William Whitaker’s Rule for Every Translation

William Whitaker did not write a special rule for Latin and leave Greek translations exempt.

His controversy concerned the Latin Vulgate because Rome had elevated that version in the public life of the Church. His answer, however, did not depend upon Latin being late, ugly, or useless. It depended upon Latin being a translation.

That made the principle universal.

The principle that subordinates the Vulgate to the Hebrew and Greek also subordinates the Authorized Version to them. It reaches every Greek translation of the Old Testament as well. Change the language and the history; the relation between source and version remains.

Whitaker’s thesis may be stated in one sentence:

Translations of Scripture must be brought back to the originals, received where they agree, and corrected where they do not, because no interpreter makes his translation authentic Scripture.

This was not an incidental observation. It stood at the hinge of the Protestant controversy over the authentic text.

The Controversy Whitaker Inherited

The Council of Trent declared in 1546 that the old Latin Vulgate was to be held as authentic in public lectures, disputations, sermons, and expositions, and that no one should dare reject it under any pretext.¹

The decree itself arose amid several Latin editions and the practical need for a public standard. The controversy did not stop at that limited description. Roman theologians disputed whether the Vulgate could be corrected from the Hebrew and Greek and whether an appeal beyond the Latin was lawful.

Whitaker reports the resulting claims with care. According to his account, Melchior Canus drew four conclusions: the Vulgate must be retained in matters of faith and morals; such questions must be determined by it; appeal must not be made to Hebrew and Greek copies; and the Latin must not be corrected from them. Whitaker also reports that the English Rhemists praised the Latin as superior even to the Greek original and prototype.²

This is the state of the question Whitaker answered:

• Does a version possess authenticity of itself?
• May it be placed beyond correction from its source?
• Does ecclesiastical use transfer original authority to the translation?
• When a version and an original differ, which judges which?

Those are precisely the questions raised whenever a Greek Old Testament reading is made sufficient to rewrite the Hebrew.

Whitaker Names the Authentic Text

Whitaker’s answer begins by identifying the object:

Our churches … determine … that the Hebrew of the old Testament, and the Greek of the new, is the sincere and authentic scripture of God.³

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1. Council of Trent, Session IV, “Decree Concerning the Edition, and the Use, of the Sacred Books”, April 8, 1546. The decree’s exact words should be distinguished from the stronger conclusions drawn by particular Roman controversialists. ↩
2. William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, trans. William Fitzgerald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1849), 111–12. Whitaker reports the positions of Melchior Canus, the Rhemists, Lindanus, and Andradius before stating the Protestant answer. See the public scan. ↩
3. Whitaker, Disputation, 112. The entire sentence is important: the originals determine questions, while versions are approved according to their agreement with them. ↩

The consequence follows immediately. Questions are determined by those originals, and versions are approved insofar as they agree with them.

The sequence matters.

Whitaker does not first collate every Latin manuscript and then decide whether the Hebrew deserves authority. He begins with the inspired-language Scriptures as the authentic rule. He then judges the version according to its agreement with that rule.

This order does not eliminate evidence. Whitaker spends many pages examining readings, patristic statements, translation history, and the arguments of Bellarmine. He does not answer textual questions by repeating a slogan. His doctrine gives the evidence a jurisdiction in which to operate.

The critic serves the text because the text is given before the critic examines its witnesses.

His Chapter on the Seventy

Whitaker’s chapter “Of the Greek Version by the Seventy Translators of the Hebrew Books” is especially important. It prevents anyone from treating his principle as an anti-Latin prejudice.

He begins by recognizing the fame and ancient esteem of the Greek translation. He rehearses the account associated with Ptolemy Philadelphus and the seventy-two interpreters. He acknowledges that the version was held in high authority and “deservedly too.”

Then he draws the boundary:

They … attribute too much to it, who make it inspired, and equal to the authentic scriptures themselves.⁴

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1. Council of Trent, Session IV, “Decree Concerning the Edition, and the Use, of the Sacred Books”, April 8, 1546. The decree’s exact words should be distinguished from the stronger conclusions drawn by particular Roman controversialists. ↩
2. William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, trans. William Fitzgerald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1849), 111–12. Whitaker reports the positions of Melchior Canus, the Rhemists, Lindanus, and Andradius before stating the Protestant answer. See the public scan. ↩
3. Whitaker, Disputation, 112. The entire sentence is important: the originals determine questions, while versions are approved according to their agreement with them. ↩
4. Whitaker, Disputation, 121–22. He grants the version’s ancient esteem but rejects the claim that the interpreters were inspired or equal to the prophets. ↩

The reason is not that the translators were Greek-speaking. It is that their authority was not the authority of the prophets. An interpreter is not thereby a prophet.

Whitaker therefore treats the Septuagintal claim as a direct parallel to the Vulgate claim. A version may be ancient, esteemed, used by churches, and praised by learned men. None of those facts makes its production an act of immediate inspiration.

His discussion also contains historical judgments that this series will not repeat uncritically. He considered the original translation of the Seventy lost and the Greek text of his day badly mixed and corrupted. He accepted some traditional claims about the translation event while doubting others. Manuscript discoveries and modern study require those assertions to be examined anew.

