Bernardo Hurault

Bernardo Hurault (15 August 1924 in Paris – 14 December 2004 in Concepción, Chile) was a French Claretian priest and biblical scholar, and originator of the Christian Community Bible translations.^[1]

Biography

Hurault was the priest and translator of the La Biblia Latinoamericana, a work published in 1970 and characterized by accessible language with pastoral notes intended to contextualize details and meanings of the texts of the Bible that have been lost over time. La Biblia Latinoamérica has sold over 36 million copies.

On October 11, 1976, the Argentine military government ordered the closure of the publisher's office in Argentina accusing La Biblia Latinoamérica of promoting Marxist ideals. However, these actions only popularized the book, which had been accused in other places as influenced by liberation theology, though in reality, Bernard Hurault was never a liberation theologian. Rather, the commentaries he wrote for the Latin American Bible were steeped in the teachings of the Fathers of the Church. He himself said that he wanted to help the Christian readers to go back to the first four hundred years of the Church.

Later, in 1986 Hurault relocated to the Philippines and began to supervise translations into English^[2] and the native languages of the Philippines. The version appeared in English, then in Tagalog, Cebuano and Ilongo. In 1990, he embarked on the project to publish a version in Chinese, first for those outside China, and then for the people of mainland China. His last years were spent in the Philippines, but he died at eighty years in the city of Concepcion (Chile), on December 14, 2004.

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