Latin Psalter Introduction,Text and Commentary

by Ladouceur, Davi

• ISBN13: 9781853996832
• ISBN10: 1853996831
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-09-30
• Publisher: Bristol Classical Pr

Summary

Even for an experienced reader of Latin, the Psalter sometimes follows underlying Greek and ultimately Hebrew idiom too literally and thus poses real difficulties. This new commentary on selected psalms, the first to be published for many years, seeks to resolve these problems by placing the Latin within its historical linguistic context. For the reader without Hebrew and only a little Greek, it clarifies how those languages, by bilingual interference and over-literal translation, have influenced and shaped idioms. Finally, it demonstrates how Early Christian exegetes, especially Augustine, confronted unidiomatic peculiarities in a fundamentalist way; specifically, how the resorted to an exegetical resolution of what they perceived as an underlying theological mystery. The psalms have been selected to illustrate the character of this Hebraising, Hellenising post-classical Latin. The commentary, with a glossary of grammatical terms, is accessible to both the beginner and the more advanced reader.

Author Biography

David J. Ladouceur is Associate Professor of Classics, University of Notre Dame

Table of Contents

Introduction	7	(1)
The importance of the Psalms	7	(1)
The first Latin translations	7	(1)
The textual tradition	8	(1)
The need for standardization	8	(1)
Jerome and the three versions of the Psalter	9	(1)
The Gallican Psalter	9	(2)
The object of this commentary	11	(3)
Notes on Hebrew Grammar	14	(4)
The noun	14	(1)
The adjective	15	(1)
Comparison	15	(1)
Relative clauses	16	(1)
Verbs	16	(2)
Glossary of Grammatical Terms	18	(2)
Bibliography and Abbreviations	20	(3)
Pronunciation of Hebrew	23	(1)
Table of Psalms	24	(1)
Latin Text	25	(26)
Commentary	51