Acknowledgments
\nThis volume began with a simple idea: to create a concise companion to the Bible. But that led to a not-so-simple question: How does one develop a guide that is worthy of accompanying such a complex book and keep it short and uncomplicated? A book based on scholarship without being \u201cscholarly\u201d? For JPS, which prides itself on publishing scholarly books, especially ones about the Bible, this was a challenge.
\nFortunately, we had some excellent resources right at JPS, and some fine people to call on to help. We invited scholars\u2014those who wrote for the JPS Bible commentaries and for Etz Hayim, who advised on the JPS Tanakh, and who contributed to The Contemporary Torah\u2014as well as educators and librarians, to tell us what they thought should be in such a guide. Some of these people also contributed chapters to complement the new pieces we commissioned. And we had a first-rate advisory board whose members read every word and made invaluable suggestions throughout the manuscript\u2019s development.
\nWith such excellent help, The Jewish Bible: A JPS Guide is what it set out to be: an introduction and compact reference to the most fascinating and influential book of all time.
\nWe very much want to thank JPS CEO and editor-in-chief Ellen Frankel, for supporting us each step of the way; she has been our cheerleader and guide, encouraging us to turn a promising idea into a real book and setting high standards for it.
\nAnd it was our three advisers who helped us strive to meet these standards. Thank you senior adviser Shalom Paul, and advisers Frederick Greenspahn and Ziony Zevit for your wise counsel and for generously giving us so much of your time in reviewing outlines and drafts, final manuscripts, map sketches, and more.
\nWe are indebted to Marc Brettler, for giving us access to material from his book How to Read the Bible. And to all the others who contributed their knowledge and writings: Adele Berlin, Joyce Eisenberg, Michael Fishbane, Michael Fox, Leonard Greenspoon, Jill Hammer, Nahum Sarna, Stuart Kelman, Adriane Leveen, David Mandel, Lionel Moses, Adele Reinhartz, Benjamin Scolnic, Ellen Scolnic, David Stein, Jeffrey Tigay, Barry Walfish, and Andrea Weiss.
\nThank you Cullen Schippe, Chuck Stetson, and the Pflaum Publishing Group, for permission to excerpt from The Bible and Its Influence; Don Kraus and Oxford University Press, for an excerpt from The Jewish Study Bible; and Keter Publishing House, for permission to adapt from \u201cPoetry\u201d in Encyclopaedia Judaica.
\nWe are grateful to Sharon Liberman Mintz, the curator of Jewish art of the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, for opening up JTS\u2019s extensive archives to us; to Paul LoBue and his design team for creating our maps; and to series designer Lisa Weinberger for her stylish layout and color scheme.
\nAt the outset Julie Pelc helped us get this project jump-started, poring through her personal library and that of the American Jewish University, making suggestions, and writing early drafts.
\nJulia Oestreich picked up where Julie left off, researching so many topics, preparing boxes, finalizing charts and tables, directing map work, gathering art, and doing with great competence dozens of other tasks to prepare for production. JPS interns Robyn Weiss, Rachel Maimin, and Miriam Newman devoted part of their summer to this project. And Karen Schnitker took time out of her other JPS work to do research and writing as well.
\nMany thanks, too, to copyeditor Debra Corman, whose keen knowledge of judaica was such an asset; to sharp-eyed proofreader Candace Levy; and indexer Mark Lautman. And of course, to production manager Robin Norman and managing editor Janet Liss, who together oversaw the final, critical stages of quality control and kept us all on track and in good humor.
\nCarol Hupping
\nAbbreviations for the Books of the Bible
\nAmos
\nAmos
\n1 Chron.
\n1 Chronicles
\n2 Chron.
\n2 Chronicles
\nDan.
\nDaniel
\nDeut.
\nDeuteronomy
\nEccles.
\nEcclesiastes
\nEsther
\nEsther
\nExod.
\nExodus
\nEzek.
\nEzekiel
\nEzra
\nEzra
\nGen.
\nGenesis
\nHab.
\nHabakkuk
\nHag.
\nHaggai
\nHosea
\nHosea
\nIsa.
\nIsaiah
\nJer.
\nJeremiah
\nJob
\nJob
\nJoel
\nJoel
\nJon.
\nJonah
\nJosh.
\nJoshua
\nJudg.
\nJudges
\n1 Kings
\n1 Kings
\n2 Kings
\n2 Kings
\nLam.
\nLamentations
\nLev.
\nLeviticus
\nMal.
\nMalachi
\nMic.
\nMicah
\nNah.
\nNahum
\nNeh.
\nNehemiah
\nNum.
\nNumbers
\nObad.
\nObadiah
\nProv.
\nProverbs
\nPs.
\nPsalms
\nRuth
\nRuth
\n1 Sam.
\n1 Samuel
\n2 Sam.
\n2 Samuel
\nSongs
\nSong of Songs
\nZech.
\nZechariah
\nZeph.
\nZephaniah
\nWhat Is the Bible?
\nThe word \u201cBible\u201d derives from the Greek biblia, meaning \u201cbooks.\u201d By its very name, \u201cthe Bible\u201d refers to \u201cthe collection of books\u201d\u2014that is, the one that is deemed to be authoritative, or canonical.
\nDifferent communities have different Bibles. For Christians, the Bible includes the New Testament; for Jews it does not. To distinguish the Jewish Bible from the Christian Bible, people have suggested a variety of names for it. Christians typically call it the Old Testament, where \u201ctestament\u201d is an archaic way of referring to a contract (\u201ccovenant\u201d). This name is based on a prophecy in Jeremiah that states: \u201cSee, a time is coming\u2014declares the Lord\u2014when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers, when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, a covenant which they broke, though I espoused them\u2014declares the Lord\u201d (31:31\u201332). Early Christian tradition understood this passage as a prophecy about a new covenant, centered around Jesus, which replaces the old Mosaic one. This led to the terms \u201cNew Testament\u201d and \u201cOld Testament.\u201d
\nJews, however, view the original covenant as still operative. For this reason, Jews have tended to reject the term \u201cOld Testament.\u201d Many simply call this body of literature \u201cthe Bible.\u201d For religious Jews, this name is by definition appropriate: these are \u201cthe books\u201d that are authoritative.
\nAcademic scholars, meanwhile, generally prefer not to take sides in the debate as to which covenant with God is in force. Therefore, in scholarly circles, the more neutral terms \u201cHebrew Bible\u201d or \u201cJewish Scripture(s)\u201d have gained currency. Admittedly, the first term is slightly imprecise, because some passages of the Bible are not in Hebrew but rather in Aramaic, a related Semitic language.
\nOther Jewish Names: A Historical Review
\nIn the texts written during the biblical period itself\u2014which lasted more than a thousand years\u2014we know of no name given for this set of books. The Bible was then still in formation as an authoritative collection. It received its title only after it came into being\u2014signaling the start of the postbiblical period.
\nIn the 1st century c.e., Josephus (the great Jewish historian who wrote in Greek) knew of these texts. He called them Ta Hiera Grammata (The Holy Writings). He also called them grammasi (that which is written)\u2014often translated as \u201cScripture,\u201d but better rendered uncapitalized, as \u201cscripture.\u201d
\nIn classical Rabbinic literature, the two most common terms for the Bible are miqra (literally \u201cthat which is read or recited aloud\u201d) and Kitvei Hakodesh (The Holy Writings). Sometimes, the Rabbis referred to the Bible as \u201cTorah, Nevi\u2019im, Kethuvim\u201d (the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings).
\nIn the Middle Ages, perhaps in the late first millennium c.e., scribes shortened \u201cTorah, Nevi\u2019im, Kethuvim\u201d into the acronym \u201cTanakh,\u201d and Jews today still commonly use that name for their Bible. As the title of The Jewish Publication Society\u2019s 1985 translation, the \u201cTanakh\u201d makes a point that other names (\u201cthe Bible\u201d or \u201cHoly Scriptures,\u201d) do not. Namely, it underscores that the translators rendered directly from the Hebrew (not from an ancient Greek version, like some Christians translations) and drew on Jewish interpretive tradition.
\nMaking an issue out of what to call these texts might seem pedantic, but it is not. The \u201cHebrew Bible\u201d and the \u201cOld Testament\u201d differ in more than name only. They contain the same texts, but they are organized and ordered differently. (The ordering matters because it alters the context in which we understand the text; a book\u2019s meaning can shift depending on which books we read before and after it.) More significantly, the term \u201cHebrew Bible\u201d suggests a corpus that is self-standing, whereas the \u201cOld Testament\u201d does not. (Using the word \u201cold\u201d implies that there is something \u201cnew\u201d with which to contrast it.) The meaning of many passages in the \u201cOld Testament\u201d changes when one views them as part of a larger whole that includes the New Testament.
\nHow the Bible is Organized
\nThe name \u201cTanakh\u201d reflects a three-part (tripartite) organization of the Bible; for Jews, this is the standard division of the Bible. The name of each of its parts, however, warrants some explanation. The name of the first part, as we have said, is \u201cTorah.\u201d Christians have often translated the term as \u201cLaw,\u201d but this is too restrictive; it misrepresents this collection of books, which also features nonlegal elements such as narrative and poetry. (It also misrepresents Judaism, which is far more than a \u201creligion of law.\u201d) Rather, \u201cTorah\u201d is a broad term that means \u201cTeaching\u201d or \u201cInstruction.\u201d (It is also sometimes called the Pentateuch, which is Greek for \u201cfive parts\u201d; humash, which is Hebrew for \u201cfive\u201d; or the Five Books of Moses).
\nThe name of the second part, \u201cNevi\u2019im,\u201d is called \u201cProphets\u201d in English. However, many of its books are not actually prophetic works. Its first portion, often called the \u201cFormer Prophets,\u201d consists instead of narrative texts. They continue the story begun in the Torah. Although prophets play an important role in these narrative books, which include Joshua, Samuel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Lamentations, Habakkuk, and Zechariah, these books dwell on far more than prophecies.
\nThe name of the final part of the Bible, \u201cKethuvim,\u201d means \u201cWritings.\u201d Of course, the rest of the Bible also consists of \u201cwritings.\u201d What therefore justifies giving the last set of books such a generic name? The answer is a matter of history. In this case, \u201cKethuvim\u201d has come to serve as a catchall term. It is a mixed collection, and it contains such diverse works as Psalms (prayers), Chronicles (history), Daniel (prophecy), and Song of Songs (erotic poetry).
\nThe Christians\u2019 Old Testament
\nThe early Christians came to adopt the order of the Septuagint (the first Jewish translation of the Hebrew Bible, into Greek) for two main reasons. First, they spoke Greek (rather than Hebrew), so it was natural for them to rely on the Greek translation and adopt the Greek order. Second, that order\u2014unlike some others\u2014ended with the prophetic books. In the Christian canon (Old Testament + New Testament), this arrangement juxtaposed the Prophets (which, according to Christian tradition, predict the arrival of Jesus as messiah) with the Gospels (which describe that arrival, fulfilling the prediction). Thus, while the Christian Bible used an order of Old Testament books that predates the rise of Christianity, that order served Christian purposes well.
\nTeachings, Prophets, and Writings
\nTorah, the Hebrew word for \u201cTeaching,\u201d does indeed contain the central teachings and laws of Judaism. But there is much more here: it also contains humanity\u2019s beginnings, the religious history of biblical Israel from the days of Abraham through the death of Moses, and instructions for conducting worship and celebrating the festivals of the Jewish calendar. And there are the genealogies\u2014lists of humanity\u2019s and Israel\u2019s family trees, sometimes humorously referred to as \u201cthe begats\u201d (from the King James Version\u2019s archaic English term for \u201cwas the ancestor of,\u201d as in Gen. 6:10, \u201cAnd Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth\u201d).
\nNevi\u2019im, \u201cProphets,\u201d includes both historical narratives and prophetic messages. The narratives continue the religious history of biblical Israel from the arrival in the Promised Land through the rise and fall of the kingdom of David and his descendants. Destructive conquests by the Assyrian empire drove most of Israel\u2019s ten tribes into exile. Then, conquests by the Babylonians led to exile for the people of Judah and to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. The poetic messages are addressed to the People of Israel from their God, alternately reprimanding them for their misdeeds, comforting them in their afflictions, and predicting their future redemption. Linking these two very different literary forms is the presence of the prophets, individuals sent by God to guide the people.
\nKethuvim, \u201cWritings,\u201d contains books displaying a wide assortment of themes and literary forms, including prayers, poetry, wise sayings, short narratives, and the continuation of Israel\u2019s religious history during and after the Babylonian exile.
\nFrom Cullen Schippe and Chuck Stetson, The Bible and Its Influence.
\nThe Books of the Hebrew Bible
\nHere is the standard arrangement of the books in the Hebrew Bible, as in the JPS Tanakh. Only in Jewish Bibles will you find the books grouped into three parts. This tripartite structure is found in all Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible, and all contemporary Jewish translations follow its outline.
\nTorah
\nNevi\u2019im (prophets)
\nKethuvim (Writings)
\nGenesis
\nJoshua
\nZechariah
\nExodus
\nJudges
\nMalachi
\nLeviticus
\n1 Samuel
\nPsalms
\nNumbers
\n2 Samuel
\nProverbs
\nDeuteronomy
\n1 Kings
\nJob<\/p>\n
2 Kings
\nSong of Songs<\/p>\n
Isaiah
\nRuth<\/p>\n
Jeremiah
\nLamentations<\/p>\n
Ezekiel
\nEcclesiastes<\/p>\n
Hosea
\nEsther<\/p>\n
Joel
\nDaniel<\/p>\n
Amos
\nEzra<\/p>\n
Obadiah
\nNehemiah<\/p>\n
Jonah
\n1 Chronicles<\/p>\n
Micah
\n2 Chronicles<\/p>\n
Nahum<\/p>\n
Habakkuk<\/p>\n
Zephaniah<\/p>\n
Haggai<\/p>\n
THE APOCRYPHA
\nThe scope of many Christians\u2019 Old Testament is larger than that of the Jews\u2019 Bible. The former includes not only the books listed above, but also the Apocrypha (which is Greek for \u201chidden\u201d). These are various writings of the Second Temple period that the Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, and other Christian Churches have held to be authoritative and sacred, but of lesser status than the other books of the Bible. These include books like the first and second books of the Maccabees (a historical text) and Ben Sira (called Ecclesiasticus in Greek, a Wisdom text similar to Proverbs). The Protestant Church later rejected the Apocrypha as part of the canon.
\nDivisions in the Bible
\nCHAPTERS
\nThe chapter numbers now found in Bibles are not part of the traditional masoretic text, but rather date from 13th-century manuscripts of the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible that the early church father Jerome wrote. By the mid-16th century, Jewish editors introduced chapters into printed Hebrew Bibles as well. Thus the chapter divisions are relatively recent, representing one particular understanding about how the Bible may be subdivided.
\nPARAGRAPHS
\nTorah scrolls divide the Pentateuch into the equivalent of paragraph units by placing blank space between units. These spaces are of two types: short ones called setumah (closed), where the next unit continues on the same line; and longer ones called petuchah (open), where the rest of the line is left open and the following unit continues only on the next line. This tradition of leaving spaces dates back at least to the Dead Sea Scrolls (mostly from the 3rd century b.c.e. to the 1st century c.e.). However, the Dead Sea Scrolls do not always agree with the divisions found in contemporary Torah scrolls, which the great medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides (1135\u20131204) established on the basis of a highly accurate 10th-century biblical manuscript that is now called the Aleppo Codex (see \u201cThe Crown of Aleppo,\u201d on p. 22). In other words, spaces or paragraph divisions\u2014which vary somewhat even among medieval Hebrew manuscripts and printed editions of the Bible\u2014have never been entirely uniform. They do, however, represent a significant early interpretive tradition.
\nUnfortunately, these divisions are not reflected in English Bible translations. Rather, each translator has independently decided where units begin and end, and the typesetters have set the type accordingly. Thus, for example, the paragraph breaks in the JPS translation represent the places where three committees working in the second part of the 20th century felt new units should be demarcated. As with any translation, their decisions deserve consideration but are not definitive.
\nVERSES
\nVarious Rabbinic sources beginning with the Mishnah (approximately 200 c.e.) attest to the division of the Bible into pesukim (literally \u201cdividing points\u201d)\u2014what we would call verses. No early comprehensive list exists of where these divisions were perceived to be. However, some evidence suggests that they were largely the same as the later divisions found in medieval Hebrew manuscripts, which indicate verse endings by a musical note (called a silluk\u2014a vertical line) under the final word, as well as what looks like a colon (sof pasuk) after each verse. Thus, of the three divisions noted in manuscripts\u2014chapters, paragraphs, and verses\u2014the last should be seen as the most ancient. Yet, there are sometimes differences in how the same words are divided into verses in different biblical contexts; some medieval manuscripts reflect these differences in their verse counts. Given the variants that we find, the verse divisions should not be seen as fully authoritative. Occasionally, weighty evidence suggests that a unit of thought really ends midverse while the second part of that verse starts a new unit or that a word at the end of one verse belongs at the beginning of the next.
