esther
from the Greek Septuagint.
But he also translated another version from Hebrew.
3. Jerome translated additions to Daniel
from Theodotion's column of the hexapla.
But he translated another one from Hebrew.
4. Jerome basically already had Latin texts
for Baruch, the Letter of Jeremiah,
Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Sirach,
and 1 and 2 Maccabees.
5. Jerome translated other books
that were neither in the Septuagint or Hebrew.
They were 4th Esdras, the Prayer of Manassas
and the Epistle to the Laodiceans.
So in short, Jerome wrote against the Septuagint,
but he translated parts of it anyway.
Jerome wrote in his preface to Job,
the Jewish Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion,
Judaizing heretics.
And yet Jerome's Roman Catholic Latin Old Testament
is blending all kinds of sources, including them.
I would have thought he would have stuck to his convictions.
But that is not the case.
But there was one more test.
I have tried to check the best copies
of Jerome's Roman Catholic Vulgate that I can find.
Mine is dated 2007.
Here's the question.
Did Jerome really trust the Hebrew
for the 39 genuine Old Testament books,
like my professor said?
Take a look at two revealing verses.
Genesis 3.15, with a single word
the doctrine was changed.
In the real Bible, God said to the serpent,
you can say it with me if you want to,
quote,
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman,
and between thy seed and her seed.
It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
It refers to the woman's seed, who is Jesus Christ.
But in Jerome's Vulgate, it says Ipsa, she.
And by she, he meant Mary.
That's why you see all those pictures and idols of Mary
around the world, with her foot on a snake.
Because of Jerome, not even the Septuagint.
Roman Catholics have been taught the lie from Jerome
that Mary is the queen of heaven, co-mediator with Christ,
who actually crushes the serpent, conquers the devil,
and brings salvation.
Blasphemy!
And this from Jerome's Roman Catholic Latin Vulgate.
It was translated into English in the Douay-Rheims Bible of 1610
that was in use until the Confraternity Bible.
Then the New American Bible took its place.
What about Psalm 13.3 in the Septuagint and the Vulgate?
Does Jerome's Latin copy the Hebrew?
Or does it add Paul's words from Romans 3, 13-18?
Surprise!
Just like the Septuagint, Jerome adds all of Paul's words.
Here it is.
Latin Vulgate on the left, Douay-Rheims on the right.
Did the Roman Catholics say it didn't belong?
Look at their commentaries.
Here many Greek and Latin texts insert the Old Testament quotations,
which were first combined in Romans 3, 13-18.
And here is a 1970 New American Bible.
Same note.
Remember, from the 405 to the 1970s, Roman Catholics had an official Bible
that added Paul's words from Romans 3, 13-18 into Psalm 14-3.
If they were willing to change God's words here,
what else were they willing to change?
It is clear that Jerome is not trustworthy.
On top of not fixing Psalm 14-3, he inserted a heresy into Genesis 3.15
to say she, Mary, would bruise Satan's head,
indoctrinating generations of Mary worshippers.
Now finally, let's see what he said about the origin of the Septuagint.
This is from Jerome's preface to the Pentateuch.
I know not who was that first lying author
to construct the seventy cells at Alexandria,
in which they were separated, yet all wrote the same words.
Whereas Aristeas, one of the bodyguards of the said Ptolemy,
and long after him Josephus, have said nothing of the sort,
but write that they were assembled in a single hall
the Latin word, Basilica, and conferred together.
Look at Aristeas section 302, not that they prophesied.
For it is one thing to be a prophet, another to be an interpreter.
And this is from Jerome's commentary on Ezekiel 2-5,
that's on Ezekiel 5-12.
Yet Aristeas and Josephus and the whole Jewish school
assert that only the five books of Moses
were translated by the seventy.
Did you notice the two supposedly most scholarly men
of their time, Augustine and Jerome,
kept calling the alleged translators of the subject
the 70?
The letter of Aristeas, as we know, says 72.
And despite everything else, after 650 years
of possible evidence, Jerome said nothing new,
nothing we haven't already heard.
He is still basing a story off of the letter of Aristeas.
Witness number 17, Jerome is excused.