Seminar: “Bede and the Multiplicity of Scripture”
John Gallagher (Mellon Fellow, PIMS)
In the early medieval period, the Latin Vulgate Bible was the normative scriptural text. However, alternative versions and readings circulated in manuscripts, mixed Vulgate texts, and patristic literature. Throughout his oeuvre, Bede drew heavily upon the plurality of the scriptural textual tradition to enrich his exegesis, and viewed earlier Hebrew, Greek, and Old Latin versions as complementing the Vulgate text. In this way, Bede developed a highly distinctive comparative exegesis that brought different biblical traditions, languages, and variants to bear on the Latin Vulgate Bible. This seminar will outline Bede’s understanding of the textual history of scripture, the value of alternative readings in the pursuit of exegesis, and the politics involved in balancing conflicting biblical versions. It will present new evidence concerning one of Bede’s earliest commentaries, his work on the Catholic Epistles, along with a selection of related works, offering fresh insights into his views on the multiplicity of scripture and his practice of biblical philology.
Image: ‘Ezra portrait,’ Codex Amiatinus (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Amiatino 1, fol. 5r).