\nHow Bibles Differ
\nJewish (JPS)
\nProtestant (NRSV)
\nRoman Catholic\/Orthodox (New American Bible)
\nTorah (Law)
\nPentateuch
\nPentateuch
\nGenesis
\nGenesis
\nGenesis
\nExodus
\nExodus
\nExodus
\nLeviticus
\nLeviticus
\nLeviticus
\nNumbers
\nNumbers
\nNumbers
\nDeuteronomy
\nDeuteronomy
\nDeuteronomy
\nNevi\u2019im (Prophets)
\nHistories
\nHistories
\nJoshua
\nJoshua
\nJoshua
\nJudges
\nJudges
\nJudges
\n1 Samuel
\nRuth
\nRuth
\n2 Samuel
\n1 Samuel
\n1 Samuel
\n1 Kings
\n2 Samuel
\n2 Samuel
\n2 Kings
\n1 Kings
\n1 Kings
\nIsaiah
\n2 Kings
\n2 Kings
\nJeremiah
\n1 Chronicles
\n1 Chronicles
\nEzekiel
\n2 Chronicles
\n2 Chronicles
\nHosea
\nEzra
\nEzra
\nJoel
\nNehemiah
\nNehemiah
\nAmos
\nEsther
\nTobit
\nObadiah<\/p>\n
Judith
\nJonah
\nPoetical\/Wisdom Books
\nEsther
\nMicah
\nJob
\n1 Maccabees
\nNahum
\nPsalms
\n2 Maccabees
\nHabakkuk
\nProverbs<\/p>\n
Zephaniah
\nEcclesiastes
\nPoetical\/Wisdom Books
\nHaggai
\nSong of Solomon
\nJob
\nZechariah<\/p>\n
Psalms
\nMalachi
\nProphets
\nProverbs<\/p>\n
Isaiah
\nEcclesiastes
\nKethuvim (Writings)
\nJeremiah
\nSong of Solomon
\nPsalms
\nLamentations
\nWisdom of Solomon
\nProverbs
\nEzekiel
\nSirach
\nJob
\nDaniel<\/p>\n
Song of Songs
\nHosea<\/p>\n
Ruth
\nJoel
\nIsaiah
\nLamentations
\nAmos
\nJeremiah
\nEcclesiastes
\nObadiah
\nLamentations
\nEsther
\nJonah
\nBaruch
\nDaniel
\nMicah
\nEzekiel
\nEzra
\nNahum
\nDaniel
\nNehemiah
\nHabakkuk
\nHosea
\n1 Chronicles
\nZephaniah
\nJoel
\n2 Chronicles
\nHaggai
\nAmos<\/p>\n
Zechariah
\nObadiah<\/p>\n
Malachi
\nJonah<\/p>\n
Micah<\/p>\n
The Apocrypha
\nNahum<\/p>\n
1 Esdras
\nHabakkuk<\/p>\n
2 Esdras
\nZephaniah<\/p>\n
Tobit
\nHaggai<\/p>\n
Judith
\nZechariah<\/p>\n
Esther (with additions)
\nMalachi<\/p>\n
Wisdom of Solomon<\/p>\n
Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus)<\/p>\n
Baruch<\/p>\n
Letter of Jeremiah (Baruch)<\/p>\n
Prayer of Azariah and Song of Three Children Susanna
\nMost Orthodox<\/p>\n
Bel and the Dragon
\ninclude<\/p>\n
Prayer of Manasseh
\n1 Esdras<\/p>\n
1 Maccabees
\n2 Esdras<\/p>\n
2 Maccabees
\nPrayer of Manasseh<\/p>\n
Psalm 151<\/p>\n
3 Maccabees<\/p>\n
4 Maccabees
\nCharacteristics of Hebrew Language and Literature
\nTo read and understand the Hebrew Scriptures we need to know a few things about Hebrew:
\n\u25cb The importance of the word. The Hebrew alphabet is one of the oldest in the world, and its early development reflects the importance that ancient Hebrew-speaking peoples gave to spoken and written language. In the Hebrew account of creation, for example, the entire universe comes into being at God\u2019s spoken command.
\n\u25cb Symbolic word choices. In many biblical passages, personal and place names have symbolic meanings drawn from Hebrew etymologies.
\n\u25cb Parallelism and repetition. Most of the Hebrew Scriptures originated in oral tradition, and they bear the marks of narratives told and retold, poetry chanted to musical rhythms, and laws memorized and recited by heart. Both parallelism (setting two accounts or ideas side by side for comparison or contrast) and repetition make it easier to commit oral material to memory and transmit it to new generations. These devices remain important even when the texts are set down in writing. Hebrew poetry, for example, relies almost entirely on parallelism for its structure, as it does not use rhyme or standardized meters.
\n\u25cb Figures of speech. The Hebrew respect for language allows dazzling displays of creative wordplay. Pay particular attention to simile, metaphor, exaggeration, irony, and personification, all of which assist in capturing the ineffable experience of the divine within the limitations of human language.
\nFrom Cullen Schippe and Chuck Stetson, The Bible and Its Influence.
\nRECOGNIZING THE BIBLE\u2019S DISTINCT LITERARY UNITS
\nThe foregoing conclusions concerning chapter, paragraph, and verse divisions have significant implications for how we read the Bible. We have to discover and use textual clues other than these \u201clate\u201d formal markings to decide where units begin and end. Thus the Bible should be envisioned as a text punctuated only by word spaces\u2014with nothing to indicate sections, paragraphs, or even verses. Our first step when reading all biblical texts must be to subdivide that biblical text into these kinds of units.
\nAn analogy illustrates this procedure and why it matters. Let\u2019s imagine that a typesetter made a mistake in laying out the type of a collection of poems and printed them all as one long poem. Someone with modern or postmodern interests might enjoy reading the result as a unified work. But most of us would prefer to divide the long poem into separate poems. To do so, we would use stylistic and content-based criteria. If, for example, an e. e. cummings poem followed an Emily Dickinson poem, this would be easy because cummings\u2019 verse is distinct for the absence of upper-case letters; in other cases, it would be more difficult.
\nThe Bible should be treated like this imaginary poetry book. Even though our printed version shows chapters and verses, these should be ignored. It must be imagined as a single, continuous text. Furthermore, we must develop a way to distinguish the different compositions embedded in it. Otherwise, we might do the equivalent of reading the first two lines of a cummings poem as the conclusion of the preceding Dickinson poem!
\nThe criteria used for separating biblical sources are similar to those used to analyze poetry. We read carefully, attuned to changes in style and content, looking for contradictions between verses.
\nNone of these criteria is airtight or absolutely objective. There is no consensus about how much variation a text may contain to be considered a unified work. Nor do scholars always agree on whether or not a larger text is self-contradictory. Thus in some cases we find real debate about where a unit begins and\/or ends. In most cases, however, there is widespread agreement.
\nThe Torah\u2019s Four Sources
\nMany scholars are of the opinion that the text of the Torah was collected from several sources and edited (or redacted) into the five biblical books we have today. When applied to the Torah as a whole, this type of analysis, called source criticism, suggests that the Torah comprises four main sources\u2014four originally separate, (more or less) complete documents\u2014that have been woven together. The date of these documents, called J, E, D, and P, has been the subject of much debate in biblical scholarship.
\nThe oldest document may be J, which was given this name because in Genesis it typically uses the four-letter name of God, YHWH, which some Christian translators have transcribed as \u201cJehovah.\u201d The JPS translation represents this name as \u201cthe Lord,\u201d while other translations use \u201cthe Eternal,\u201d \u201cYahweh,\u201d or YHWH. Probably of Judean authorship, this source was written in the first half of the monarchic period.
\nNext is E, the Elohist document, so named because it typically refers to God in Genesis using the term Elohim (God). It probably originated in the Northern Kingdom and is likely slightly later than J. E is relatively short and it is unclear if it should be viewed as an originally separate document.
\nP refers to the Priestly source, which also uses Elohim and other divine names (but not YHWH) in Genesis. This document is shaped by Priestly concerns, including order, purity, and ensuring the Divine Presence among Israel. Its date has been an issue of great debate in biblical scholarship. Most likely, this source represents a school of thought that was active over a long period of time, both before and after the Babylonian exile of 586 b.c.e.
\nThe D source stands for Deuteronomy, the final book of the Torah. With the exception of parts of the final chapters, which contain a diversity of material, most of Deuteronomy features a special vocabulary and particular theological concerns\u2014especially the proper worship of a single God in the proper way in the proper place (Jerusalem), where God\u2019s \u201cName\u201d resides. Like P, D is not a totally unified composition from a single time and place but represents a stream of tradition.
\nWith the exception of the D source, which more or less makes up its own book, the Torah as it is now structured represents a careful combination of these sources. Given the apparent existence of individual sources, they must have been edited together, or \u201credacted,\u201d at some point. Most likely this occurred in stages. Scholars call the final editor R, for \u201credactor\u201d. In this form, the work of the Priestly source has a particularly strong voice and even introduces the Torah. (Gen. 1:1\u20132:4a is P; Gen. 2:4b and verses following is J.) For this reason, some scholars equate R with the final voice of P.
\nExactly why the sources were intertwined in this way is unclear. Exploring this issue really involves asking two questions: (1) Why were all of these sources retained, rather than just preserving the latest or most authoritative one? (2) Why were they combined in this odd way, rather than being left as complete documents that would be read side by side, much like the model of the four different and separate Gospels, which introduce the Christian Bible, or New Testament?
\nBecause there is no direct evidence going back to the redaction of the Torah, these issues may be explored in only a most tentative fashion, with plausible rather than definitive answers. Probably the earlier documents had a certain prestige and authority in ancient Israel and could not simply be discarded. In addition, the redaction of the Torah from a variety of sources most likely represents an attempt to enfranchise those groups who held those particular sources as authoritative. Certainly, the Torah does not contain all of the early traditions of Israel. Yet, it does contain the traditions that the redactor felt were most important (most likely during the Babylonian exile).
\nAdapted from Marc Zvi Brettler, How to Read the Bible.
\nHow the Bible Became \u201cthe Bible\u201d
\nWe know little about the Bible\u2019s origin\u2014how so many books comprising so many diverse ideas became \u201cthe Bible.\u201d Clearly, the process happened in stages, over a long time. Nobody woke up one morning, decided to create the Bible, and arranged the next day for all Jews to adopt it as such.
\nThe process was at least as much \u201cbottom-up\u201d as \u201ctop-down.\u201d That is, the wider population helped determine what the Bible included; it was not primarily an official (Rabbinic) decision. Indeed, the Bible likely came into being before the publication of the Mishnah, the first great Rabbinic work (about 200 c.e.). This is why few Rabbinic opinions describe the Bible\u2019s development. There is some Rabbinic evidence of the making of the Bible from Josephus, the 1st-century c.e. Jewish historian, and other Jewish writers of the same period Also the Dead Sea Scrolls shed light on the process, but that evidence is indirect and often ambiguous.
\nThe Canon
\nUntil recently, scholars addressed the questions of how the Bible became the Bible in terms of the \u201ccanon\u201d of the Bible. Some scholars, however, have recently emphasized that this term (related to the Greek word kanon, a \u201creed\u201d or a \u201cmeasuring stick\u201d) may be anachronistic in reference to the Bible; it more properly refers to a collection of writings that defines a particular religious community. The early church first used this term with reference to lists of books that are part of the Christian Bible. It is not native to early Jewish literature concerning what is part of\u2014or excluded from\u2014the Bible. Applied to the Jewish Bible, \u201ccanon\u201d has been used in many ways, making it an ambiguous and confusing term.
\nFor these reasons, many scholars prefer to speak of \u201cthe development of scripture,\u201d rather than \u201cthe canonization of the Bible.\u201d Yet that is not much of an improvement, because \u201cscripture\u201d is a foreign term. Furthermore, because \u201cscripture\u201d means merely \u201cthat which is written,\u201d it is historically imprecise. Therefore, it is better to frame the question as follows: When and how did a central set of books with a particular name come into being within Judaism?
\nThe process evolved gradually, partly because the books that now compose the Bible were written over a period of more than 1,000 years. Furthermore, the three-part (tripartite) structure of the Bible most likely reflects historical development: at first, the Torah alone was central; by the Hellenistic period, Jews treated other books as important and worthy of study as well.
\nThe most important evidence that there was a group of sacred books beyond the Torah comes from Josephus, who noted: \u201cOur books, those of which are just accredited, are but two and twenty, and contain the record for all time.\u201d He was employing the concept of a set number of authoritative books, which he called these \u201choly books.\u201d Josephus nowhere enumerated them. However, contemporary scholars widely agree that Josephus was referring to the 24 books that we now call the Bible, with Ruth being counted as part of Judges and Lamentations as part of Jeremiah.
\nHowever, even though Rabbinic literature often refers to \u201c24\u201d biblical books (the same number we have) over the more or less two centuries known as the Rabbinic period, the entire group of sages may not have shared the same Bible. Thus for this period it might be best to speak of a \u201clargely closed\u201d set of texts that composed the Bible\u2014or several competing conceptions of it. Quite possibly another set of texts that composed the Bible, mostly identical to our current Bible, also existed among a Jewish sect that lived in the Judean desert, whose surviving library is what we now call the Dead Sea Scrolls. This community may not have had a notion of canon; at least, they had no special term for such a thing. However, in their interpretive literature they did tend to cite particular books. Furthermore, certain books still exist in many copies, indicating that they were especially important to the community.
\nOf the books that are part of the classical Rabbinic Bible, only the book of Esther is missing among the Dead Sea Scrolls that we have today (We have no remains of Nehemiah either, but it may have already been combined with Ezra); thus the community probably did not consider that book authoritative. In contrast, other Dead Sea Scroll texts cite the Temple Scroll and the book of Jubilees as authoritative. Furthermore, the community kept a large number of manuscripts of both works. Thus, our term \u201ccanonical\u201d Bible seems anachronistic for this group in the pre-Rabbinic period. Nevertheless, it is safe to say that its set of authoritative books largely, but not completely, overlapped what would eventually become \u201cthe Bible\u201d for the Rabbis.
\nThe Order and the Ordering of Biblical Books
\nFor the many centuries before Jewish scribes published books in codex form, they preserved books in the form of separate scrolls. In certain cases, the scribes put several books in a single scroll\u2014and in a particular order. This was true of the Torah, which needed to be ordered because Jews read it ritually in order, as part of their worship. Similarly, the scribes grouped Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings in sequence since they tell a more or less continuous story in chronological order. However, for the rest of the Bible, even in Rabbinic times, there was a varying order of the Prophets (except for the \u201cMinor Prophets\u201d) and the Writings.
\nThe Dead Sea Scrolls
\nIn 1947, seven ancient Jewish scrolls were discovered in a cave by the shore of the Dead Sea in Qumran, approximately nine miles south of Jericho and 13 miles east of Jerusalem. Over the next nine years more than 15,000 writings dating from the late Second Temple period (200 b.c.e. to 68 c.e.) were found in 11 nearby caves. Scholars generally agree that the Khirbat Qumran sect, identified as the Essenes, gathered the Dead Sea Scrolls from approximately 150 b.c.e. to 68 c.e., when the site was destroyed by the Romans during the Great Revolt of the Jews against Rome.
\nThe documents themselves date from the mid-3rd century b.c.e. to the mid-1st century c.e. A few fragments provide evidence of the Hebrew texts that were translated into the Septuagint, as well as those that formed the basis for the Samaritan Pentateuch. The texts included in the scrolls begin with the earliest works of the Hebrew Bible. Parts of every book except Esther can be found in the scrolls.
\nA second group of scrolls contains apocryphal or pseudepigraphic texts. The manuscripts were preserved in their original languages, so some of these texts are in Greek, Aramaic, and other languages, including a copper scroll that appears to be a list of hidden treasures from the ancient Temple in Jerusalem. A third group of scrolls contains sectarian texts. These texts establish a connection between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbat Qumran sect because they contain the rules and customs that governed the life of a self-contained Jewish community.
\nThe scrolls are now housed in the Shrine of the Book, which was built in 1965 expressly for them, at the Israel Museum complex in Jerusalem.
\nCertain people and groups (especially professional scribes!) love order. Mesopotamian scribes often copied series of cuneiform tablets in standard orders. The resulting predictability made it easier for readers to find what they were looking for, no matter which copy they consulted. Similarly, perhaps ancient Israelite librarians may have kept biblical scrolls in ordered cubbyholes, so that they could locate the right text easily. This may be the original function of ordering the books of the Bible.
\nThe Bible shows evidence of ordering at both the macro and the microlevel. On the microlevel, its text is divided into books\u2014typically, what can fit on a scroll. (Thus the 12 Minor Prophets constitute a single book or scroll, even though it is made up of many books.)
\nOn the macrolevel, this large collection comprises smaller collections. Exactly how and when this was done are subjects of intense current debate: How early is the three-part division of the Bible into Torah, Nevi\u2019im, and Kethuvim? When and why did this tripartite division develop? Rabbinic sources\u2014though not any of the earliest such sources\u2014do attest to a three-part (what scholars call a \u201ctripartite\u201d) Bible. Scholars have found allusions to this structure in the New Testament and among the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, these references do not decisively prove that the Bible was organized into three parts as early as the 1st century c.e. Indeed, Jews clearly employed a variety of orders and ordering schemes in the Second Temple period.
\nThe tripartite ordering was likely one of the early ordering schemes, for its classifications are not obvious ones. Daniel properly belongs with the Latter Prophets; Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles, and perhaps some other books belong with the Former Prophets. Thus their present classification seems to reflect an evolution: by the time those later books were composed, the set of books known as Prophets had already been determined, so they could not be included in that section. That is, over time the Torah became authoritative first, then Nevi\u2019im, and finally Kethuvim.
