OSSERVAZIONI SULLA NUOVA ‘TRADUZIONE’ DI PS 16 (15) 3 A CURA DELLA CEI

Abstract

The translation of Psalm 16 (15) 3 in the Bible of CEI (Italian Bishops’ Conference) reissued in 2008 presupposes a rash and debatable exegesis, nonetheless widespread from the 1950s onwards, namely the alleged possibility of rendering qᵉḏôšîm ‘idols’ and ’addîrîm ‘powerful gods’. In this perspective, the Psalmist would be an idolater converted to YHWH who would refuse the idols once revered. But no occurrence of either qāḏôš or ’addîr in the Old Testament is allowed to be interpreted in a sense foreign to the worship of YHWH – moreover, there are no parallel passages in the Psalms where the author confesses an idolatrous past or exalts the power of pagan idols. This paper compares the Masoretic Text in Ps 16 (15) 1-4 mainly with the Greek versions and with Jerome’s so-called Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos, proposing both a textual rearrangement with minimal
adjustments of the Hebrew paradosis and a translation in the frame of the traditional exegesis of these verses.