I am pleased to announce that I have completed the first draft of the translation of the Archbishop Hrabanus Maurus’s commentary on the book of Judith. As always, An Explanation of the Book of Judith is available freely online through Google Documents. I usually offer highlights on the chapter I most recently completed, but this chapter was so long that I’m going to forego that on this last chapter. But do feel free to provide feedback on the translation of Chapter 16. Feedback can be given directly in the document itself. You can simply highlight something and add a comment or edit the document itself to make suggestions.

This medieval commentary is the earliest full length commentary that we have on the book of Judith, and probably the only one that could be considered big-O Orthodox.

While this is a major milestone for me, four years in the making, I do want to make it clear that this is the first draft. So yes, if you are eager to get into the commentary and really dig into the book of Judith, you may certainly do that. But also realize that this work still requires a great deal of editing and double-checking for accuracy. The current draft should serve to get across the basic message that the blessed Hrabanus conveyed in his commentary, but there may be inaccuracies in the translation here and there and some of the wording may prove awkward to read.

The next phase of this project entails completing a todo list of some cleanup work including such things as formatting the bibliography and footnote entries correctly, thoroughly rereading the whole book, and probably quite a bit of rephrasing, especially of earlier chapters. My Latin skills improved immensely during the course of this project and later chapters are much better than earlier ones. I’ll take what I learned back to the earlier chapters to make them flow better and improve accuracy. I will also need to write a decent introduction to the author of the original work as well as a guide on how to use the book.

Finally, I do plan to self-publish. The book will continue to have a Creative Commons license and be available freely online. But I plan to make a printed edition and an eBook edition for those who prefer a physical copy or a copy formatted nicely for an ereader, as well as for those who would like to support further work of this nature through purchase.