\nThis hypothesis for the evolutionary development of the tripartite canon would also explain the stability\u2014and lack of stability\u2014of order within each section. The Torah\u2014authoritative first\u2014is fully stable: all manuscripts have the order as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. (Of course, given the contents of these books, their order is not really flexible.) Within Nevi\u2019im, the same is true for the Former Prophets. Concerning the order of the Latter Prophets, there is more flexibility; most manuscripts do not follow the talmudic order. Within Kethuvim, manuscripts show a tremendous variation in the order of its books. Quite surprisingly, the ancient sources do not indicate what the last\u2014culminating\u2014book of the Bible should be!
\nThe Stabilization of the Biblical Text
\nA book may be authoritative even though it does not have a fixed text. The spelling of its words, certain whole words themselves\u2014even whole verses\u2014could and did vary from one written copy to another. Thus we should consider the issues of canonization and textual stabilization separately. Indeed, it is highly likely that the biblical text became stable only in the early Rabbinic period. By then, Jews already had a relatively clear idea as to which texts were \u201cin\u201d and which were \u201cout,\u201d and they had devised certain methods of midrashic interpretation (namely, methods of interpretation that read the text carefully and may even be based on fine spelling variants). Functionally speaking, the latter development allowed for fluid meaning even as the text became fixed.
\nThe Dead Sea Scrolls community considered authoritative a Bible of sorts, yet they did not have a single stable text for its books. That ancient desert community still proceeded to expound its texts\u2014sometimes in versions that are quite different from those found in what later crystallized as the masoretic text. In fact, in at least one case it seemed to be interpreting two different versions of the same verse. In other words, just because the community believed a certain work to be holy and inspired did not imply that the text had to exist in a single version.
\nBased on the early texts available to us, we can say that the Bible\u2019s consonantal text (that is, the consonants only, without the vocalization\u2014the vowels and cantillation marks) largely stabilized by the 2nd century c.e. We do not know exactly how this happened; perhaps someone made a master edition from which other scribes copied. Perhaps the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 c.e. and the failure of the revolt of 132\u2013135 c.e. (the Bar Kokhba rebellion) created a crisis that served as an impetus for creating an authoritative text.
\nConsidering the wider range of ancient versions (and the opportunities meanwhile for scribal errors in transmission), medieval biblical texts show remarkably few variants. However, even that era knew occasional, significant textual variants, including readings in the Babylonian Talmud that differ from most of our biblical manuscripts. The stabilization of the consonantal text continued until well after the advent of printing in the late 1400s. Even so, to this day, a few variant spellings remain.
\nToday, were we to open two texts of the Hebrew Bible, they would contain the same books, grouped into three major parts, appearing mostly in the same order, with a well over 99 percent agreement on the consonants and vocalization. This consistency was the result of a long and complicated process that took place largely behind the scenes, obscured from our view.
\nMore than half a century later, guardians of the biblical text devised various systems of marking the proper vocalization of the consonantal text. The vocalization system associated with the Masorete Aaron Ben Moses Ben-Asher and with the city of Tiberias in the Galilee \u201cwon\u201d over competing systems, giving us the Bible as we now have it. This means that in its current form (with vowels), the Bible is only a little more than 1,000 years old.
\nAdapted from Marc Zvi Brettler, How to Read the Bible.
\nThe Origins of the Hebrew Bible Text
\nA court of law relies on witnesses to establish the facts of a case. But for those who seek the \u201cfacts\u201d of the original biblical texts, no firsthand witnesses exist. We have only the testimony of various manuscripts, produced hundreds of years after the Bible\u2019s books were completed. And even if we had an autograph copy of, say, the book of Ezra, it would not answer all our questions, for it was created at a time (2,400 years ago) when writing was imprecise\u2014even before the invention of punctuation. During each transmission of the books of the Bible from person to person, uncertainty has grown. Schools have sometimes disagreed on pronunciation. Handwriting has not always been legible. And every scribe has occasionally made mistakes in copying.
\nWitnesses testifying in court often disagree. Little surprise, then, that the Bible\u2019s textual \u201cwitnesses\u201d\u2014farther removed from the original \u201cevent\u201d\u2014differ from each other in a wide range of small ways: spelling, punctuation, layout of poetry, and so on. Sometimes entire verses appear in only a few manuscripts.
\nSo which version is true?
\nThe Unbroken Chain of Uncertainty
\nAccuracy has been ensured by means of side documentation\u2014part of what is called masorah. This resulted in to a \u201cmasoretic text\u201d\u2014a Bible that accords with the masorah. But there were so many variances among the different manuscripts that the masorah couldn\u2019t address them all. And the masoretic notes have been neglected through the ages; written in shorthand, they are often vague, and sometimes contradict one another.
\nMasorah
\nThe term \u201cmasorah\u201d refers to everything transmitted with the biblical text. It includes vowel signs, accent signs, large and small letters, dots over consonants, arrangements of poetry, marginal notes, and endnotes, as well as separate treatises on the copying and use of manuscripts. The early medieval masters of the biblical text who developed this documentation are known in English as Masoretes. Many masoretic annotations seem designed to reduce loss or distortion in transmission of the text.
\nMuch masorah seems to have been created only after problems arose; in such cases, it could only reinforce the torn textual fabric, not mend the hole. Unable or unwilling to choose between variants, scribes sometimes preserved two versions of a word side by side\u2014transmitting both. Furthermore, by nature the Bible is not predictable. Because of its spiritual subject matter, its choice of words is puzzling at times. So is a given puzzling phrase due to scribal error\u2014or religious mystery? When are we to expect the text to follow rules of grammar\u2014and when to allow for artistic expression?
\nDespite these pitfalls, Bible scholars have always refined the text as they found it. Each expert begins with a different set of available manuscripts, from scribes of varying (and uncertain) reliability. They each use different methods for resolving textual problems. So the experts come to different conclusions as to what is the \u201cbest\u201d Bible text. Ironically, the result is a Bible whose text continually evolves\u2014the changes being justified to preserve the accuracy of tradition. Thus, an early printed Bible edited in Italy by R. Jacob ben Hayyim ibn Adonijah (1525 c.e.) reconstructed the work of the Tiberian textual tradition from 600 years earlier. His effort was impressive enough that soon afterward owners of old manuscripts all across Europe altered their parchments to match his newly authoritative book.
\nAs mistakes were corrected, new ones appeared. R. Meir Letteris of Austria edited a Hebrew Bible first published in 1852, based on lists of \u201ccorrections\u201d by experts who perceived mistakes in earlier editions. It became the standard Hebrew text among many Jews to this day. Yet, like all prior printed Bibles, it contained hundreds of its own typographic errors.
\nThe Masoretes\u2014Preservers and Protectors of the Hebrew Bible
\nThe Masoretes\u2019 main goal was to preserve the text of the Hebrew Bible with the utmost accuracy. To this end, they developed the system of vowel signs still in use today in the Hebrew Torah text to ensure that each word would always be read the same way. They also counted the number of words and letters in the Torah and compiled a list of even the most insignificant deviations from what they had established as the authentic text of the Hebrew Bible.
\nFrom Lionel Moses, \u201cTorah Reading,\u201d in Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary.
\nMeanwhile, in the modern era, certain early medieval manuscripts\u2014safeguarded in isolated Middle Eastern communities\u2014were brought to the attention of Bible scholars. These have proved to be the oldest known witnesses of the now standard Tiberian tradition. Only recently has the wider, evolutionary, corrective process taken these unusually reliable texts into account. These manuscripts still contain inconsistencies and differ slightly from each other. But on the whole, they confirm the \u201creceived\u201d (evolutionary European) traditions of the Bible text, especially for the Torah. Amazingly, manuscript differences are truly minor. More than 99.9 percent of the time, the masoretic Bible\u2019s witnesses give identical accounts. Rarely does the variation impact the meaning of a given verse.
\nParchment Scrolls and Codex
\nFor about 800 years before the invention of printing, Jewish books were written on parchment in two formats, scroll or codex. A codex was made of bound folios; it was easier to use for study, and it could hold far more information. In manuscripts, the entire Bible has appeared only as a codex, never as a scroll. Classical Hebrew terms for a codex are mazor, mitzhaf, and keter.
\nThe History of the Hebrew Text
\nSince ancient times, Jews have traced the chain of transmission of Scripture: \u201cMoses received Torah at Sinai and handed it on to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the prophets. And the prophets handed it on to the Great Assembly \u2026\u201d (Mishnah Pirkei Avot 1:1). For the Hebrew text found in the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh the textual transmission history is as follows.
\nAARON BEN MOSES BEN-ASHER (TIBERIAS, CA. 930 C.E.)
\nAn industrious family of Masoretes once lived in the Galilean town of Tiberias (an ancient center of Jewish scholarship). The last in their line of scholars was Aaron ben Moses Ben-Asher, who flourished circa 930 c.e. He authored a classic masoretic treatise. He is the first known scribe to complete a manuscript of the entire Bible (whose books had been preserved somewhat independently). An important part of his work included the proofreading of others\u2019 manuscripts, which is how he enters into our picture.
\nSAMUEL BEN JACOB (EGYPT, 1010 C.E.)
\nTwo generations later, a scribe in Fostat (Egypt\u2019s thriving center of trade and learning) spent years composing a Bible codex. Noting its completion in 1010 c.e., he recorded that he copied from several manuscripts into this one volume: \u201cSamuel ben Jacob wrote out the consonants, vowels, punctuation, accents, and annotations of this codex of Scripture from the texts checked and corrected by the late master Aaron ben Moses Ben-Asher; it has been checked and corrected per tradition.\u201d
\nThe Crown of Aleppo
\nAlso known as the Aleppo Codex, the \u201cCrown of Aleppo\u201d is believed to be the oldest existing and most accurate manuscript of the entire Hebrew Bible that contains vowels and cantillation signs. The scholar who added the vowels and accents was Rabbi Aaron Bar Asher, an expert in the masoretic system used both for maintaining the accuracy of the written, consonantal text of the Bible and for recording the vowels and accents (which had previously been handed down through oral memorization). Written in the 10th century in Palestine, the Aleppo Codex was then used by Maimonides when he formulated his regulations for writing Torah scrolls.
\nIn the 16th century, the codex was stolen from Cairo; and when it ended up in the city of Aleppo, the local Jewish community held on to it, refusing even to lend it out to scholars. After Aleppo was attacked by anti-Jewish rioters, the manuscript was thought to have been destroyed. When that was revealed to be false, a concerted campaign of pressure and persuasion by the Israeli government, scholarly institutions, and Jewish organizations convinced Aleppo residents to move the codex to Jerusalem for safekeeping in 1958. However, approximately one third of the manuscript, which included most of the Torah up to Deuteronomy 28:17, remains missing. Some believe that this section was destroyed in the anti-Jewish riots in Aleppo. Others speculate that residents of Aleppo have continued to keep parts of that section for themselves.
\nSamuel\u2019s Bible contains 60,000 marginal notes on the text, including more than 1,000 divergences between consonantal text (ketiv) and reading tradition (kerei). In proofreading and correcting his work, Samuel ben Jacob missed (or let stand) hundreds of errors\u2014which is actually an impressive result, given the millions of characters in a Hebrew Bible. As the contemporary scholar E. J. Revell comments, \u201cThis is a long way from perfection, but it is close to ideal when compared to the situation in most [later] medieval manuscripts.\u201d
\nRECENT EDITIONS OF THE LENINGRAD CODEX
\nToday, Samuel ben Jacob\u2019s work is the oldest-known complete Hebrew Bible, and the oldest complete representative of the Ben-Asher tradition. (Only for a few dozen characters is this codex not clearly legible\u2014given some parchment stains, flaked ink, and ambiguous pen strokes.) For centuries, however, it was kept out of circulation, unknown to historians or Bible editors. Then in 1840, a manuscript collector announced possession of this Bible\u2014which has since become known as the Leningrad Codex. Repeatedly since then, international teams of Christian and Jewish scholars (both religious and academic) have edited this codex for modern use. The first group, led by Rudolph Kittel and Paul Kahle, made it the base text for a critical edition, Biblia Hebraica Kittel (BHK, 1937). After World War II, another team revised BHK, producing Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS, 1967\u201377), upon which the Hebrew text in the JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh is based.
\nAdapted from David E. S. Stein, the preface of JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh.
\nThe Torah Scroll
\nIn its earliest transmission, the words of the Torah were written on papyrus and animal skins. To maintain this sacred tradition, Jews observe the mitzvah of writing the words of the Torah on specially prepared parchment, which is sewn together and rolled onto two wooden rollers. When Torah is read publicly, it is read from a Torah scroll (sefer Torah). When the Torah text is studied, it is read from a book.
\nIn Deuteronomy 31:19, it is written: \u201cTherefore, write down this poem and teach it to the people of Israel.\u201d This verse, according to the sages, prescribes the responsibility of each Jew to write a Torah scroll. To fulfill this mitzvah, one can personally write a scroll, have it written by a professional scribe (sofer), or help purchase one for a community.
\nA sofer is a professional scribe, and the work of a sofer is considered holy. It requires the mastery of many halakhic (Jewish legal) details and is transmitted through an apprenticeship with a master sofer.
\nThe sofer\u2019s day begins with immersion in a mikveh (ritual bath), which is an act of spiritual purification that declares one\u2019s readiness to accept the obligation of the holy act of writing the scroll. (If a sofer is unable to attend the mikveh for the day, wherever God\u2019s name would be written, a space is left, postponing the writing of God\u2019s name for a day on which the sofer can immerse in a mikveh. On that day, a \u201cGod quill\u201d and bottle of special ink may be used.)
\nThe sofer commences work by writing the name of Amalek (the ancient enemy of the Jewish people) on a scrap of parchment. The name is then crossed out to fulfill the mitzvah of \u201cblotting out the memory of Amalek from under the heaven\u201d (Deut. 25:19). The sofer then writes a statement that translates, \u201cI am writing this Torah in the name of its sanctity and the name of God\u2019s sanctity.\u201d
\nThe sofer\u2019s tools\u2014parchment, pen, and inkwell\u2014are referred to as \u201carticles of honor.\u201d The parchment is made from specific sections of the hide of a kosher animal (not necessarily slaughtered according to Jewish ritual). The hide consists of three layers, but only the flesh side of the inner layer and the outer side of the hairy layer may be used for Torah parchment. The methods of cleaning and softening the hide have changed throughout the centuries. During talmudic times, salt and barley flour were sprinkled on the skins, which were then soaked in the juice of gallnuts. In modern times, the skins are softened by soaking them in clear water for two days, after which the hair is removed by soaking the hides in limewater for nine days. Finally, the skins are rinsed and dried and the creases ironed out with presses, in a process similar to the curing of leather. In keeping with the sanctity of processing material for a scroll, the person handling the skins must make a verbal declaration of intent, acknowledging that all actions are being performed for the holiness of the scroll.
\nAlthough reeds were used as pens in the days of the Talmud, quills are used today, and the sturdy, durable turkey feather is preferred. The sofer cuts the point of the feather to give it a flat surface, which is desirable for forming the square letters, and then slits it lengthwise.
\nThe ink used in writing a Torah scroll must be black and durable, but not indelible. During talmudic times, a viscous ink was made by heating a vessel with the flame of burning olive oil; the soot thus produced on the sides of the vessel was scraped off and mixed with oil, honey, and gallnuts. Today, ink is produced from a mixture of gallnuts, gum arabic, and copper sulfate crystals. Some scribes also add vinegar and alcohol to render it glossy.
\nThe actual printing of the letters follows one of three styles of script: The Ashkenazic resembles the script described in the Talmud. The Sephardic is identical with the printed letters of the Hebrew alphabet currently used in sacred texts. The Lurianic is the third style. The sofer must shape each letter precisely as pictured, and each must be written from left to right, with the initial stroke being (generally) a curved line produced by using just the point of the quill. Next, using the entire surface of the pen, the sofer draws the letter. The thickness of each letter varies, and it is often necessary for the sofer to make several strokes to form a letter.
\nTagin (an Aramaic word meaning \u201ccrowns\u201d) are specific ornamental designs placed at the upper-left-hand corner of 7 of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. Composed of three strokes, these crowns and their letters form the source of many mystical interpretations found in the kabbalistic literature. There is a tradition that the crowns and the letters contain spiritual essences that emanate from God.
\nThere are precise specifications concerning the number of columns a Torah must have on each piece of parchment, as well as the size of the columns, the space between individual letters, and the size of the gap between parshiyot (weekly reading portions). Although guidelines are incised for the top of a line of Torah text, there are none for the bottom of each letter. If a sofer makes a mistake in writing the scroll, the ink can be removed with a knife, pumice stone, or piece of broken glass. However, base metals are generally not used to correct or even touch a Torah scroll, as these metals are used to make weapons, which render them unfit to touch a scroll, which is an instrument of peace.
\nAny mistakes in the spelling of any of the names of God cannot be corrected, as the name of God cannot be erased. If a scroll has extensive corrections, it is considered unsightly and, therefore, invalid. When invalid or beyond repair, a scroll is stored in a genizah. In talmudic times, it was customary to bury such scrolls alongside the grave of a prominent rabbi.
