steps

• try to find information what JDBC version is required for use with Hibernate <version of your choice>
  • start at www.hibernate.org
  • see a nice picture showing J2SE 1.4, J2EE 1.4 and Java SE 5.0, Java EE 5.0
  • start at http://google.com/search?q=hibernate+jdbc4
  • find https://community.jboss.org/wiki/JDBC4Support which suggests JDBC3 and JDBC4 are to be supported in parallel
• run Hibernate with JRE 6+ and with db driver implementing JDBC3 only

expected

• above steps lead to conclusion that Java 4 and Java 5 specs of JDBC are still supported
• code should work fine

observed

• code crashes, since Hibernate apparently requires JDBC4