Watson meets St. Jerome, sort of

WATSON MEETS ST. JEROME, at least in the imagination of Mike Hinkle (Edmond Sun):

When I read the story, I couldn’t help but think about a grumpy old fifth century church father. Let me explain.

A couple years ago, I took a room in an Arab hotel in East Jerusalem, rented a car and spent some time driving around Israel. My rental agreement wouldn’t allow me to take the car into the West Bank, so I hired a Palestinian taxi driver to take me through the Israeli checkpoint to Bethlehem. While there, I was shown to the damp tiny chamber where St. Jerome did much of his history-making work.

You may already know about St. Jerome, but just in case you don’t, here’s a snapshot. He was a crusty old ascetic that spent a good deal of his life writing Christian commentaries and translating the Bible from its original languages into Latin. He spent the last 30 years of his life writing and studying in a small poorly lit monastic cell in Bethlehem. St. Jerome had a towering intellect and made notable contributions to Christian theology and scholarship. But he really didn’t think much of his fellow man — being the sinful creature he is. And Jerome had little use for physical comforts. His only extravagance had to do with the acquisition of scholarly works and writing materials.

When I visited St. Jerome’s tiny cell in Bethlehem, I tried to get my mind around the discipline, commitment and self-denial that would lead someone to spend more than 30 years in these cramped, uncomfortable surroundings. It would be interesting to know if, at the end of his journey, St. Jerome felt like the results justified the sacrifice.

But now we have the mighty Watson. One can imagine an army of uninspired scholars feeding Aramaic and Hebrew characters into a database and standing by as Watson spews forth a superior translation in 10 minutes or less. It might be possible to download a comprehensive collection of dictionaries along with the original writing and allow Watson to produce biblical commentaries far superior to St. Jerome’s.

St. Jerome was prepared to endure cold and hunger in order to commit his meager resources to the purchase of his reading and writing materials. Today, I am able to transport a library of 1,700 books and receive daily newspapers from all across the world to be read on a device not much bigger than a slice of bread.

It would be interesting to know in terms of readability and quality, how the translations and commentaries of Watson would compare with those of St. Jerome. No matter what you may say in the abstract, there are those who will argue that, given sufficient commitment of resources, Watson’s work will prove superior.

Computers are not yet up to producing the Latin Vulgate (no, not even after this) or writing biblical commentaries with original content. But Watson brings the possibilities unsettlingly closer.