\nGenizah
\nA genizah is a storage space for damaged or obsolete prayer books, Bibles, and other religious works. Jewish law considers anything on which God\u2019s name is written to be holy, and so strict halakhic law forbids the destruction of any paper\u2014no matter how small, old, or damaged\u2014that contains the name of God. As books become obsolete or too damaged to use, synagogues traditionally place them in a genizah, usually a small room or closet attached to the synagogue. In some communities, the genizah is emptied every seven years and the books taken to the cemetery and buried. In other communities, the genizah is emptied and its contents interred in times of drought or simply when it is full. In ancient and medieval times, nearly every synagogue had a genizah. Today most sizable traditional Jewish communities have one.
\nNot only holy works were stored in ancient and medieval genizahs (or genizot); rabbis classified many books they considered heretical or otherwise dangerous as sefarim genuzim (books to be hidden away) and stored them in a genizah to prevent them from being read. Purely secular or non-Jewish works are sometimes also stored in genizahs. The Cairo Genizah\u2014the most famous genizah in the world, contained fragments of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, as well as legal writings and simple correspondence, much of it written in the local Arabic language in Hebrew letters.
\nThe Cairo Genizah was not emptied, possibly for fear of attacks on Jewish funeral processions, from at least 882 c.e. until 1896. The accumulated contents\u2014more than 250,000 manuscripts\u2014provide a wealth of information on medieval Jewish life. Its documents reveal day-to-day interactions of ordinary Jews with their Muslim and Christian neighbors. Its store of personal documents provides some of the only contemporary evidence of the Fatimid and Ayyubid rulers of Egypt and unique, firsthand accounts of the Jewish commentator Maimonides.
\nOnce the writing of a Torah scroll is carefully checked and approved, the individual sheets of parchment are sewn together with a special thread made of tendon tissue taken from the foot muscles of a kosher animal. These sections of parchment are sewn on the outer side of the parchment, with one inch left unsewn both at the very top and bottom. To reinforce the thread, thin strips of parchment are often pasted on the top and bottom of the page. After connecting the sheets, the ends are tied to the wooden rollers that hold the scroll. Each roller consists of a center pole (atz chayim), with a handle of wood and flat circular rollers to support the rolled-up scroll. In addition to providing a means to roll the scroll, the rollers prevent people from touching the holy parchments with their hands. In many Sephardic communities, flat rollers are not employed, because Torah scrolls are kept in an upright ornamental wooden or metal case called a tik. When reading from a scroll one does not touch the Torah with one\u2019s hands but uses a yad (pointer; literally, \u201chand\u201d) to follow the letters.
\nDecorating the Torah Scroll
\nThe reverence with which the Torah scroll is regarded is shown by its costly accessories and ornaments.
\nThe two rolls of the Torah scroll are fastened together with a wimpel, a long band of material, usually two to three inches wide; then the Torah cover (mappah) is fitted over them. This decorative, embroidered cloth mantle used to protect and beautify the Torah has two openings at the top to accommodate the poles (atzei chayim) to which the Torah scroll is attached.
\nAfter the Torah has been covered, or dressed, the breastplate (hoshen) is attached to a chain and draped over the Torah poles. Usually made of silver, modern breastplates are reminiscent of the one worn by the High Priest in biblical times, which had 12 precious stones engraved with the names of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Usually a small box (tas) is soldered to the plate; it contains silver nameplates for each holiday and special Sabbaths. Two small, decorative silver crowns (rimonim) are placed on the Torah poles. Finally, the pointer (yad) is attached to a chain or a string and hung from the Torah.
\nThe scroll is housed in an ark, a cabinet, which in Ashkenazic synagogues is set into or against a wall that faces east toward Jerusalem. In Sephardic synagogues, the ark is often in the center of the sanctuary. An embroidered curtain (parochet) further shields the Torah scrolls inside the ark.
\nAdapted from Stuart Kelman, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary.
\nPublic Reading of the Torah
\nThe first public reading that involved \u201ca prototype\u201d of the Torah took place in the mid-5th century b.c.e., when Ezra undertook the initial reading on Rosh Hashanah, followed by a daily reading during the festival of Sukkot. By the time of the Second Temple, the public reading of Torah was a regular feature of the synagogue service, on Mondays, Thursdays, the Sabbath, and holidays.
\nThe Reading Cycle
\nThe custom of the Land of Israel was to complete the reading of the Torah once every three years; in Babylonia it was completed annually. The holiday Simchat Torah is a post-talmudic holiday that originated in Babylonia during the gaonic period. It is a celebration of the conclusion of the annual Torah reading, after which the cycle of reading begins again. In the three-year cycle, Simchat Torah was a moveable festival, occurring at various times during the year. However, by the 12th century c.e., the influence of Babylonian Jewry was virtually universal, and the annual cycle became the norm for most communities around the world, as it still is today.
\nIt should be noted, however, that Reform Judaism and some Conservative synagogues have adopted the three-year cycle to shorten each week\u2019s Torah reading. Instead of reading the Torah consecutively, this cycle divides the weekly portions into three parts, and one part is read in each of three years of the cycle. Thus, while the reading of the entire Torah is not complete until the three-year cycle is complete, each year readers start with Genesis and finish, on Simchat Torah, with Deuteronomy.
\nChanting the Torah
\nThe Torah is not literally read; it is chanted in a musical mode according to a system of marks that are found in printed versions of the Hebrew Bible but not in the Torah scroll. Each of these marks designates a series of musical notes called masoretic accents, also called ta\u2019amim and trope. The system of ta\u2019amim was developed by biblical scholars known as Masoretes, who lived in Tiberias, in northern Israel, during the 9th and 10th centuries c.e. See \u201cThe Masoretes\u2014Preservers and Protectors of the Hebrew Bible,\u201d on p. 20.
\nThe Five Scrolls
\nThe Five Scrolls, or Five Megillot, are part of the third part of the Bible, Writings (Kethuvim). These short books are customarily read aloud in synagogue on corresponding Jewish holy days.
\nIn addition to the reading of the Five Scrolls on various holy days throughout the Jewish year, the book of Jonah is read aloud on Yom Kippur, when Jews atone for their sins. Jonah\u2019s story is one of atonement: the power of repentance and the mercy of God save Jonah from the belly of the whale.
\nBook
\nHoly Day
\nExplanation
\nSong of Songs
\nPassover
\nAs the celebration of Passover is a marker of springtime, so is the Song of Songs, which focuses on the blossoming of nature, love, and beauty. The flowering of love that is described in the Song of Songs can also be connected to Passover in that it represents the flowering of love between the Israelites and God during the Exodus. Hence, the Song of Songs may stand as the courtship between God and Israel, which was consummated at Mount Sinai.
\nRuth
\nShavuot
\nShavuot marks the Jews\u2019 receiving and accepting the Torah and all of its commandments, while Ruth is a convert who traditionally accepts the Torah and commandments to become a Jew. In addition, events recorded in Ruth took place at harvest time, and Shavuot is the harvest festival. And Ruth was the ancestor of David, who, according to tradition, died on Shavuo
\nLamentations
\nTisha b\u2019Av
\nLamentations mourns the destruction of Jerusalem and the First Temple, while describing the suffering of the Jewish people, just as Tisha b\u2019Av marks a day of fasting in remembrance of the destruction of the Temple.
\nEcclesiastes
\nSukkot
\nEcclesiastes is read during Sukkot, possibly because Kohelet, the author of the book, writes about the transience of life, like the temporary booth, the sukkah. The verse, \u201cDistribute portions to seven or even to eight\u201d (11:2) was applied by the Rabbis to the seven days of Sukkot and the eighth day. Also, Ecclesiastes encourages one to enjoy life, (9:7\u20139) fitting for the holiday which is called \u201cthe time of our rejoicing.\u201d
\nEsther
\nPurim
\nThe book of Esther tells the story of Purim and the events that led up to it.
\nThe ta\u2019amim have three distinct functions: musical, syntactical, and grammatical. Primarily they indicate the musical motifs in which the biblical text is chanted. Each accent represents a group of notes, \u201ctropes\u201d, that the reader fits to each word. The accents usually identify the stressed syllable in each word and are placed above or below the syllable that receives the stress. Knowing which syllable receives the stress helps provide meaning to the text, because often the only distinction between two words that sound the same but have different meanings is which syllable gets the emphasis. The musical motif of the accents produces a chant that adds an aesthetic dimension to the public reading, as recommended in the Talmud.
\nToday, there are five main musical modes, or melodies, for chanting the Torah: Yemenite, Ashkenazic, Middle Eastern and North African, Jerusalem Sephardic, and northern Mediterranean.
\nThe Haftarah
\nThe haftarah is a reading from one of the books of the Prophets (Nevi\u2019im) selected to complement the weekly Torah reading or highlight the theme of a specific occasion. Of the 54 readings, 14 are from the book of Isaiah, eight from Jeremiah, six from Ezekiel, and nine from the books of the Minor Prophets.
\nThe Torah text is divided into weekly readings, each known as a parashah (parashot, plural) and also as a sidrah (sidrot, plural), and each of these is accompanied by another reading, called a haftarah (haftarot, plural), taken from one of the books of the Prophets. There are 54 sets of these readings, so that the reading cycle can be completed in one year. This number of parshiyot exceeds the number of Sabbaths in the usual calendar and provides the needed flexibility for a Jewish leap year, which adds four weeks to the calendar, seven times in 19 years. In non-leap years, certain parshiyot are combined to ensure that the entire Torah is completed within the year. The extra parshiyot also allow for combining and separating them to accommodate the special readings for festivals when they occur on the Sabbath.
\nAdapted from Lionel Moses, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, with additions.
\nThe Name of God
\nIn Hebrew tradition, names carry enormous power. The personal name of God, as revealed to Moses (Exod. 3:15) is the most powerful and sacred word of all. This name, which is known in Greek as the Tetragrammaton, consists of four Hebrew letters. Because the name of God could be spoken only within the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctuary of the Temple in Jerusalem, a substitution is made when reading the Hebrew Scripture aloud.
\nMost Jewish readers say Adonai (usually translated in English as \u201cLord\u201d) instead. The name \u201cJehovah,\u201d given by some Christian traditions as God\u2019s name, is based on a non-Hebrew-speaker\u2019s error, using the vowel sounds for Adonai with the consonants for \u201cYahweh.\u201d
\nIn everyday practice, some Jews avoid even Adonai, preferring other euphemisms such as ha-Shem (\u201cthe Name\u201d). Documents containing the name of God are treated with the utmost respect. English-speaking Orthodox and some Conservative Jews often use the formation \u201cG-d\u201d when writing, so as not to spell out\u2014and possibly subject to desecration\u2014the holy name.
\nBoth Jewish and Christian printed Bibles often observe the custom of separating God\u2019s name from ordinary text by setting the words \u201cGod\u201d or \u201cLord\u201d in capitals or small capitals when the words refer to the one God of Israel.
\nAdapted from Cullen Schippe and Chuck Stetson, The Bible and Its Influence.
\nA Short History of Bible Translations
\nThe book of Genesis narrates two stories in which translation plays a role. The first, the well-known tower of Babel episode (Gen. 11), vividly describes the dangers that can occur when all nations and peoples speak the same language. To prevent evil from spreading among people, God divides the world into many tongues, which makes translation a necessary, but not a desirable, result. If all humanity could behave, the story implies, there could be one universal language, with no need for translators.
\nThe other story is embedded in the lengthy account of the negotiations between Joseph, now second in command to Pharaoh, and his brothers. Although Joseph immediately recognizes his siblings, for quite some time they do not know his true identity. Since they are from a foreign land, we are told, \u201cthere was an interpreter between him[Joseph] and them[his brothers]\u201d (Gen. 42:23). Here translation is understood as a practical necessity of life, something to be valued when communication among different peoples occurs.
\nOf course, neither of these two stories relates specifically to translation of the Bible. But in a sense, they can serve as paradigms for two of the different ways in which Bible translations were evaluated within Jewish communities over several millennia: grudgingly acknowledged or openly accepted. As we shall see, even within these two large groupings, there are gradations of acceptance and rejection. This is one of the themes explored in this chapter, as we examine how Jews have translated sacred writ for more than 2,000 years.
\nThe Earliest Translation: Greek
\nThe first Bible translation, the Septuagint (often abbreviated \u201cLXX\u201d), dates to approximately 275 b.c.e.; it was prepared in Alexandria, the Egyptian capital city. Ptolemy I, one of Alexander the Great\u2019s generals, had settled large numbers of Jews there a few decades earlier as part of his efforts to solidify his empire, which was centered on Egypt but stretched northward to Syria and Palestine. The Letter of Aristeas, which was composed at least a century later than this event, provides our earliest narrative account of the circumstances that produced this translation.
\nAs recorded in the Letter, the second ruler of Hellenistic Egypt, Ptolemy II Philadephus, was persuaded by his librarian to initiate and support a Greek translation of the Jewish law, or Torah. This text was to occupy a place of honor, along with a great many others, in the magnificent library that Ptolemy was assembling at Alexandria. He arranged with the High Priest in Jerusalem that 72 Jewish elders\u2014each an experienced scholar exhibiting the highest moral standards\u2014would be sent from Jerusalem to Alexandria. Ptolemy welcomed them with sumptuous meals and extended conversation, after which they set about their task in the palatial quarters the monarch provided them. They formed subcommittees to work on their renderings, and after 72 days of consultation and cooperation, they completed their Greek translation of the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.<\/p>\n
A chart of the weekly Torah portions, Bible, Toledo, 1492. This chart is part of a Bible that was copied by Abraham Kaliff a few months before the decree of expulsion was issued against the Jews of Spain. After the decree, it was then smuggled out of the country unfinished, then completed in Constantinople in 1497. It is one of the earliest published Hebrew texts to contain full accents and vocalization markings. (Courtesy of The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.)
\nThe final section of the Letter of Aristeas describes a formal ceremony at which the Jews of Alexandria accepted this Greek translation of the Torah as sacred writ. The author of the Letter consciously shaped his narration of this ceremony to call to the reader\u2019s mind the account of Moses\u2019s giving of the Law in the book of Exodus. To give support to the high status accorded to this text, a curse was uttered against anyone who dared to make even the slightest alteration in the wording of this Greek version.
\nWe cannot know for certain what factors led the author of the Letter of Aristeas to promote the Septuagint as a document with sanctity and authority equal to the original Hebrew. It may well be that he and his community were confronted with revisions of this earliest Greek version and that he felt obliged to attack such revisers with the strongest weapon in his arsenal: the assertion that their alternatives represented direct challenges to sacred writ. We find support for this view in the writings of the 1st-century-c.e. Jewish philosopher Philo, himself a native of Alexandria, who equated the Septuagint translators with biblical prophets, thus according their words\u2014especially the differences between the Greek and the Hebrew texts\u2014the status of inspired revelation. Philo, who wrote in Greek, did not know Hebrew; for him (and for many others like him), the Bible in Greek assumed preeminent importance.
\nPhilo was certainly not the only Jew of this period to hold the work of the earliest translations in such high regard; nonetheless, this point of view is more characteristic of early Christians than Jews. Therefore, Christian, rather than Jewish, writers more frequently embellished the relatively sober account of Aristeas with an increasing array of miraculous occurrences: Each scholar was said to have worked alone (or in isolated pairs) to produce, under divine intervention, exactly the same text as his colleagues. Until Jerome (340\u2013415 c.e.), there were hardly any church leaders who studied Hebrew and could read the Hebrew Bible in its original. The Greek text served that purpose, as it continues to do for Orthodox Christians to this very day. Jerome\u2019s Latin translation, the Vulgate, was indeed based largely on Hebrew rather than Greek texts, but its popularity also resulted in diminishing the need\u2014for more than 1,000 years\u2014for Christian theologians to consult the Old Testament in Hebrew.
\nIs the Letter of Aristeas correct in its contention that the primary impetus for the earliest Greek version was the intellectual curiosity of Ptolemy II and his librarian? Or is it more likely the result of internal concerns about the need for authoritative interpretation as understanding of the Hebrew language grew increasingly rare among the members of Alexandria\u2019s large Jewish community? As is so often the case, the response need not be either\/or. Although not documented outside of the Letter, the activities it ascribes to Ptolemy II are wholly in keeping with what is known about him from many other sources. And it makes good sense that Alexandrian Jews would support, if not initiate, a translation into what was becoming their everyday language, Greek.
\nThe initial translators of the Torah into Greek generally followed a reasonably literal approach to their Hebrew text. It can be observed that all translators have a dual allegiance: (1) to the text that they are translating (the base text) and (2) to the audience for whom they are translating (the target audience). If renderings remain too closely moored to the foreign-language original, audiences contemporary with the translator may not easily understand them. On the other hand, very free translations, while immediately accessible to readers, may end up changing significant meaning and nuance along with characteristic structure or grammar of the earlier text. If then we think of a continuum from literal to free, we can place the translators responsible for the Greek Pentateuch (the Old Greek version of the Torah) on the moderately literal side of the scale. We are able to affirm this at the same time we note that, against the evidence that the Letter of Aristeas provides, modern scholars have detected five, probably six, translators who were principally involved in producing this version (one for each book of the Pentateuch, with a second for the latter part of Exodus).
\nAnd what of the remainder of the Old Greek version of the Hebrew Bible? It is difficult to speak with certainty about the order in which other books were translated, where this took place, and under whose auspices or sponsorship. Nonetheless, some later translators (such as the translator of the book of Joshua) consciously modeled their renderings on the generally literal approach taken by the translators of the Torah, while others apparently felt free to modernize, harmonize, and otherwise modify the Hebrew they were rendering, presumably to meet what they perceived as the needs of their readers (see, for example, the books of Isaiah and Proverbs).
