Vulgate Gen 1 1:9-11ish

In light of some reading that I’m doing for the sake of a friend, and for myself (The History of Sex Part I, Michel Foucault), I think it best to continue this blog translating Genesis from both the Septuagint and Vulgate.  Again, since neither the Septuagint nor the Vulgate are written in Hebrew (and since I can’t read Hebrew) these translations will not be authoritative qua the text itself as an inspired document.  Hopefully they will be able to shed some light on differences in the practices and beliefs of the Eastern v. the Western Church.  In this series, my desire is to point out some things that aren’t necessarily said very often about the Catholic creation myths, especially as regards human sexuality.  I happily confess that some of the things written here will be generated by my sporadic readings of JP II’s Theology of the Body.  Credit to the late great Pope will be given when due, and when that credit is given, please note  that the principle expounded, while not dogmatically necessary for all Catholics, is, nonetheless authoritative.  Everything else is just me talking.

We’ll start with the Vulgate from where I left off (you can find my translations and commentaries for Genesis 1: 1-8, filed on the main page under Vulgate translations) and I’ll point out relevant points as I go along.

Gen 1:9

dixit vero Deus congregentur aquae quae sub caelo sunt in locum unum et appareat arida factumque est ita et vocavit Deus aridam terram congregationesque aquarum appelavit maria et vidit Deus quod esset bona et ait germinet terra herbam virentem et facientem semen et lignum pomiferum faciens fructum iuxta genus suum cuius semen in semet ipso sit super terram, et factum est ita.

And verily God said: let the waters rush together, those which are under the sky, into one place, and let there appear a dry place.  And it was so, and God called the dry, “earth” and called the assembled waters “sea,” and God saw that it was Good.  And he said: “Let the earth sprout forth verdant seed making vegetation, and the fruit-tree making fruit according to it’s kind and let its seed be in itself above the earth, and so it was.

Nothing too controversial or interesting here — I do want to point out however, the ambiguity of “iuxta genus suum,” (according to it’s own kind).  iuxta can also mean, in that position, “next to,” “side by side with,” “hard by,” “close to,” etc.  In other words, it has a whole gamut of spatial meaning as well as the pseudo-didactic instructional meaning that I’ve translated.  This could have relevance if one is inclined to look for sexual norms in the text, since everything in the Bible, and certainly everything in Genesis, needs to be evaluated, as much as possible, in view of everything else.

Septuagint Comparison coming up!

Credo Ut Intellegam

JS