The Biblical Scholarship of Jerome: A Pillar of Early Christianity > 자유게시판

• 목록
• 답변
• 글쓰기
• 게시판 리스트 옵션
  • 수정
  • 삭제

As the Church was consolidating its doctrinal identity, engaging with the sacred texts was a critical imperative for Christian intellectuals and clergy. No figure loomed larger than Jerome, a brilliant linguist and churchman who thrived during the twilight of antiquity. His scholarly legacy became the bedrock of biblical interpretation in the Western Church.

Jerome was passionately committed to studying the the ancient tongues of Scripture—the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek New Testament. At a time when many Christian writers relied on earlier Latin versions that were derivative and imprecise, Jerome reverted to the primal manuscripts. He believed that to truly grasp the meaning of Scripture required immersing oneself in the original phrasing.

His most enduring contribution was producing a Latin version of the Bible, known today as the Vulgate. In the centuries preceding him, there were multiple Latin Bibles, but they lacked uniformity and scholarly precision. He undertook a prolonged apprenticeship in Hebrew under Jewish teachers, mastering its grammatical and lexical complexities and the interpretive customs honed by generations of Jewish exegetes. He refused mechanical rendering; he sought the theological and rhetorical essence of the text. This method endowed the Vulgate with unprecedented precision and theological weight.

In addition to his translation work, Jerome was a masterful expositor of the sacred text. He composed detailed expositions on dozens of biblical books, bridging ecclesiastical doctrine with ancient Jewish hermeneutics. He rigorously separated surface sense from deeper typology, acknowledging the richness of multivalent interpretation. He wrestled thoughtfully with the interpretations of Origen and https://asbest.name/forum/46-13289-1 Augustine, sometimes agreeing with them and sometimes challenging their views. His writings show a deep respect for the text as divinely inspired, but also a commitment to intellectual honesty and scholarly rigor.

Jerome’s work had a lasting impact. By anchoring exegesis in the Hebrew and Greek texts, he redirected theological discourse from fanciful symbolism and toward a more disciplined, text-based approach. His approach became the gold standard for biblical study, and shaped the way the Church taught its members about the Bible. To this day, scholars studying the history of biblical interpretation look to Jerome as the archetype of scholarly devotion and theological integrity.