\nAnd what was the Hebrew text that the Greek translators worked with? It is certain that it often looked very much like the masoretic text (MT) that forms the basis of modern editions of the Hebrew Bible, although without the vowels and other markers that were not regularly inserted into manuscripts until approximately 900 c.e. But it is equally certain that some Greek translators had before them a Hebrew text that diverged, to greater or lesser extent, from the MT. This results from the fact, most clearly demonstrated in the Dead Sea Scrolls, that there was no \u201cstandard\u2019 text for \u201cbiblical\u201d books at this time.
\nModern scholars were not the first to note that there are divergences between the Septuagint and the MT. Even before the Common Era, readers observed such differences, which on occasion they sought to \u201cremedy\u201d by \u201ccorrecting\u201d the Greek on the basis of their Hebrew. In fact, this seems to be the primary motivation for the very revisers that the author of the Letter of Aristeas sought to combat. We do not know the names of any revisers as early as the mid-2nd century b.c.e; however, from the late 1st century b.c.e. through the early 3rd century c.e., we do have evidence of at least three Jewish revisers or retranslators: Theodotion, Aquila, and Symmachus. Widely divergent biographic accounts of these individuals circulated already in antiquity. We believe that all three were Jewish and motivated by theological as well as stylistic concerns. The writers of the New Testament knew the early layer or stratum of the text attributed to Theodotion; Symmachus may still have been active in the early 3rd century c.e. Greek-speaking Jews continued to use and further develop Aquila\u2019s extremely literal version well into the Byzantine period.
\nAll of this evidence should lead us to be very cautious about oft-repeated statements that the Jews abandoned the Septuagint when early Christians adopted it. Although it is true that, except for the Greek speakers mentioned above, Jews did eventually stop using and studying the Septuagint (until the early 19th century, when Jewish scholars began to make major advances in Septuagint studies), the continuing revision of old(er) Greek manuscripts for several centuries shows how much interest and authority it managed to maintain for at least some Jewish communities.
\nThe sources cited earlier give witness to differing views about the value of the Greek version, but none condemns translation per se. Rabbinic sources, on the other hand, do contain such condemnations, as well as positive statements, often specifically directed to the Greek text, about biblical versions in languages other than Hebrew. For example, there is Soferim 1:7:
\nIt happened once that five elders wrote the Torah for King Ptolemy in Greek, and that day was as ominous for Israel as the day on which the golden calf was made, since the Torah could not be accurately translated.
\nAnd there is in the Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 9a:
\nIt was related of King Ptolemy that he brought together 72 elders and placed them in 72 rooms, and he went into each one individually and ordered them, \u201cWrite for me the Torah of your Teacher Moses.\u201d The Holy One, blessed be He, put wisdom in the heart of each one so that they agreed with one accord and wrote for him, \u201cGod created in the beginning.\u2026\u201d
\nThese widely divergent opinions likely reflect deep divisions among Rabbinic authorities, based on factors such as chronology (before or after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple by the Romans in 70 c.e.), geography (in the Land of Israel or the Diaspora), and ideology. Although Christians disputed\u2014sometimes heatedly, as in the case of Jerome and his contemporary Augustine\u2014which text to translate, the question of whether or not to translate did not often arise.<\/p>\n
A two-page spread from Genoa Psalter (Psalterium Octaplum), Genoa, 1516. These pages from this book of Psalms demonstrate the typical layout of a biblical polyglot, where several languages of the same text sit side be side. This polyglot, however, is particularly impressive, as it was one of the first containing biblical material ever published, presenting the text of Psalms in seven languages, and providing the editor\u2019s references and notes in the final column on the right. (Courtesy of The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.)<\/p>\n
The translations from left to right are: Hebrew, the Latin translation of the Hebrew text, the Vulgate Latin version, the Greek Septuagint version, Arabic (one of the earliest examples of Arabic printing using movable type), Aramaic, and the Latin translation of the Aramaic text. This polyglot also contains the first printed reference to Christopher Columbus in any book, mentioning that the \u201cends of the earth\u201d had been discovered by one of Genoa\u2019s native sons. (Courtesy of The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.)
\nIn a formal sense, the Septuagint was the earliest recorded written version of scripture in a language other than Hebrew. But it is likely that the Hebrew Bible itself contains evidence of its translation or interpretation several centuries earlier than 275 b.c.e. Nehemiah 8 describes Ezra the scribe as standing before the people at Jerusalem\u2019s Water Gate, reading from the book of the Law (which many scholars identify with the Torah that we know to this day) in Hebrew, with others providing an explanation. This explanation or interpretation was almost certainly in Aramaic for the benefit of the populace, who were no longer fluent in Hebrew, for by then (the mid-5th century b.c.e.) Aramaic was the common language of the ancient Near East. In this scenario, interpreters were using Aramaic to supplement and explain, but not replace, the Hebrew wording of the Torah, and in an oral rather than written form.
\nThe Aramaic Targums
\nAt some point in the pre-Christian era, scribes began to write down Aramaic renderings of the Hebrew Bible; these texts are called Targums (or Targumim). Traditional Jewish sources identify the books of the Torah as the first to be translated into Aramaic. Indeed, among the Dead Sea Scrolls there are two small Leviticus fragments, but by far the longest Aramaic text among the Scrolls is the Targum of Job. The most important and well-preserved Targums date from the early centuries of the Common Era, although the material they incorporate is often much older. There are several important Targums for the Torah, the Former Prophets (roughly equivalent to the Historical Books in the Christian tradition), the Latter Prophets, and the Writings (or Kethuvim). The most influential Targums were composed in Babylonia.
\nThese Targums were initially used as supplements to the Hebrew, and their translators stayed relatively close to that Hebrew text. When the translators did part company with it, they felt freer than most Septuagint translators to introduce considerable blocks of \u201cnonbiblical\u201d material into legal as well as narrative sections. Among the techniques they adopted were circumlocutions for references to God. Thus, for example, at Genesis 11:15, Targum Neofiti has \u201cThe Glory of the Shekhinah of the Lord was revealed to see the city and the tower,\u201d where the Hebrew reads, \u201cThe Lord came down to see the city and the tower.\u201d Another Targum to the Torah, Pseudo-Jonathan, presents this text at Genesis 26:3, \u201cSojourn in this land and My word will assist you,\u201d for the Hebrew, \u201cSojourn in this land and I will be with you.\u201d They also reshaped and updated the Hebrew to a considerable degree to conform to their perceptions of their readers\u2019 needs and to the oral tradition.
\nAs part of Christian Scripture, the books of the Old Testament also circulated in Syriac (also called Eastern Aramaic), and Latin. As mentioned earlier, Jerome made a point of learning Hebrew to produce his Latin text, and he also consulted Jewish teachers. For these activities, he was roundly attacked on philological as well as theological grounds. Nonetheless, it is the case that almost all subsequent Christian translators (for example, Martin Luther) and translation committees (such as those responsible for the King James Version) made use, often extensive use, of Jewish sources.
\nAn Arabic Translation
\nThe Arabic language gained prominence with the rapid rise of Islam in the mid-7th century c.e. Jews living in the East and in North Africa quickly adopted the language, but several centuries passed before there was a major translation of the Hebrew Bible into Arabic. It was Saadiah ben Joseph, born and raised in Egypt, and a ga\u2019on (head of a Babylonian rabbinic academy), who undertook this task in the early 10th century. His Arabic translation may have first appeared written in Hebrew characters, a procedure that several later translators also adopted when rendering the Bible into German and other languages. Saadiah ga\u2019on\u2019s version ultimately became the standard biblical text for Arabic-speaking Jews. In his translation, Saadiah was able to achieve his primary goal; namely, to produce a clear, unadorned Arabic rendering of what he understood to be the meaning of the Hebrew original. With primary emphasis on the needs of his contemporary readers, he was willing to simplify or omit distinctive features of Hebrew grammar and style if they were likely to confuse or intimidate his target audience of Arabic speakers.
\nGerman Bibles
\nAs Jews settled or increased their presence throughout Europe, they did not typically produce Bible translations right away. The example of German-speaking Jews is instructive in this regard. Although Jews had arrived in Germany as early as the 4th century c.e., translation of the Hebrew Bible into any of the German dialects first appeared only in the 1200s. These early German versions were intended primarily for the home and school and tended to be very literal renderings of the Hebrew. The home and school (in this case, what might be termed \u201celementary school\u201d) were typically run by women, who were also an explicit audience for the Teutsch Humash of Jacob ben Isaac of Yarnow, who lived in the mid-1600s. This edition, better known as the Tsena Urena, or \u201cWomen\u2019s Bible,\u201d incorporated enormous amounts of material, largely aggadic, from outside of the Bible. This version, and many subsequent ones based on it, supported and maintained the view that only women and children needed the Bible in translation\u2014and then only in a translation embellished with nice stories and easy-to-understand examples. Male children, of course, would outgrow this need; as men, they would be entrusted with the sacred text in its Hebrew original.<\/p>\n
Beginning of book of Esther, Gutenberg Bible, Germany, 1455. This illuminated page is from one of, if not the, earliest books ever printed in Europe using movable type. Johannes Gutenberg printed between 160\u2013180 Bibles, many with hand-painted decoration on them. Thus, these printed Bibles became like the manuscript Bibles that had preceded them, which had been written by scribes and adorned with hand-painted art. (Courtesy of The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.)
\nTwo and a half centuries later, in the late 1700s, the Jewish intellectual and Enlightenment leader Moses Mendelssohn turned his attention to remedying what he saw as the sorry state of Bible versions available to his fellow German-speaking Jews. The style and level of German in those texts were, in his opinion, thoroughly unacceptable for a Jewish community that should be seeking close cultural and social ties with the Christian elites of his day. So he chose to prepare a version in the High German used by such elites, making sure to exclude all specifically Christian renderings familiar from Martin Luther\u2019s classic translation and other previous renderings. In their stead, he introduced typically or traditionally Jewish interpretations. Like Saadiah\u2019s Arabic translation, the first editions of Mendelssohn\u2019s work were printed with Hebrew characters. The first complete translations of the Hebrew Bible into Judeo-German (as the dialect of German spoken by Jews of this period is known) came at the end of the 17th century. They resulted from the efforts of Isaac Blitz and Joseph Witzenhausen. Both Bibles were initially published in Amsterdam.
\nSubsequent editions of Mendelssohn\u2019s translation, printed with German characters, were evidence of a growing market that became increasingly diverse with the rise of Reform and neo-Orthodox communities among German-speaking Jews. Within the former, Bible translators and commentary writers\u2014Leopold Zunz and Ludwig Philippson are well known in this regard\u2014welcomed some of the critical, nontraditional scholarship then being developed by Protestant researchers. Among neo-Orthodox Jews, the versions of Samuel Raphael Hirsch and his son Mendel were widely read. Publishers also discovered that they could increase sales by packaging some editions as family Bibles.
\nThe Jewish philosophers Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig were responsible for another German-language translation deserving mention. They began their work before World War I, but it was not until after World War II that Buber alone completed it (Rosenzweig had died in 1929). The version Buber-Rosenzweig created aimed to introduce modern readers to myriad linguistic and literary features (such as wordplays and repetitions) that up until then were accessible only to those who could read the Hebrew in the original. To achieve their goals, they stretched the German language to (and some might say, beyond) the breaking point.
\nYiddish Bibles
\nFor many centuries, Jews had been preparing Yiddish translations of the Hebrew Bible as well. In the late 19th century, Christians\u2014more precisely Jews who had converted to Christianity\u2014also became active in this area. They were primarily supported by organizations like the British and Foreign Bible Society. Thus it is not surprising that the Yiddish-language Old Testaments they produced were compatible with Christian theology; together with Yiddish versions of the New Testament, such Yiddish Bibles were widely distributed by missionary societies in eastern Europe and later aboard ships, in harbors, and within communities throughout the West wherever Jews settled.
\nThis period also witnessed the preparation of what is probably the best-known Jewish translation of the Bible into Yiddish. As was the case with Saadiah and Mendelssohn, this was the work of a single individual: Solomon Bloomgarden, who is generally known by his pen name, Yehoash. He began publishing his version, in serialized form, in 1910, in the United States, where he lived, and continued to revise it until his death in 1927. His work did not appear as a whole until a decade later, on the eve of World War II. By then, alas, Yiddish as a living language and large numbers of Yiddish speakers were already on the road to destruction.
\nOther European Language Bibles
\nAmong other modern languages into which Jews translated the Bible are Spanish and Italian. Jews are responsible for two of the most famous Spanish Bibles: the Alba Bible, prepared in the early 15th century by Rabbi Moses Arragel; and the mid-16th-century Ferrara Bible, which formed the basis for many subsequent renderings. Italian translations by Jews go back to the medieval period, but probably the best-known Jewish versions in Italian are the work of the major 19th-century figure Samuel David Luzzatto, also known as Shadal.
\nThe First English Translations, from Great Britain
\nThe history of Jewish translations of the Bible into English has a number of features in common with Jewish versions in other modern languages. Its development is also marked by distinctive elements that reflect cultural, political, religious, and even economic forces at play in the United Kingdom and later in the United States.
\nFor at least three centuries, the King James Version (KJV) of 1611 functioned for English speakers as Martin Luther\u2019s version had for those who spoke German. Although there were no Jewish members on the committees responsible for preparing the KJV, this translation is nonetheless deeply imbued with insights drawn from the Jewish Bible commentator David Kimchi; moreover, its word choice, cadence, and overall structure powerfully evoke the Hebrew original (but with Christian or Christianized renderings of several key passages). It is apparently for these reasons that England\u2019s growing Jewish community did not feel the need to produce its own translation until the closing decades of the 18th century.
\nThe first Jewish versions of the Bible in English, which appeared in the 1780s, were limited to the first five books, the Torah. They were not, strictly speaking, new translations: A page of Hebrew text faced the corresponding English of the KJV, enhanced with a few explanatory notes taken from traditional Jewish sources such as that of the commentator Rashi. Such editions may have been in response to Hebrew-English texts published in the preceding decades under Protestant auspices. In context, these versions, which were consciously shaped for English-speaking Jews, represent an important step.
\nTranslations Differ
\nTake a look at one verse, Genesis 2:18, as it appears in several different translations. Notice the subtle but interesting differences in the way it is rendered. For instance, more recent versions have exchanged the traditional \u201cman\u201d for less gendered language and \u201chelper\u201d for more egalitarian language. There is also variation in rendering the divine name.
\nOriginal Hebrew text
\n18 \u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05b9\u05bc\u05a8\u05d0\u05de\u05b6\u05e8\u05a8 \u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05d5\u05b9\u05a3\u05d4 \u05d0\u05b1\u05dc\u05b9\u05d4\u05b4\u0594\u05d9\u05dd \u05dc\u05b9\u05d0\u05be\u05d8\u059b\u05d5\u05b9\u05d1 \u05d4\u05b1\u05d9\u05a5\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea \u05d4\u05b8\u05bd\u05d0\u05b8\u05d3\u05b8\u0596\u05dd \u05dc\u05b0\u05d1\u05b7\u05d3\u05bc\u0591\u05d5\u05b9 \u05d0\u05b6\u05bd\u05e2\u05b1\u05e9\u05b6\u05c2\u05d4\u05bc\u05be\u05dc\u05bc\u05a5\u05d5\u05b9 \u05e2\u05b5\u0596\u05d6\u05b6\u05e8 \u05db\u05b0\u05bc\u05e0\u05b6\u05d2\u05b0\u05d3\u05bc\u05bd\u05d5\u05b9\u05c3
\nKing James Version
\n\u201cAnd the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.\u201d
\nOld Jewish Publication Society (OJPS) Tanakh (1917)
\n\u201cAnd the Lord God said: \u2018It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.\u2019 \u201d
\nThe Living Torah (1981)
\n\u201cGod said, \u2018It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a compatible helper for him.\u2019 \u201d
\nNew International Version (1984)
\n\u201cThe LORD God said, \u2018It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.\u2019 \u201d
\nNew Revised Standard Version (1989)
\n\u201cThen the LORD God said, \u2018It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.\u2019 \u201d
\nThe New American Bible (1991)
\n\u201cThe LORD God said: \u2018It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.\u2019 \u201d
\nHoly Bible: Contemporary English Version (1995)
\n\u201cThe LORD God said, \u2018It isn\u2019t good for the man to live alone. I need to make a suitable partner for him.\u2019 \u201d
\nThe Five Books of Moses: The Schocken Bible, vol. 1 (1995)
\n\u201cNow YHWH, God, said: It is not good for the human to be alone, I will make him a helper corresponding to him.\u201d
\nTanach, Stone Edition (1996)
\n\u201cHASHEM God said, \u2018It is not good that man be alone; I will make him a helper corresponding to him.\u2019 \u201d
\nJPS Tanakh (NJPS, 1985)
\n\u201cThe Lord God said, \u2018It is not good for man to be alone; I will make a fitting helper for him.\u2019 \u201d
\nRichard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah (2003)
\n\u201cAnd YHWH God said, \u2018It\u2019s not good for the human to be by himself. I\u2019ll make for him a strength corresponding to him.\u2019 \u201d
\nRobert Alter, The Five Books of Moses (2004)
\n\u201cAnd the Lord God said, \u2018It is not good for the human to be alone, I shall make him a sustainer beside him.\u2019 \u201d
\nThe Contemporary Torah (2006)
\n\u201cGod \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 said, \u2018It is not good for the Human to be alone; I will make a fitting counterpart for him.\u2019 \u201d
\nAs was the case with the origins of the Septuagint over 2,000 years earlier, a number of concerns, both within and outside of the Jewish community, motivated such steps at the turn of the 19th century. By then, most Jews, whose families had fairly recently immigrated from Spanish-speaking lands as well as those from German and Yiddish backgrounds, were increasingly familiar and comfortable with English. Synagogues established by both German and Spanish communities were making use of prayer books with some English, and it was becoming common to hear at least a few sermons in English. Under such circumstances, the appearance of \u201cJewish Bibles\u201d in English was not surprising.
