Bible Translation by Jews and Christians in Medieval Catalan-Speaking Territories

Abstract

Despite bans on the reading or possession of Bibles in the vernacular, numerous medieval Catalan translations of the Bible survive, in particular a complete Bible from the fourteenth century, some ten psalters, and a fifteenth-century version of the four Gospels. Moreover, Catalan was the second Romance language in which a full Bible was printed (1478), following the Tuscan Bible of 1471. Most of these translations were commissioned by Christians for the use of Christians. In some cases, however, it is clear that the translators were converted Jews. In some others, the translations appear to have been written by Jews for Jewish readers. We also find one case in which Catalan was the source rather than the target language: the first extant translation of the four Gospels into Hebrew (late fifteenth century) was undertaken, probably by a Jew, using the aforementioned fourteenth-century Catalan Bible.