Old Latin Bible

The Old Latin Bible, also known collectively as the Vetus Latina tradition, is the earliest family of Latin biblical translations and an important witness to early Greek texts. Produced for Latin-speaking Christian communities before the wide adoption of Jerome's Vulgate, it covers both the Old and New Testaments in multiple forms, translated from Greek: the Septuagint served as the base text for the Old Testament, while early Greek forms underlie the New Testament. Its translation philosophy is varied, and it is best categorized as a set of multiple fresh translations rather than a single unified version. Readings differ substantially from one manuscript to another, so that 'Old Latin' functions as a family label rather than the name of one fixed text. Surviving in manuscripts and in quotations by early Latin writers, it remains valuable to scholars for the light it sheds on Greek textual forms that circulated in antiquity.