Early mornings have their own breath, before any birds sing or dogs bark or, in my neighborhood, before the neighbors fire up their Harleys to go to work. It's the space between the inhale of full night and the exhale of a new day. Soft and fragile, it comes when the sky turns velvet with the promise of a pink sunrise that hasn't yet come.
Photos can't capture it because it comes only by feel, so still that its first motion comes from a mosquito that hovers near, not on, my skin. A breeze so insignificant that it gets absorbed into motion of the turning earth at any other time.
And then it comes. The exhale. That subtle drop in temperature that starts every new day. The ambient movement that precedes first light, creating the slightest of cool breezes, the only one we will get on a day that promises to huddle with humidity and sizzle with sun. A shiver almost comes, but not quite. More a premonition that summer days aren't all beaches and state fairs, that nothing lasts forever, that footing isn't always as sure as it seems.
And I think of Jerome. Poor, dear Jerome and his Latin Vulgate.
It took him more than twenty years during the late fourth century and early fifth to translate both the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament into the learned language of his day, Latin. The result, his Latin Vulgate translation, has been considered the gold standard by many churches ever since. In many ways, Jerome's translation has become our Bible, the one we have trusted all our lives.
And then comes the day when we understand the extent to which Jerome was just a man, inspired by God and prompted by devotion, but hampered by prejudices and the potential for error from misjudgment, illness, and just plain weariness.
Then comes the day when we come to grips with examples of what effect the fragility of his humanity has on what we are so sure of. The Bible. Our Bible. What we take for granted as true beyond any capacity for doubt.
Then comes the day when we learn that not every word of the Bible may be what it seems.
Take Isaiah 7:14.
You most likely know it by heart:
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
The Hebrew word used here is almah, a word that was commonly used for a young woman or maiden, a unmarried woman. Jerome knew, of course, that this verse is ideologically paired with Matthew 1:23 and undoubtedly wanted to make sure we made the connection, too:
The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel.
So Jerome in his zeal to clarify doctrine, substituted almah, a word meant to describe an unmarried woman with a word meant to describe a virgin instead. Not a terrible stretch, to be sure, but a stretch nonetheless. By Jerome's deft hand, the prophecy declared in Isaiah is fulfilled precisely in Matthew in a single language we couldn't mistake. Proof of Mary's virginity. Partial proof of Christ's divinity. Perfect.
But not quite.
While not quite a blatant mistranslation, it is an interpretation. A well-meaning one, but an interpretation even so.
And that's the rub.
This doesn't mean that Mary, the mother of Christ, wasn't a virgin, of course. She probably was. Otherwise, what would have been all the fuss? It only means that the Bible, while an inspired document, isn't a word-for-word perfect document, especially in the English we probably all read. Not an infallible Guide for Living but signpost pointing to the God it tries to explain, intended to grow in us a desire for God that even His words will not satisfy.
The Bible is an invaluable guide and companion to a faith based not on its specific words but on God Himself.
The Bible is a fragile connection to God sometimes, but it is a connection. Like our image in the mirror is not our complete self but a faithful representation, it still tells me valuable information about what I look like. Like the almost indetectable breeze from a mosquito's early morning wings tells me he's there, so does the Bible hover faithfully near to remind me where to look for the breath of God so that I long to turn to Him full-face so as to behold His glory.
The Bible showcases the way. It points to the path.
The goal is not the Bible. The goal is God.
Mosquito image: Dreamstime
Horizon Image: From my window at Castello di Solfagnano, Perugia, Umbria, Italy, May, 2025
Jerome image: Ascension Press
Gateway image: Entrance from chapel courtyard to garden, Castello de Solfagnano