\nExternal forces were also moving the Jewish community in the same direction. By the early 1800s, a growing number of missionary societies were focusing their efforts and resources on the conversion of Jews to Christianity. Aided by technological advances that allowed for the mass production of inexpensive Bibles, such Christian proselytizers became a frequent sight in the Jewish neighborhoods of London and other major cities (Yiddish Bibles of this sort were noted earlier). Producing its own English-language versions was one of the most effective responses the Jewish community could devise.
\nThe few Jewish versions with pre-1800 copyright dates came not from the Jewish establishment, but from individuals on the periphery of the organized community or even at odds with it. By the mid-1800s, the preparation of English-language versions had passed squarely into the hands of those who were well connected with the community\u2019s leadership. This could be seen, in unmistakable terms, when the chief rabbi of the British Empire gave his official approval to two of these versions\u2014pointedly not for the synagogue use but for use in schools and homes (thus harkening back to similar constraints imposed several centuries earlier in German-speaking lands).
\nBy the end of the 19th century, the Jews of England had their choice of more than a dozen English-language versions specifically marketed to them. None of these translations differed markedly from the style and structure of the KJV, even as their editors and sponsors edited out Christian language, thereby restoring for Jews traditional biblical interpretation.
\nOJPS, NJPS, and Other American Translations
\nUnlike their Protestant or Catholic counterparts, British Jews did not form committees to translate scripture, but continued the long-standing practice of working as individuals. This was also the case in the United States in the 19th century, where one man, the energetic and resourceful Isaac Leeser, was responsible for a very well known English-language version. His translation of the Torah, which appeared in the 1840s, was followed a decade later by his rendering of the entire Hebrew Bible. Although his style may be criticized as wooden and devoid of literary distinction, it was his Bible that was most often found in American Jewish homes until the beginning of the 20th century.
\nAt that time, the recently founded The Jewish Publication Society of America (JPS), in Philadelphia, sought out and organized a committee to produce a version that would replace Leeser\u2019s. JPS carefully chose members of the translation committee to represent the three major Jewish institutions of higher learning then in existence in the United States: Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, affiliated with the Reform movement; the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, part of the Conservative movement; and Dropsie College in Philadelphia, which offered graduate-level instruction in a number of fields not easily accessible to Jews elsewhere.
\nTanakh, Tanach
\nTanakh (and its alternative spelling, \u201cTanach\u201d) is an acronym reflecting the traditional three-part Jewish division of the Hebrew Bible: Torah, Nevi\u2019im (Prophets), Kethuvim (Writings).
\nTo chair this committee, JPS selected as editor-in-chief Max L. Margolis, a well-established scholar who was thoroughly grounded in traditional Jewish learning and equally knowledgeable in the classics and in the critical approaches to biblical study then in vogue. Margolis was also an immigrant to the United States; as such, he saw how often the progress of his fellow immigrants was impeded by their poor language skills. For Margolis, the KJV offered the best model of proper English. Shorn of its Christian interpretations, a \u201cJudaized\u201d KJV would be an ideal text to ease the passage from Jewish immigrant to Jewish American. In viewing his work in this manner, Margolis was modeling his efforts on the earlier work of Moses Mendelssohn.
\nMargolis\u2019s efforts were entirely consistent with the approach set out by JPS. The language of the KJV was largely retained; of course, Margolis and his committee took out overtly Christian language and introduced some traditional Jewish interpretation. The finished product (sometimes referred to as the OJPS or Old Jewish Publication Society translation)\u2014first published in 1917 and reissued in numerous editions over the next half century or so\u2014was a valued complement to the home of middle-class American Jews, in exactly the same way that the KJV found a place in the libraries of their Protestant neighbors.
\nIn the mid-1950s, Jewish biblical scholar Harry M. Orlinsky began to call for a replacement of the 1917 version\u2014not simply an updating, but an entirely new type of translation that would mark a clear departure from the KJV. For Orlinsky, the effectiveness of a Bible translation could be judged by how easily readers understood it. His contemporaries, he observed, were put off by antiquated or obscure words, and they were confused or bored by foreign-looking sentence structure and grammar. In Orlinsky\u2019s view, the key question for translators was this: What did the original authors intend to say to their audience, and how can we convey that meaning to our audience? In short, this approach to translation seeks to bring the text to the reader. Among his Jewish predecessors, Orlinsky\u2019s closest model in this regard was Saadiah ga\u2019on. More broadly, Orlinsky was allying himself with a number of Protestant scholars associated with the American Bible Society, who promoted and practiced a dynamic or functional equivalence approach to Bible translation. Formatting and typographic fonts were also updated in keeping with this approach.
\nOrlinsky carried out his task from what he understood to be a thoroughly Jewish stance. The resultant translation, the New Jewish Publication Society translation (or NJPS), was thus positioned to take its distinctive place among the more accessible and readable English Bibles of the middle to late 20th century.
\nOrlinsky served as editor-in-chief of the committee that prepared the Torah translation of the NJPS, which initially appeared in the mid-1960s; he was also part of the group that worked on the Prophets. Other scholars from North America and Israel composed the committee for the Writings. Each committee first published its efforts as separate volumes. In 1985, the entire Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, appeared, incorporating in revised form the efforts of all three translation committees. It was not until 1999 that JPS was able to publish its first Hebrew-English language edition, thereby facilitating comparison between text and translation.
\nThe post\u2014World War II period has witnessed the proliferation of new, often competing English-language versions, especially among Protestants. By comparison, the corresponding market for Jewish versions is quite limited. Nonetheless, the NJPS is not the only modern translation for English-speaking Jews.
\nAmong the most widely advertised and beautifully produced versions is ArtScroll\u2019s Tanach, which was first published by Mesorah Publications of Brooklyn, New York, in 1996. It is aimed primarily at more traditional or Orthodox segments of the Jewish community, but its appeal extends beyond that market. For the Torah, its translators relied on the interpretations of the medieval commentator Rashi; elsewhere, they are more eclectic\u2014but they never range beyond traditional sources.
\nAnother version intended primarily for Orthodox and other traditional Jews is the Living Torah, by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, and the Living Nach, three successive volumes covering the Prophets and the Writings, which were translated by Kaplan\u2019s followers after his death. Kaplan, a prolific writer on Jewish topics, often emphasized mystical elements in Jewish thought and practice. The volumes influenced by Kaplan reflect traditional Jewish sources, especially the philosopher Maimonides for legal interpretation, and they also display a demonstrable interest in spiritual matters.
\nWorking on his own, the Jewish scholar Everett Fox draws the contemporary reader into the world of antiquity through a modern-language version that incorporates many aspects of the ancient Hebrew text absent in most other English renderings. The effect Fox produced in English is reminiscent of the results Buber and Rosenzweig achieved in German. This imparts a distinctive flavor, as it were, to his The Five Books of Moses: The Schocken Bible, volume 1.
\nTwo other renderings of the Torah by Jewish scholars have received notice: Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah, With a New English Translation and the Hebrew Text; and Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary. Friedman is a scholar of the Bible; Alter, a professor of English. In both cases, as indicated by the titles of their works, the translation is accompanied by a substantial and substantive commentary. (For more on these works, \u201cCommentaries on the Bible,\u201d on p. 121)
\nIn 2005, the Union for Reform Judaism published a revised edition of its widely used The Torah: A Modern Commentary. Most recently, JPS itself introduced The Contemporary Torah; the subtitle, A Gender-Sensitive Adaptation of the JPS Translation, marks its most innovative feature. In addition to numerous changes with reference to humans, this Jewish version uses gender-neutral language for almost all references to God. These principles are in keeping with recent trends in Bible translation in general; even some conservative Protestant editions have been moving in this direction.
\nThese are among the most important English-language Jewish versions on the market today. But there are others as well. Theological, literary, social, even fiscal forces have come to play a role in this phenomenon, which is as old as the Septuagint and as new as the latest version. For Jews, the questions that arise are ancient and perennial, modern and immediate: What is it that makes a Bible translation Jewish? Should a Jewish translation ever supplant, rather than supplement, the Hebrew original? Who, if anyone, should determine which mode of translation, or presentation, or annotation is best? Do differing versions serve to divide Jews, and, if so, should there be one version to unite? Whatever answers translators arrive at, it is possible to be optimistic that Jewish Bible translators will remain true to their distinctive task of finding and perfecting ways to link contemporary communities with the sacred texts that make up the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings.
\nLeonard Greenspoon
\nThe Matter of Gender in the JPS Torah Translation
\nHarry Orlinsky, the editor-in-chief of the New Jewish Publication Society (NJPS) translation of the Torah (1962), lectured widely on what at that time was a new topic in translation: gender. He would point out that the best-known Bible versions have too often rendered certain Hebrew nouns as referring to men, thus making women appear relatively invisible. For example, the Decalogue (the Ten Commandments) in the classic King James Version (KJV) of 1611 has God \u201cvisiting the iniquity of the fathers [avot] upon the children\u201d (Exod. 20:5) even though logic dictates\u2014and other biblical passages indicate\u2014that also in view were mothers and their sins. Orlinsky saw such customary renderings as misrepresenting the biblical text, and in his opinion, the solution lay in a contextual, idiomatic approach to translation\u2014of which NJPS was the exemplar. (NJPS reads: \u201cvisiting the guilt of the parents upon the children.\u201d) He would reiterate that the NJPS approach has no inherent ideological bias but rather \u201cseeks to determine within the context and in the light of pertinent data elsewhere in the Bible and in related extra-biblical societies what the author meant to convey.\u201d
\nWhere the Torah\u2019s language suggests a neutral sense, NJPS avoids misleadingly ascribing gender, not only by rendering inclusively some \u201cmale\u201d nouns but also by rendering masculine inflections and pronouns idiomatically rather than literally. Thus, for example, what KJV renders as \u201cthou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause\u201d appears in NJPS as \u201cyou shall not subvert the rights of your needy in their disputes\u201d (Exod. 23:6). In short, NJPS led the way among contemporary translations in \u201cgender-sensitive\u201d rendering.
\nReferences to Human Beings
\nLike every translation, NJPS contains some internal inconsistencies. For example, NJPS renders avot in the same phrases and in similar contexts using terms with differing social-gender senses\u2014NJPS reads \u201cparents\u201d in Exodus 20:5 (as noted earlier), yet \u201cvisiting the iniquity of fathers upon children\u201d in Numbers 14:18.
\nMeanwhile, at times the NJPS translators rendered in unduly male terms. For example, the Hebrew wording in Numbers 14 is ambiguous as to who is to be punished for brazen faithlessness: the men or the people as a whole. Seeking the plain sense, the translators quite reasonably opted for the latter view. Yet to render two Hebrew phrases that do not themselves specify gender, they employed English idioms at odds with their overall interpretation. We read that Moses urges an incensed God not to \u201cslay the people to a man\u201d (14:15) and that God then condemns a generation of Israelites to die in the wilderness \u201cto the last man\u201d (14:35).
\nIronically, in some other cases NJPS reads neutrally where a noninclusive rendering is actually called for. For example, NJPS could render yeled contextually as \u201clad, boy\u201d (for example, Gen. 4:23, 37:30); yet it unconventionally casts the plural yeladim as \u201cchildren\u201d in Genesis 32:23 even though in that context the term can refer only to Jacob\u2019s sons (not to his daughter, Dinah). Similarly, NJPS renders the noun edah five different ways in the Torah; yet its rendering states that Moses was instructed to take a census of the Israelite \u201ccommunity\u201d (edah [Num. 1:2]), although ancient censuses counted men only. And unlike prior translations, NJPS renders banim as \u201cchildren\u201d in Leviticus 10:13\u201315, although the topic is donations that are restricted to priests\u2014that is, Aaron\u2019s \u201csons.\u201d
\nIn a number of other instances, the NJPS translators appear to have based their rendering on an inaccurate understanding of social gender in the biblical setting. For example, where God refers to Abram\u2019s eventual death as going \u201cto your avot\u201d (Gen. 15:15; cf. 47:30), NJPS seems to have relied on a modern scholarly opinion that the Israelites counted only their male forebears (\u201cfathers\u201d) as kin. Yet that view appears to be based on an etymological fallacy, meanwhile ignoring ample circumstantial evidence that suggests ancient Israelites also viewed their deceased mother and even her forebears as kin. The weight of the evidence argues for rendering avot inclusively here as \u201cancestors\u201d or the like.
\nLast but not least, the NJPS translators employed the standard English style of using male nouns and pronouns where a neutral sense was meant, which closely correlates with Hebrew grammatical structure. Unfortunately, this has proven ambiguous with regard to gender: it can be difficult to tell whether \u201cman,\u201d \u201ckinsmen,\u201d \u201che,\u201d \u201chis,\u201d or \u201chim\u201d connotes only male gender or an inclusive meaning. In a sense-for-sense translation like NJPS, the standard style can confuse readers. The very nature of NJPS as contextually precise argues against readers taking its male language as neutral; we would reasonably expect male terms to carry a male gender sense.
\nContemporary readers make their way through a translation without the benefit of knowing the biblical setting. Many of us misconstrue that setting, perceiving the translated Bible as more male oriented than the original audience probably perceived the Hebrew text to be. We imagine the Israelite past as having been so \u201cpatriarchal\u201d that, for example, in the context of ritual animal sacrifices and male-only priests, some of us infer that women were not part of the scene. Thus when NJPS relates that if someone eats sacrificial meat while ritually impure, \u201cthat person shall be cut off from his kin\u201d (Lev. 7:20b), we may take the word \u201chis\u201d not as gender neutral but as referring to a male\u2014discounting \u201cperson\u201d as if it were a falsely generic term. That is, we may well understand NJPS to mean \u201cthat man shall be cut off from his kin.\u201d In such ways the standard English style has put a stumbling block before readers.
\nReferences to Divine Beings
\nTo refer to God, the Torah uses grammatically masculine language; as was typical of English translations, NJPS employs corresponding masculine terms in its rendering. Given that a Jewish translation would have reflected the standard belief that God transcends human gender categories, the translators presumably meant their masculine wording in a gender-neutral sense.
\nMany of us are well aware that \u201cLord\u201d is a male title by common usage; rendering God\u2019s personal name as \u201cthe Lord\u201d can function like wearing male sunglasses to view the invisible Deity: \u201cI\u2019m not sure what I\u2019m seeing\u2014but it appears to be masculine.\u201d Furthermore, the translation\u2019s masculine pronouns may conjure up an image of a male deity, even though as a matter of logic or belief we could argue that God has no gender. In short, the NJPS style hinders some readers\u2019 appreciation of the Torah text.
\nAt the same time, many scholars of Israelite history now believe that our ancient text\u2019s masculine inflections and occasional male imagery refer to what everyone at the time understood to be a male god\u2014which would have gone without saying. If so, then the most historically accurate way to render the Torah\u2019s God-language today would be in masculine terms.
\nYet it can be argued that the Torah promoted to its original audience a deity \u201cbeyond gender.\u201d Its text never ascribes to God anatomical sex features or sexual activity, in contrast to some ancient Near Eastern literature about high gods. Only in poetry and other clearly figurative passages does the text depict God in male social status terms. It meanwhile cautions against taking such images too literally\u2014as if to say: the reality of God is beyond such terms. Further, grammatically masculine language would have been the only way to refer to a non-gendered deity. And contrary to conventional wisdom, the text seems to be written as if the audience were expecting definite signals before ascribing gender. In short, the Torah\u2019s silence about God\u2019s gender may well be a meaningful one, even when viewed in its original setting. Finally, although it\u2019s likely that few readers have considered the matter, the same question regarding the depiction of God\u2019s gender also applies to that of the Torah\u2019s other divine beings, namely angels. The NJPS translators appear to have presumed that in the ancient world all of God\u2019s divine agents were understood to be male, but there is reason to doubt that presumption. But to mention shortcomings of NJPS is not to censure what remains as the Jewish translation of choice for those who value contextual precision and modern idiom.
\nA Gender-Sensitive Adaptation of NJPS
\nIn 2006, The Jewish Publication Society published a new, gender-sensitive version of the NJPS translation. The Contemporary Torah provides a new option for those interested in a historically based representation of social gender roles in the Bible, as well as for those who have become accustomed to gender-sensitive English in other aspects of their lives.
\nIn preparing this work, the editors undertook a comprehensive analysis of the Torah\u2019s gender ascriptions, consulting both recent biblical scholarship as well as traditional Jewish sources. They selected language that portrays ancient gender roles to reflect a more sensitive understanding of the biblical world and its original audience.
\nIn most cases, references to God are in gender-neutral language. The Tetragammaton, the unpronounceable four-letter name for the Divine, appears in this translation in unvocalized Hebrew to convey that the name is something totally \u201cother\u201d\u2014beyond translation, gender, speech, and understanding. In some instances, however, male imagery depicting God is preserved because it reflects biblical society\u2019s view of gender roles.
