List of New Testament Latin Manuscripts

List Of New Testament Latin Manuscripts

Latin manuscripts of the New Testament are handwritten copies of translations from the Greek originals. Translations of the New Testament are called versions. They are important in textual criticism, because sometimes versions provide evidence (called a witness) to an earlier "reading" of the Greek, i.e. to the text that may have been lost (or preserved only very poorly) in the subsequent Greek tradition. It is also hypothesised that, in some cases (for example, in the case of the Codex Bezae), early Latin manuscripts may have influenced some early Greek manuscripts. Thus, (accidentally or deliberately) some Latin readings may have "crossed back over" into the Greek. One possible example of this is the well known Comma Johanneum.

Latin manuscripts are divided into "Old Latin" and Vulgate. Old Latin manuscripts (also called Vetus Latina or Itala) are so called not because they are written in Old Latin (i.e. Latin prior to 75 BC), but because they are the oldest versions of the New Testament in Latin. From the linguistic point of view, Old Latin New Testament manuscripts may at times use non-standard grammar and vocabulary.

Unlike the Vulgate, the Vetus Latina tradition reflects numerous distinct, similar, and not entirely independent translations of various New Testament texts, extending back to the time of the original Greek autographs.

In 382 AD Jerome began a revision of the existing Vetus Latina into contemporary Latin, corrected against manuscripts in the original Greek and Hebrew. Jerome's version is known as the Vulgate, because it was in the "vulgar" (or "popular") Latin of everyday speech.