Finding references to Book of Judith versification

Don Awalt

I am trying to find references to the differences in versification of the Book of Judith, and not having any luck.

In short, if you look at Bible Sacra Vulgate, Judith chapter 13 has 31 verses, as does the Douay-Rheims. But the KJV with Apocrypha has 20 verses. 

I am trying to resist just going to Google and reading about it, as I believe there should be some good info in my library about this. Does anyone have any tips or success in finding information on this? Thanks!

Thomas Pape

Bible Verse Maps (logos.com)

DMB

Don Awalt said:

I am trying to find references to the differences in versification of the Book of Judith, and not having any luck.

I couldn't find any search that would pick up the discussion.  But the best discussion is in AYB:

"The Latin Vulgate

The nature of the text used by Jerome for his Latin translation and its relationship to the LXX are among the most debated and perplexing problems in Judithian studies. The statistical approach is one way to illustrate the first problem; for as Voigt has rightly reported:

Of the 340 verses in the Greek text the Vulgate omits 42 entirely and large parts of 45 more. In the remaining verses the Vulgate agrees with the Greek more or less closely only about one half of the time, and literally reproduces the material in the Greek in relatively few instances. As for the rest of the book, about one-third in amount, the same trend of narrative can be recognized, sometimes abbreviated (as in 7:23; 8:9f; 9:14; 11:13, etc.), and sometimes expanded (as in 6:21; 6:3; 8:34, etc.), but on the whole the method of expression and the order of the words is so completely changed in the Vulgate that it is hard to believe that it came from the Greek.… Furthermore, the Vulgate adds 32 verses (e.g., 4:12–14; 5:15–19; 6:16–18; 7:1–22; 8:24f; 9:7–9; 14:9f; etc.), which are unattested by Greek or [Old] Latin. This material as a matter of fact adds nothing new in sense, but merely enlarges on the topic under discussion, (pp. 46–47, 48)

The reason for this great disparity between the Vg and the LXX is well known, for Jerome wrote in his “Preface to Judith”:

By the Hebrews the Book of Judith is placed with the Apocrypha.… Written in the Chaldean language, it is placed with the histories. But because the Council of Nicea is said to have counted this book in the numbers of Sacred Writings, I have succumbed to your request, nay rather your demands; and after my occupations with which I am so much hindered were laid aside, I gave one short night’s work to it, rendering the sense of it rather than a literal translation. I have cut out the most faulty variant readings of the many manuscripts. I have expressed in Latin only those readings which I could find in Chaldean without doing violence to the sense."

Don Awalt

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1219265#Comment_1219265

Thomas Pape said:

Bible Verse Maps (logos.com)

Thanks Thomas, I was more interested in the 'why' not a verse mapping.

DMB said:

I couldn't find any search that would pick up the discussion.  But the best discussion is in AYB:

Thanks DMB - interesting.