\nGuided by principles set down by the original JPS translation committee, the editors found more inclusive ways of rendering \u201cgeneric\u201d terms\u2014\u201chumankind\u201d for \u201cmankind,\u201d \u201cherders\u201d for \u201cherdsmen\u201d\u2014and replaced male pronouns in cases where gender was not germane or is now understood differently in light of new research about the biblical family, Israelite society, and neighboring cultures. A sampling of such language changes in The Contemporary Torah can be found in the table on p. 55, with comparisons of the same passages in the Old Jewish Publication Society (OJPS) and NJPS translations and in two Christian Bible translations.
\nComparing Gender-Related Language in the Bible<\/p>\n
New Revised Standard Version (NRSV, 1989)
\nToday\u2019s New International Version (TNIV, 2005)
\nOJPS (1917)
\nNJPS (1985)
\nContemporary Torah (2006)
\nGenesis 15:7
\n\u05d5\u05b7\u05d9\u05b9\u05bc\u0596\u05d0\u05de\u05b6\u05e8 \u05d0\u05b5\u05dc\u05b8\u0591\u05d9\u05d5 \u05d0\u05b2\u05e0\u05b4\u05a3\u05d9 \u05d9\u05b0\u05d4\u05b9\u05d5\u05b8\u05d4
\nThen he said to him, \u201cI am the Lord \u2026\u201d
\nThen he said to him, \u201cI am the Lord \u2026\u201d
\nAnd He said unto him: \u201cI am the Lord \u2026\u201d
\nThen He said to him, \u201cI am the Lord \u2026\u201d
\nThen [God] said to him, \u201cI am \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u2026\u201d
\nGenesis 15:15
\n\u05d5\u05b0\u05d0\u05b7\u05ea\u05b8\u05bc\u059b\u05d4 \u05ea\u05b8\u05bc\u05d1\u05b9\u05a5\u05d5\u05d0 \u05d0\u05b6\u05dc\u05be\u05d0\u05b2\u05d1\u05b9\u05ea\u05b6\u0596\u05d9\u05da\u05b8 \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e9\u05b8\u05c1\u05dc\u0591\u05d5\u05b9\u05dd \u05ea\u05b4\u05bc\u05e7\u05b8\u05bc\u05d1\u05b5\u0596\u05e8 \u05d1\u05b0\u05bc\u05e9\u05b5\u05c2\u05d9\u05d1\u05b8\u05a5\u05d4 \u05d8\u05b9\u05d5\u05d1\u05b8\u05bd\u05d4\u05c3
\nAs for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age.
\nYou, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.
\nBut thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
\nAs for you, \/ You shall go to your fathers in peace; \/ You shall be buried at a ripe old age.
\nAs for you, \/ You shall go to your ancestors in peace; \/ You shall be buried at a ripe old age.
\nExodus 21:7
\n\u05d5\u05b0\u05db\u05b4\u05bd\u05d9\u05be\u05d9\u05b4\u05de\u05b0\u05db\u05b9\u05bc\u05a5\u05e8 \u05d0\u05b4\u05a5\u05d9\u05b9\u05e9 \u05d0\u05b6\u05ea\u05be\u05d1\u05b4\u05bc\u05ea\u05bc\u0596\u05d5\u05b9
\na man sells his daughter
\na man sells his daughter
\na man sells his daughter
\na man sells his daughter
\na parent sells a daughter
\nDeuteronomy 1:17
\n\u05dc\u05b9\u05a4\u05d0 \u05ea\u05b8\u05d2\u05a8\u05d5\u05bc\u05e8\u05d5\u05bc\u05a8 \u05de\u05b4\u05e4\u05b0\u05bc\u05e0\u05b5\u05d9\u05be\u05d0\u05b4\u0594\u05d9\u05b9\u05e9
\nyou shall not be intimidated by anyone
\ndo not be afraid of anyone
\nye shall not be afraid of the face of any man
\nFear no man
\nfear no one
\nAdapted from David E. S. Stein, The Contemporary Torah. \u0394
\nStorytelling in the Bible
\nOur brains seem uniquely adapted to making sense of experience through stories. We tell stories and listen to them not just in our daily conversation but on the news, in the movies, and in novels. Even a sacred text such as the Bible seeks to make sense of the world through stories. Thomas Hardy, the great English novelist, greatly admired biblical stories. \u201cThey are written with a watchful attention (though disguised) as to their effect on their reader,\u201d Hardy remarked in his diary on Easter Sunday, 1885. \u201cTheir so called simplicity is, in fact, the simplicity of the highest cunning\u201d (The Mayor of Casterbridge). Hardy is quite right. Biblical stories aim to have an effect on the reader, and we know they have succeeded when they stick with us. Eve chooses wisdom over Paradise and is expelled from the Garden of Eden. Cain kills Abel, whose blood cries out from the ground to accuse him. Abraham prepares to sacrifice his son at God\u2019s request. The Egyptian-raised Moses becomes the greatest prophet of ancient Israel.
\nAs children, we\u2019re entertained by such biblical stories; returning to them as adults, we discover their power anew. They offer us a mirror into both a distant time and our own time. Perhaps even more than the stories we tell in our daily lives, a biblical story invites us to reflect on our deepest experiences, whether of God, of our families, of our community, or of the terrors and pleasures of life. In other words, these stories aim to make us think about important, even urgent matters. But rather than telling us how or what to think, they force us to find out what we think and how to respond. If we\u2019re lucky, we are rewarded with insight and perspective we would otherwise miss, engrossed as we usually are in more commonplace matters. Such stories, when studied together or chanted aloud, help join us to others and shape our identity as a community.
\nOf course some biblical stories might be based on events that \u201creally happened.\u201d Many refer to historical events on a grand scale\u2014the appointment of kings, victories and losses in battle, the destruction of the First Temple. But rather than give us an eyewitness account of a historical event, a biblical story reflects on an event and what it might mean for the People of Israel. Biblical stories are less concerned with facts and details than in the \u201ctruth\u201d of experience, whether of a moral, spiritual, or psychological nature. They teach us about the human condition and the many ways in which human beings have encountered God. They teach us how we might best respond to God in our own lives.
\nMajor Narratives in the Bible
\nThe following are some of the most well-known stories in the Hebrew Bible, stories that have helped shape Jewish and Christian consciousness and ideas about God.
\n(Note: when a single verse in cited, it is the start of the narrative.)
\nThe Beginning of the World
\nThe creation of the world and Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:1)
\nThe first murder (Gen. 4:1)
\nThe great Flood (Gen. 6:9)
\nThe tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1)
\nThe First Jewish Family
\nAbraham and Sarah leave their native land (Gen. 11:27)
\nThe birth of Ishmael (Gen. 16:1)
\nSodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 18:16)
\nThe birth of Isaac (Gen. 21:1)
\nThe binding of Isaac (Gen. 22:1)
\nJacob\u2019s dream of the ladder (Gen. 28:10)
\nJacob marries Leah and Rachel (Gen. 29:1)
\nJacob wrestles with the angel (Gen. 32:4)
\nJoseph and his brothers (Gen. 37:1)
\nJoseph in Egypt (Gen. 39:1)
\nSlaves in the Land of Egypt
\nThe birth of Moses (Exod. 2:1)
\nThe Burning Bush (Exod. 3:1)
\nThe Ten Plagues and the first Passover (Exod. 7:14)
\nThe splitting of the Sea of Reeds (Exod. 13:17)
\nForty Years in the Wilderness
\nThe giving of the Ten Commandments (Exod. 19\u201320)
\nThe Golden Calf (Exod. 32:1)
\nMiriam and Aaron challenge Moses (Num. 12:1)
\nThe scouting of the Land and the punishment of wandering (Num. 13\u201314)
\nMoses bids farewell (Deut. 31\u201332)
\nIn the Promised Land
\nJoshua and the battle of Jericho (Josh. 1\u20134)
\nDeborah (Judg. 4\u20135)
\nSamson (Judg. 13\u201317)
\nRuth and Naomi (Ruth 1\u20134)
\nThe Founding of the Kingdom of Israel
\nHannah and the birth of Samuel (1 Sam. 1:1)
\nSamuel appoints Saul king (1 Sam. 8)
\nSaul loses his kingdom (1 Sam. 15)
\nDavid and Goliath (1 Sam. 17)
\nThe struggle between Saul and David (1 Sam. 24)
\nDavid conquers Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6)
\nDavid and Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11:1)
\nThe judgment of Solomon (1 Kings 3)
\nSolomon and the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings 10:1)
\nIsrael Splits in to Two Kingdoms
\nThe kingdom divides (1 Kings 11)
\nElijah and the priests of Baal (1 Kings 18)
\nElijah ascends to heaven in a fiery chariot (2 Kings 2)
\nExilic Period
\nThe fall of Jerusalem and the First Temple (2 Kings 24)
\nEzekiel and the valley of dry bones (Ezek. 37)
\nPost-Exilic
\nJonah and the great fish (book of Jonah)
\nEsther saves her people (book of Esther)
\nReturn from exile (Ezra 3)
\nDaniel in the lion\u2019s den (Dan. 6)
\nThe Bible contains many kinds of writing besides stories. Biblical writing includes poetry, laws, family trees, wise sayings, and prophetic messages; and different kinds of writing interact with one another. For instance, a story might lead to a victory poem. A law might be made more concrete by a story in which an Israelite violates that law and is punished. Not only is there a variety of writing in the Bible with different purposes, but even within the category of \u201cstory\u201d we find different stories that serve different purposes.
\nThe Many Functions of a Story
\nA story may entertain or delight us. The lad David, equipped only with a slingshot, defeats the giant Goliath in 1 Samuel 17, in spite of the Philistine\u2019s threatening size, mighty armor, and weaponry. While entertaining us, this story also serves another, more political purpose, introducing us to David, the future king of Israel, in the best possible light. We have legends of mighty figures such as Samson, who in Judges 16 pulls the pillars of a whole temple down upon Philistine idolaters, killing himself at the same time.
\nWe have stories that retell and transform the stories of other cultures. For instance, in the book of Genesis, Noah builds an ark and saves a remnant of the human race. The biblical story of the Flood draws on a Mesopotamian myth of a great flood, and while the two stories have many details in common, the biblical story has its own unique ending. Noah enters into a covenant with God, who introduces a law prohibiting murder, God\u2019s solution to the violent and troublesome behavior of human beings.
\nA biblical story may provide an explanation for pain or joy, such as the tale of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. When things begin to go wrong after the couple eat the forbidden fruit, God informs Eve that she will experience suffering when giving birth. This punishment provides an explanation for the pains of labor. Adam will work the ground with great difficulty, providing the origin for a different kind of hard labor. Other stories explain why a place is named the way it is or why we avoid eating certain foods. Many tales teach us right from wrong, providing moral lessons or warning us against certain behavior. Adultery is punished, obedience rewarded.
\nSome stories demand to be remembered. The most important story that the ancient Israelites must remember is described in the book of Exodus, in which God frees the People of Israel from oppression in Egypt. This collective memory provides Israel with an explanation for its beginnings in slavery, how they managed to escape with God\u2019s help, and the motive for continued loyalty to God. It helps shape the community and strengthen it over time. In fact, the entire community of Israel participates in retelling the story of the Exodus year after year, and God even commands parents to tell the story to their children. Once they leave Egypt, the People of Israel accept God\u2019s offer of a covenant (a binding contract). The covenant obligates them to serve God, who in turn will care for them by giving them laws that will help them create a good and just community. A story told about the past demands actions in the present in order to build a better future.
\nThe Bible also contains many stories about individuals who face the difficulties of life, leaving home to travel long distances alone to meet uncertain futures. Some flee to escape the murderous rage of brothers or the abuse of mistresses. Others are abandoned by lovers. These individuals are recognizably flawed, and we are meant to identify with them. How these characters handle the events of their lives and God\u2019s role in supporting them through such trials are among the key lessons of the story for the reader.
\nFinally, and perhaps most important, biblical stories describe encounters with God that are personal and private or public and communal. An entire people, Israel, witnesses God\u2019s presence on top of Mount Sinai, in thunder and smoke. An individual, Jacob, alone and frightened, is suddenly attacked by a mysterious wrestler; he manages to beat that wrestler, only to exclaim that he has seen none other than God, face to face. Such stories allow us to glimpse and be moved by the remarkable religious imaginations of the biblical storytellers.
\nHow Biblical Stories Engage Us
\nThe reader of a biblical story cannot remain passive; biblical stories demand their readers participate \u201cin an unfolding conversation with the text\u201d (Joel Rosenberg, in Back to the Sources, Barry W. Holtz, ed.). There are many reasons a reader gets involved. For one, biblical stories never give us enough details; our curiosity is constantly triggered, and we are left to supply the missing details ourselves. Not knowing until the very end of Genesis 32 who Jacob wrestles with throughout the night, we consider the possibilities. Is it a river demon? A messenger from God? Jacob\u2019s brother? His own guilty conscience confronting him in a dream? Only when Jacob announces that he has seen God face to face do we realize the identity of his opponent. We put aside our guesses and modify our view.
\nSometimes we are certain what we think about an event or a character, but then we are proved wrong. In the opening chapters of 1 Samuel, Eli the priest fails to recognize real piety in front of him, mistaking Hannah\u2019s profound prayer for a drunken stupor. Soon after that encounter, a messenger from God informs this same priest that because he is too forgiving of his corrupt sons, they will be killed and a new priesthood established. By this point we have enough information about Eli to consider him in a strongly negative light. Yet in the midst of these problematic events, Eli continues to lovingly instruct his young prot\u00e9g\u00e9, the future prophet Samuel. He does so even after realizing that God has commanded Samuel to announce Eli\u2019s tragic fate to him. Eli\u2019s gentle response to the difficulties of his life forces us to reevaluate him, and we exchange contempt and scorn for pity and surprise. The process of adjustment keeps us involved.
\nUncertainty also keeps us interested. Are we to consider the David of 2 Samuel 11 a solicitous king or a duplicitous adulterer as he deals with the husband of a woman David just got pregnant? The Bible does not tell us what to think or what moral we should carry away with us, instead forcing us to form our own opinion after reading its stories. Remarkably, we may reread a story at a different stage of our life and discover something that we never noticed before or perhaps never understood. That sense of discovery also invites us to reread biblical stories year after year.
\nTechniques of the Biblical Storytellers
\nIf we learn to recognize the techniques of the biblical storytellers, we will better appreciate and understand their creations. For instance, as first proposed by Martin Buber and elaborated on by Robert Alter in The Art of Biblical Narrative, a key word may be chosen and repeated enough times for the reader to realize that it conveys the meaning of the larger story. For instance, in chapter 1 of Genesis the word \u201cgood\u201d appears so often as to convince us that everything God creates is good. When God first speaks to Abraham in Genesis 12, God uses a form of \u201cblessing\u201d five times in just two verses, leading us to understand that Abraham will be a source of blessing in the world. In the concluding chapters of Numbers, the word \u201cinheritance\u201d appears frequently, reminding us that the tribes of Israel are about to leave behind the wilderness in which they have wandered for 40 years and indicating that they are ready to begin their new lives in the Promised Land. Years later the People of Israel approach the prophet Samuel to demand that he appoint a king over them, and he tries to warn them against such a plan by unmistakably repeating the word \u201ctake\u201d to argue that a king will rob them of their children and much of their wealth.
\nWords may also allude to other stories. When that happens, we need to consider the connection between the two stories. For instance, Joseph brings his father \u201cbad reports\u201d of his brothers in Genesis 37. Events that follow eventually lead the entire family to settle in Egypt, where Pharaoh enslaves their descendants. Four hundred years later, having escaped with God\u2019s help, the Israelites fall under the spell of another \u201cbad report,\u201d this time about the Promised Land (Num. 13). Even after suffering so much in Egypt, the descendants of Joseph immediately long to return to Egypt. Such a desire has disastrous results for their entire generation.
\nA great deal of repetition occurs in biblical stories, but we should not consider the writer who uses repetition as careless. The writer purposefully triggers our attention through repetition. We can spot small but very meaningful differences when a conversation or scene is repeated. (Robert Alter calls this type of repetition a \u201ctype-scene.\u201d) A man meets a woman at a well, and this leads to a proposal of marriage. Such an encounter at the well takes place in the tales of Rebekah and Isaac (Gen. 24), Jacob and Rachel (Gen. 29), and Moses and Zipporah (Exod. 2). Yet in each scene, in spite of the familiar pattern, subtle changes exist that convey a great deal about the characters involved. Isaac does not meet Rebekah himself, but a servant finds her and enters into negotiations on his behalf, suggesting the passivity that is part of Isaac\u2019s character. Unlike his father, Jacob exhibits superhuman strength in rolling the stone away from the well so that his beloved Rachel may water her herd. The stone provides an obstacle that he overcomes, but it also hints at the obstacles that lie in store for him before he can marry Rachel. Before Moses can water Zipporah\u2019s flock, he must fight off bandits, anticipating his future role as liberator. Through small variations, each scene illustrates some aspect of the character or of the character\u2019s future.
