Making the Bible World Literature: The Vulgate and Ancient Versions

Abstract

This chapter will analyze the Bible, showing how by itself it became a landmark of world literature, and the literary impact it has had on literature all over the world, from its composition until now. It will investigate the ancient versions of the Bible as a forceful means of making it world literature: the origins of the Latin versions, made on the original Greek and Hebrew, the Vulgate, and other ancient versions, especially Syriac and Coptic, but also others, also in conversation with issues of translatability. This chapter will emphasize the importance of the Bible in world literature, thanks to its religious value, its powerful ethical models, and its ancient translations, adaptations, and literary reworkings, which facilitated the spread of Judaism and Christianity as world religions and testified to the value of Scripture as world literature for many centuries, until Dante, Milton, and onwards.