Early Christian Scholarship and the Latin Job: How Jerome Dressed the Figue of Job in the Theology of Sin and Repentance

Jerome’s translation of the Book of Job from Hebrew was a remarkable achieve-ment, intended to provide an accurate rendering of the Hebrew text and to correct the losses and corruptions found in the Greek versions. At the same time, Jerome imposed his own theological interpretation on the Book of Job. A clear example of this is the way in which his Latin translation presents the figure of Job through the lens of sin and repentance. In the Hebrew text, Job blames God for his misery, but in Jerome’s iuxta Hebraeos, Job blames his own sins. Various passages, such as 1:1, 6:2–3, 7:20–21, 9:20–21, 9:28–29, 10:13–16, 14:4, 31:35–37, 42:6, and 42:10, reveal that Job’s case in the iuxta Hebraeos has been subtly yet decisively altered. The issue shifts from whether Job is righteous (his view) or sinful (his friends’ view) to the recognition that Job is both righteous and a sinner, as he acknowledges from the beginning (6:2–3 iuxta Hebraeos). Consequently, to reconcile with God, he must repent (42:6, 42:10 iuxta Hebraeos). Jerome probably did not consciously and self-willingly change the text to align it with his theological agenda. Rather, he naturally read the text through his own theological lens, and in his translation he made explicit what he believed the text implied.