From Vulgate to Nova Vulgata

The Council of Trent adopted the Vulgate as the authorized translation of the Roman Catholic Church in 1546[1], establishing it as the Church’s official Latin Bible for centuries. However, the Vulgate that developed over time became a composite work—some portions from Jerome’s original translation, some from surviving Old Latin versions, and some revised after Jerome’s death[2]. This textual complexity, combined with advances in biblical scholarship, eventually prompted ecclesiastical reconsideration.

The shift to the Nova Vulgata reflected the Church’s engagement with modern scholarly methods. The Nova Vulgata was produced under Pope Paul VI and included stylistic and textual updates relying on modern critical methods[1], and it was published in Rome in 1979 and remains the official version for the Roman Catholic Church[1]. Rather than abandoning the Vulgate tradition entirely, the Church modernized it—the Nova Vulgata serves as a Latin typical edition for use in the Roman Rite[3].

The rationale behind this revision centered on scholarly integrity and fidelity to original texts. The Nova Vulgata bears witness to the Church’s critical sense and desire to make full use of human sciences, with the Church serving the Word of God by making every effort to use the best texts and removing errors introduced through transmission[3]. Critics raised concerns about losing the Vulgate’s distinctive readings and their connection to liturgical tradition, yet the Nova Vulgata and accompanying guidelines provide useful and necessary direction for preparing liturgical texts while remaining appropriately flexible in addressing complicated textual problems[3]. Essentially, the Church chose to honor Jerome’s own scholarly principles—updating his work with better access to original sources—rather than preserving a fixed text that had accumulated errors over twelve centuries.

[1] Jeffrey E. Miller, “Vulgate,” in The Concise Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021). [See here, here, here.]
[2] Gregory W. Dawes, Introduction to the Bible, ed. Daniel Durken, The New Collegeville Bible Commentary (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007), 1:30.
[3] Stephen Ryan, “Chapter 9: The Word of God and the Textual Pluriformity of the Old Testament,” in Verbum Domini and the Complementarity of Exegesis and Theology, ed. Scott Carl and Christopher J. Thompson, Catholic Theological Formation Series (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015), 147.