That qualification does not weaken his formal rule. It keeps two kinds of claim distinct:

1. Historical claim: What Greek translations existed, when, and in what form?
2. Theological rule: Does any translation possess authenticity of itself over the Hebrew source?

Whitaker could be corrected on the first without yielding the second.

The Rule in Its Exact Form

Whitaker states the point most fully while answering an argument that the Greeks had authentic Scripture in their own language through the Septuagint and that the Latin Church should therefore possess an equally authentic Latin version.

He first asks what authentic means in the claim. If it means merely that a version is approved and useful, the dispute changes. If it means what Rome’s defenders claimed for the Vulgate—authentic of itself and not to be tried by the originals—Whitaker denies it.

Then comes the rule:

“In this sense no translation ever was, or could be, authentic.” Translations are brought back to the originals, “received if they agree” and “corrected if they do not.”⁵

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1. Council of Trent, Session IV, “Decree Concerning the Edition, and the Use, of the Sacred Books”, April 8, 1546. The decree’s exact words should be distinguished from the stronger conclusions drawn by particular Roman controversialists. ↩
2. William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, trans. William Fitzgerald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1849), 111–12. Whitaker reports the positions of Melchior Canus, the Rhemists, Lindanus, and Andradius before stating the Protestant answer. See the public scan. ↩
3. Whitaker, Disputation, 112. The entire sentence is important: the originals determine questions, while versions are approved according to their agreement with them. ↩
4. Whitaker, Disputation, 121–22. He grants the version’s ancient esteem but rejects the claim that the interpreters were inspired or equal to the prophets. ↩
5. Whitaker, Disputation, 138. His phrase “in this sense” keeps the distinction exact: translations may be received as God’s Word, but none is authentic of itself and exempt from trial by the originals. ↩

The language admits no privileged translation.

No translation ever was authentic in this sense. Antiquity cannot confer it.

No translation could be authentic in this sense. Future ecclesiastical reception cannot confer it.

Translations are received if they agree. Their authority is real but dependent.

Translations are corrected if they do not. Their use does not place them beyond examination.

The originals supply the rule. A version does not become the standard by which its source is remade.

This is the fountain-and-stream principle in doctrinal form.

The Interpreter Does Not Create Scripture

Later in the same controversy, Whitaker turns to Jerome.

Jerome was learned, industrious, and deeply useful to the Church. None of those excellencies made him a prophet. Whitaker cites Jerome’s own distinction: the prophet speaks by the Spirit; the interpreter uses learning and command of words to translate what he understands.

Whitaker then states the office:

“It is the function of an interpreter to translate the authentic scripture, not to make his own translation authentic scripture.”⁶

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1. Council of Trent, Session IV, “Decree Concerning the Edition, and the Use, of the Sacred Books”, April 8, 1546. The decree’s exact words should be distinguished from the stronger conclusions drawn by particular Roman controversialists. ↩
2. William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture, trans. William Fitzgerald (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1849), 111–12. Whitaker reports the positions of Melchior Canus, the Rhemists, Lindanus, and Andradius before stating the Protestant answer. See the public scan. ↩
3. Whitaker, Disputation, 112. The entire sentence is important: the originals determine questions, while versions are approved according to their agreement with them. ↩
4. Whitaker, Disputation, 121–22. He grants the version’s ancient esteem but rejects the claim that the interpreters were inspired or equal to the prophets. ↩
5. Whitaker, Disputation, 138. His phrase “in this sense” keeps the distinction exact: translations may be received as God’s Word, but none is authentic of itself and exempt from trial by the originals. ↩
6. Whitaker, Disputation, 147. Whitaker develops the distinction while discussing Jerome and the Vulgate. ↩

This sentence excludes a subtle but common evasion.

A defender of translation supremacy may deny that the translator consciously intended to correct the source. He may say that providence caused a superior meaning to appear in the translation, that ecclesiastical use confirmed it, or that later readers discovered truth beyond what the source-language evidence supports.

Whitaker’s distinction still governs. If the wording in question did not come from the inspired source but originated in the translator as translator, it is not made authentic Scripture by the act of translation.

Providence may use a translator without repeating inspiration. The Church may profit from a rendering without canonizing its departure. A translator may explain, clarify, or even stumble. He remains an interpreter.

Applied to the Latin Vulgate

The Latin Vulgate can truly communicate the Word of God where it faithfully renders the Hebrew and Greek. Whitaker does not need to deny every good sentence in it. He frequently distinguishes praise for a careful version from a claim that the version is authentic of itself.

The question is what happens when Latin and the originals differ.

If the Hebrew and Greek correct the Latin, the version remains in its lawful office. If the Latin is placed beyond correction and used to condemn the originals, the stream is made the fountain.

This is why the controversy concerns authority rather than mere quality. A superb translation remains a translation. A flawed translation may still communicate much truth. Neither fact changes the direction of judgment.

Applied to the Authorized Version

The Authorized Version is the faithful English Bible received by this project. Its dignity should not be defended by assigning it an office its translators rejected.

