he Very Reverend Eugen J. Pentiuc, St. Vladimir's professor of Scripture and Semitic Languages, was invited by École biblique et archéologique française to spend six weeks in Jerusalem in the summer of 2015 completing his work for La Bible en ses traditions / The Bible in Its Traditions (or B.E.S.T). His contribution, "The Book of Hosea: A New Translation with Notes," once finished, will be published along with other contributions thus far completed by additional scholars, as the very first achievements of this ongoing digital Study Bible project. This will be the first digital, online Study Bible produced by the same school that created the well-known Study Bible, La Bible de Jerusalem (1956), known also as The New Jerusalem Bible.
"We are thrilled having Fr. Pentiuc as the main contributor to our Bible project, on the book of Hosea," stated Fr. Olivier-Thomas Venard, OP, Vice-Director of the École biblique and B.E.S.T. Project Director. "His multifaceted scholarly expertise, especially his highly recognized philological skills, his interpretive insights, both based on fresh textual criticism and anchored in patristic and liturgical tradition, and his enthusiasm, are commendable. His presence among us and our collaboration provide us with one more opportunity to appeal to our Orthodox scholar-brothers, inheritors of such a rich hermeneutical and theological tradition, to join us in retrieving the Bible as it has been read for two thousand years, while we are passing it on to the digital era."
The rigorous template designed by the B.E.S.T.'s steering committee, and followed by the contributors in their work ,aims to condense two thousand years of scriptural interpretation. This new Scripture translation based on the Septuagint, Masoretic Text, Peshitta, and Vulgate, will be accompanied by a wide array of study notes divided into three sections: text, context, and reception. The translation will cover various interpretive aspects, from textual, lexical, and literary notes, to Jewish and Christian commentaries and theological treatises.
École biblique et archéologique française is the oldest center of biblical and archaeological research in the Holy Land. It was founded in 1890 by Father Marie-Joseph Lagrange. The school is the world-renowned premier biblical school that combines written documents, archeological artifacts, and patristic interpretive tradition aiming at a holistic understanding of the Word of God.
