Publisher's Synopsis
The first volume of The Old English Heptateuch and Ælfric's Libellus de veteri testamento et novo contains the general Introduction and the text; Volume II provides the notes and glossary. This new critical edition, based on Bodleian Library MS Laud misc. 509, replaces O.S. 160, the 1922 edition based on a different manuscript. The new edition collates manuscripts and adds readings not known to Crawford. The Old English Heptateuch (a translation of much of the first seven books of the Old Testament from the Latin Vulgate into Old English, done in the early years of the eleventh century) is the earliest known attempt at continuous translation of the Old Testament into English. It is of particular interest as a witness to the dynamic, but not yet fully understood relationship between Latin and the vernacular in the monasteries of late Anglo-Saxon England. The Heptateuch is a composite work, but much of the translation was done by Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham. The edition includes his preface to the translation of Genesis, and also his Libellus de veteri testamento et novo, a tract in which he presents an exegetical survey of the Bible.