The translators worked from the Hebrew and Greek, compared earlier translations, and corrected what they judged less agreeable to the original. Their first rule required the Bishops’ Bible to be altered where “the truth of the Original” demanded it. Their preface defended the Word translated while openly allowing imperfections in translation.⁷

Whitaker’s rule therefore protects the Authorized Version from two opposite attacks.

Against the modern critic who treats the AV as merely human religious literature, Whitaker allows a faithful version to be received as the Word of God because it agrees with the authentic text.

Against the Ruckmanite who makes English correct Hebrew or Greek, Whitaker refuses to let the interpreter manufacture authentic Scripture.

The AV’s authority is not reduced by this distinction. It is located. The English is authoritative because it faithfully carries the voice of the Hebrew and Greek.

Applied to the Greek Old Testament

The Greek Old Testament presents additional historical questions because some Greek translations are ancient. They may preserve Jewish interpretation from before Christ, reveal the meaning assigned to difficult Hebrew words, or perhaps reflect another Hebrew exemplar.

Whitaker’s rule does not forbid those uses. It forbids their promotion.

Suppose the Greek differs from the received Hebrew. The researcher should ask:

1. What exact Greek witness or edition contains the reading?
2. Is the reading original to the Greek translation or secondary within Greek transmission?
3. How did the translator of this biblical book ordinarily work?
4. Can the difference be explained as translation, interpretation, harmonization, or revision?
5. If another Hebrew source is proposed, is it extant or reconstructed?
6. What warrant permits that reconstruction to displace the received Hebrew?

The first five questions are historical. The sixth is theological.

Modern scholarship can offer substantial help with the first five. It does not gain jurisdiction over the sixth merely by answering them skillfully.

A Greek reading can be good evidence that a translator read or understood something differently. It does not become authentic Hebrew through retroversion.

Whitaker and the Ben Chayyim Text

Historical accuracy requires another distinction.

Whitaker’s formal rule is that the authentic Hebrew judges translations. He did not write, “The second Bomberg Rabbinic Bible edited by Jacob ben Chayyim is the finally collated text.” We must not place later bibliographical specificity in his mouth.

Confessional bibliology makes a further application. It identifies the received Masoretic tradition, classically represented in the Bomberg–Ben Chayyim text of 1524–25, as the public Hebrew text received in the Reformation.

The relation should be stated openly:

• Whitaker supplies the rule: the authentic Hebrew stands over every version.
• The later confessional application identifies the received form: the preserved Masoretic text represented in the Ben Chayyim/Bomberg tradition.

This prevents two mistakes.

The first is anachronism: pretending that every later editorial specification appears verbatim in Whitaker.

The second is abstraction: praising Whitaker’s “Hebrew original” while replacing the received Hebrew with a perpetually reconstructed eclectic text.

The formal doctrine must have a historical object. The historical identification must remain subordinate to the formal doctrine.

The Strongest Reply

A critic may answer that Whitaker lived before the modern discovery and analysis of many manuscripts. Versions can sometimes preserve readings older than the surviving Hebrew copies. Why should a sixteenth-century rule prevent responsible textual correction?

The answer begins with a concession. Whitaker’s historical knowledge was limited, and his descriptions of the Greek tradition must be tested. A modern scholar may know more about a papyrus, translation technique, or recension than Whitaker did.

What the scholar does not acquire through that knowledge is inspiration.

The discovery of older evidence changes the historical dossier. It does not change the nature of translation or the identity of the authentic Old Testament. To make the historical discovery overthrow the confessional rule, one must first disprove the doctrine that the Hebrew Scriptures were kept pure and remain the Church’s final appeal.

The scholar must also show more than difference. He must establish that the Greek reading is early, that it reflects the original translator, that the translator followed a different Hebrew text rather than interpreting the received one, that the reconstructed Hebrew is recoverable with sufficient confidence, and that this hypothetical reading has authority to displace the public Hebrew tradition.

That is a sequence of arguments, not a self-evident consequence of antiquity.

Whitaker does not end research. He prevents research from crowning itself.

One Rule, Without Partiality

The force of Whitaker’s position lies in its even hand.

If Latin agrees with the originals, receive it. If it does not, correct it.

If English agrees with the originals, receive it. If it does not, correct it.

If a Greek Old Testament version agrees with the authentic Hebrew, receive it as a faithful Greek witness. If it differs, investigate the cause and judge the version by the Hebrew.

No favorite language is exempt. No translator becomes a prophet by age, learning, providential usefulness, or ecclesiastical honor.

The rule is not hostile to versions. It makes faithful translation possible. A version can be praised because a prior standard exists by which its faithfulness is known. It can be corrected without destroying Scripture because the authentic Word stands above the correction.

Whitaker’s controversy was with Rome.

His rule reaches every stream.

Notes and Further Reading

For the received Hebrew’s major printed embodiment, see Christian D. Ginsburg, Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible (London: Trinitarian Bible Society, 1897), and the Library of Congress account of the second Rabbinic Bible.

Previous in the series: “What ‘Authentical’ Means.”

Next in the series: “The Translator Is Not a Prophet.”