\nRepetition also occurs within the same story. For instance, in 1 Samuel 3, after God first calls to Samuel in the middle of the night, the young prophet fails to recognize God\u2019s voice. Instead he mistakenly goes to his mentor, Eli the priest, three times in a row! Each time Samuel announces, \u201cHere I am, for you have called me.\u201d The repetition unifies the entire scene and communicates Samuel\u2019s utter obedience to his master Eli as well as his perplexity about who is calling him and for what reason. But there are also small differences in each encounter. The second time, instead of running, Samuel walks to his mentor, less eager to answer the call. When Eli sends him back to bed, he adds, \u201cmy son,\u201d acting like a parent who wants to calm Samuel, while revealing his own fondness for the young boy. In the third interaction, Eli finally realizes that it is God who has been calling Samuel and, instead of merely sending Samuel back to his bed, instructs him on how to respond to God\u2019s call. The change in the pattern highlights both Eli\u2019s selfless role as mentor and the momentousness of Samuel\u2019s new role as prophet. (See Uriel Simon, Reading Prophetic Narratives, on this particular scene.)
\nRepetition sometimes occurs in a phrase or even within a verse in a special structure called a \u201cchiasm.\u201d God announces the prohibition against murder to Noah at the end of the Flood story in the following words: \u201cWhosoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed\u201d (Gen. 9:6). The structure is A, B, C and then reversed, C, B, A. Each letter represents a word: A = shed, B = blood, and C = man.<\/p>\n
The writer uses this special structure to communicate an important principle or message to the reader.
\nA different kind of repetition involves repeated images. For instance, \u201cfire\u201d haunts the story of Samson. The divine messenger who announces Samson\u2019s birth goes up in a flame from the altar. The name \u201cSamson\u201d includes the Hebrew word for the sun, a great fire in the sky. He is born near a place that includes \u201cfire\u201d in its name, Eshtaol. He has a fiery temperament, expressed in the destructive burning of Philistine fields (Judges 15:5), and he escapes from the Philistines when the cords that bind him melt away like fire (15:14). At the end of his life, he is buried in Eshtaol. The many uses of \u201cfire\u201d reinforce the destructive and unpredictable side of Samson.
\nAnother way in which the biblical writer conveys meaning to the reader is through the use of dialogue. Often when characters speak to each other, or about each other to a third party, they repeat each other\u2019s words. Yet a second character might make a slight change in the words of the first speaker that often surprises the careful reader. Those changes may distort the original meaning or may add a twist that conveys something new. Sometimes the altered repetition lets us know that the second character is \u201con to\u201d the first. In another use of dialogue, two characters may be defined by a contrast in tone, style, or substance. The panicked Saul can\u2019t think of what to bring the seer in the town up ahead as an offering and anxiously quizzes his servant. The servant calmly informs him that the situation is well in hand. Such a contrast in temperament highlights the emotional roller coaster that is Saul\u2019s personality, an instability that makes him less than suited to be king of a struggling new nation.
\nNaming speeches can also characterize a biblical figure. When a woman gives birth in the Bible, she often names the child and supplies a special meaning that usually involves a pun on the name. Not only are we introduced to a new character but we gain some insight into the experience of the mother in question.
\nOften the Bible will give us a seemingly extraneous detail that turns out to anticipate what will come. For instance, we learn in the very first chapter of 1 Samuel, in verse 3, that Eli has two sons, Hofni and Pinehas. They do not reappear in the story until 2:11. At that point they become very important to the story, as their corrupt behaviors lead to their deaths and to the death of their father, Eli. Repeatedly in the books of Samuel, sons gravely disappoint their fathers or lead them into catastrophe. In addition to the sons of Eli, we need only think of Jonathan\u2019s loyalty to David rather than to his father, Saul, or of Amnon, son of David who rapes his half-sister Tamar, David\u2019s daughter. In consequence, a second son of David, Absalom, rebels against his father in a civil war. Even the prophet Samuel, whose birth occurs in the very chapter that introduces us to the corrupt sons of Eli, must eventually face the fact that his own two sons are equally as corrupt.
\nTechniques That Convey Special Meaning
\n\u25cb Repetition of key words
\n\u25cb Words that connect one scene or story to another
\n\u25cb Repetition of events and encounters
\n\u25cb Repetition of images
\n\u25cb Careful use of dialogue
\n\u25cb The meaning of a name
\n\u25cb A detail that foreshadows, or anticipates, something to come
\nPutting Biblical Stories Together
\nIn the Bible, not only does a story have a writer, but also an editor. The editor places different stories together and does so in a careful and creative way (Joel Rosenberg suggests that we consider the editor an artist in his own right in Back to the Sources). On the surface, two stories may seem to contradict one another, but if the reader pays attention, one discovers that these stories have different points of view that complement each other. For instance, in chapter 1 of Genesis, God appears from the heavens to create the creatures of the world, including the human. In chapters 2 and 3 (considered to be written by a different author), God appears to have a much closer relationship with the human being, even sharing the Garden of Eden with the first woman and man. Thus we can appreciate God both as a transcendent being and as a figure who is quite close to the human. Later in the Bible, David is introduced to us in 1 Samuel 16 as a simple shepherd boy, chosen by God, and in the very next story David wins popular praise, thanks to his daring and skill with a slingshot. These stories also complement each other. David is chosen by God, who loves him, but at the same time he earns a reputation due to his exceptional gifts. (See Robert Alter, The David Story, for a translation and commentary on the relevant chapters.)
\nSometimes different stories disagree. In Genesis 1, all that God creates is good. But in Genesis 2, God creates a tree of knowledge of good and bad. Is God the source only of good or of both good and bad? (See Israel Knohl, The Divine Symphony, for a fuller discussion of the differences between these stories.) In the book of Numbers, memory is seen as both positive and problematic. Chapter 10 reports that the priests designed specially hammered trumpets to be used first in the wilderness and later in the Temple. If blown in the Land, the trumpets will remind the people of that long-ago journey through the wilderness when God accompanied the people until they successfully arrived in the Promised Land. That memory unifies the people and reinforces their loyalty to God and to the priests. Yet in chapter 11, memory proves to be very destructive. The people are overcome with memories of Egyptian delicacies and want to abandon God and their leaders and immediately return to Egypt. In consequence, an entire generation will not enter the Land.
\nIn each example, the editor has placed two stories next to one another to challenge us to think about such important matters as the nature of God, the origins of evil, the complex personality of King David, and the unreliability of memory. These stories represent different viewpoints, written by different authors in different times, and then placed together by yet another figure, the editor. The Bible does nothing less than preserve the collective wisdom and religious experiences not just of one writer but of generations of writers.
\nMoses and the Story of Israel
\nI conclude this chapter by looking at one story in some detail\u2014the early life of Moses, found in Exodus 1:3. It is an example that illustrates many of the points made earlier. Though about an individual, Moses, the narrative anticipates and introduces the story about the community Israel. We can also glimpse the religious imagination of the writer in the depiction of the Burning Bush. (See Moshe Greenberg, Understanding Exodus, for more discussion about this.)
\nEvery good story has a context that provides the reader with the needed background. Our context begins with the very beginning of Exodus, chapter 1, even before Moses is born. We are told: \u201cBut the Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them\u201d (Exod. 1:7). Right away we have several allusions to chapter 1 of Genesis. The word \u201cprolific\u201d (often translated as \u201cswarming\u201d) appears three times in two verses (Gen. 1:20\u201321). In 1:22, God creates the creatures of the planet and blesses them: \u201cBe fertile and increase.\u201d In 1:28, God blesses the humans the same way, \u201cBe fertile and increase,\u201d but then adds, \u201cfill the earth.\u201d The first three terms come together in 9:7 (as they do in Exodus). At the end of the Flood story God announces to Noah, \u201cAnd you, be fertile and increase and swarm [be prolific] all over the earth \u2026\u201d (translation mine). Why does Exodus open with such clear allusions to the creation of the world and to the Flood\u2019s aftermath? Both of the earlier stories in Genesis are about beginnings, the very first beginning and then, after the Flood, a new beginning. At that time God offers humanity a second chance after the near destruction of the world. By using allusion, our writer in Exodus is proclaiming another beginning: the creation of the People of Israel. The birth of Moses and the birth of Israel as a people are connected to one another.
\nIn fact, there are repeated references to birth in the opening chapters of Exodus. The Egyptian Pharaoh seeks to kill off newborn males, but heroic midwives thwart his plan. Then Moses is born, and part of the plot involves finding a nurse to suckle him. Eventually, the image of a birth canal is symbolically re-created in the narrow path that the Children of Israel must take through the waters of the Sea of Reeds. The opening chapters of Exodus also emphasize the crucial role of women in caring for the infant Moses. In addition to midwives, we read about Moses\u2019s mother and sister and even the daughter of the Pharaoh, who saves him from the Nile River. Moses is repeatedly saved by the actions of women.
\nLet us turn to the brief story of Moses\u2019s early years. We are told very specific details about Moses. After he is born, his mother sees that he is \u201cgood\u201d (Exod. 2:1)\u2014a clear echo of God\u2019s creation of heaven and earth in Genesis 1. When Moses is too old to be hidden from the Pharaoh, his mother places him in a little basket (teivah). This is the same term used for the ark of Noah, the only other time the term is used. The allusion suggests that just as the world\u2019s survival depended on Noah, now the survival of the Israelites depends on this one vulnerable infant, Moses. After the baby is saved by the Pharaoh\u2019s daughter, she names him in a speech that explains why she chose \u201cMoses\u201d: \u201cI drew him out of the water,\u201d in which the Hebrew verb for, \u201cI drew him out\u201d is a play on words (a homonym) on the name \u201cMoses\u201d in Hebrew (Exod. 2:10). In so doing, she has reversed her father\u2019s intention that all Israelite males be drowned in the river. Unknowingly, the Pharaoh\u2019s daughter also anticipates God\u2019s future saving of the people by means of water as they leave Egypt.
\nTime passes. The narrator zooms in on a particular event in Moses\u2019s early life in Exodus 2:11\u201315. As readers, we need to consider why the narrator focuses on this one event and no other. What does the event teach us about Moses? Moses leaves the Pharaoh\u2019s setting and discovers the suffering of his \u201cbrothers\u201d the Israelites. It is not clear that Moses knows he is an Israelite, but he recognizes oppression when he sees it and stops an Egyptian from beating a Hebrew. He then has to run for his life. The story suggests that Moses has to leave the confines of the Egyptian royal court before he can confront injustice and cruelty in the world. It also suggests that Moses still identifies with the People of Israel, despite having been raised in the palace. Before long he leaves his Egyptian loyalties behind him.
\nAfter this episode Moses arrives in Midian. Once married to Zipporah (the Midianite he encounters at a well), he has a son. Moses names this son Gershom, literally \u201ca stranger there.\u201d He proclaims, \u201cI have been a stranger in a foreign land\u201d (Exod. 2:22). In this way we learn that Moses has come to see himself as a stranger in Egypt. So concludes the early years of Moses.
\nThe narrator temporarily interrupts the next chapter in the life of Moses to announce the main concern of Exodus, the story of the birth of the People of Israel. God hears the cries of the enslaved Israelites and remembers the covenant with the Patriarchs and Matriarchs. At this moment, the story of the individual, Moses, becomes completely involved in the story of the People of Israel. It is only after God decides to act on behalf of Israel that Moses encounters God (Exod. 3:1\u20136). The wilderness setting is very important, as Moses finds himself in a place far removed from his family, left to face God alone. The very wilderness, in its stark majesty, reinforces the vulnerability of this one single human being.
\nAs he tends to his flock in the vast wilderness, Moses happens upon a miraculous sight. He sees a bush burning that is not consumed by the fire, and Moses turns aside. \u201cSeeing\u201d is a key word of the story of Moses. His mother sees that he is \u201cgood\u201d when she gives birth to him. The daughter of Pharaoh sees him and rescues him. Moses sees the oppression of his brothers. Now Moses sees a vision of God. Only after Moses turns aside does God speak to him.
\nAs readers of biblical stories, we must always pay careful attention to the details. For instance, why does God appear in a fire that does not consume the bush? Such a fire, especially in a wilderness, overturns the natural course of things. Fire is a substance that is both positive and negative. It can harm us, but it can also warm us and provide us with light. God can be destructive and out of control, and in those moments God\u2019s fire can burn us (Lev. 10, Num. 11). At other times, God offers us wisdom that can enlighten us and illuminate our lives. \u201cFire\u201d identifies something profound in our experiences of God.
\nThe name of the bush, seneh, in Hebrew, is another important detail. At first seneh creates a link through sound to Mount Sinai, but then God instructs Moses to bring the people to Sinai \u201cto this mountain,\u201d and we realize that the two sites are identical (Exod. 3:12). God plans to appear to the entire people at Mount Sinai after having freed them from Egypt. It is at this moment in our story that God sends Moses away from the seneh back to Egypt on a mission to do just that. In other words, Moses will lead the people out of Egypt to this very site.
\nThe story of the People of Israel, we realize, exactly parallels the story of Moses. They literally follow in his footsteps. Moses is rescued from death despite a royal decree, and so are the People of Israel, who escape certain death when the Egyptians chase them into the Sea of Reeds. Just as Moses is rescued from water, so too are the entire people as God miraculously parts the sea. Just as Moses flees to the wilderness and encounters God, so too do the people flee to the wilderness. They arrive at the very spot in which God first appears to Moses, the bush (seneh) that is Mount Sinai.
\nThe people also share Moses\u2019s long journey to faith. It takes Moses quite some time to realize that he is an Israelite. He has to figure out who he is and what he is meant to do. Even after encountering God at the Burning Bush, Moses is reluctant to accept God\u2019s instructions. The people hesitate in the same way. Even after God reveals God\u2019s self at Mount Sinai, the people take quite some time to understand God\u2019s greatness and to implement God\u2019s plans for them. They complain and rebel. So it is that the story of the individual Moses and the story of the People of Israel are intertwined. The opening chapters of Exodus introduce us to the story of the birth of the People of Israel by helping us see their story reflected in the story of Moses in the most human and personal of terms.
\nBecause Bible stories are timeless, they provide us with an ongoing source of strength. They help us make sense of our lives, connecting us to one another and to those who lived long ago. As biblical characters come to understand the truths that give their lives meaning, so, too, do we.
\nAdriane Leveen.
\nBiblical Law
\nA look at a society\u2019s legal system can give us insight into that society\u2019s values and beliefs. Mesopotamia is acknowledged to be the ultimate cradle of law, and law during Bible times was highly indebted to its Mesopotamian (Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian) predecessors. These societies had a profound respect for law as the backbone of society, and many of their legal prescriptions, terminology, and formulations were adopted (and adapted) in the books of the Bible.
\nAn enormous amount of Mesopotamian legal material exists on tablets, written in cuneiform, from the mid-third millennium to the end of the 1st century b.c.e., including deeds, dockets, lawsuits, loans, leases, contracts, marriage and adoption documents, real estate transactions, commercial sales, royal edicts, and\u2014most significantly\u2014several collections of laws. And in these tablets we can find many similarities between their topics and terminology and those in the Bible (with some exceptions, particularly in their penalty clauses; for example, sexual relations with one\u2019s stepmother, daughter-in-law, mother, or one\u2019s daughter; the rape of a betrothed woman; an assault causing a miscarriage; and homosexuality).
\nDespite this shared fundamental legal background, the basic concept of law in Israel differs radically from Mesopotamian law. Biblical law receives its validity from being a divine pronouncement, a revelation of the God of Israel. God alone is the ultimate source and sanction of law. In Mesopotamia, on the other hand, it was the king who composed the laws to impress upon the gods that he was a righteous and just ruler. The human authorship of Mesopotamian law clarifies many of the differences between these two legislative systems.
\nBiblical Collections
\nBiblical law is divided into several major collections:
\n\u25cb The book (or record) of the covenant, the name of which comes from Exodus 24:7: \u201cThen he [Moses] took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people.\u201d
\n\u25cb The priestly rulings in the sacral and ritual spheres found in Exodus 25\u201340, Leviticus 1\u201316, and Numbers, which can be subdivided into two separate collections: the Priestly Torah, and the Holiness School (the latter primarily in Lev. 17\u201326). These two are distinguished by their linguistic and stylistic traits along with their differences in ritual, legal, and theological content.
\n\u25cb Deuteronomy 12\u201326, which is marked by its injunctions regarding the destruction of cult places outside of Jerusalem and the centralization of ritual worship within Jerusalem and its humanitarian tone. This source is dated to about 622 b.c.e., the time of the reforms instituted by King Josiah of Judah, following the discovery of \u201cthe Scroll of the Teaching\u201d (or \u201cthe book of the Law\u201d) in the Temple (2 Kings 22:11).
\nThe fact that these are independent collections written at different times can be shown by their many repetitions referring, for example, to festival laws and the Sabbath. Compare, for instance, the prescription, \u201cYou shall not boil a kid in its mother\u2019s milk,\u201d appearing in three separate places: Exodus 23:19, Exodus 34:26, and Deuteronomy 14:21. One can cite specific differences between these collections in the laws concerning the Passover sacrifice. According to Exodus 12:9: \u201cDo not eat it any of it raw, or cooked in any way with water, but roasted,\u201d yet according to Deuteronomy 16:7: \u201cYou shall cook [boil] and eat it.\u201d Nevertheless, all these collections are called Torat Moshe, \u201cthe Teaching of Moses,\u201d just as Israel\u2019s Wisdom Literature is ascribed to Solomon and its hymnic literature to David. The Hebrew word \u201cTorah,\u201d literally meaning \u201cteaching, instruction\u201d and misleadingly translated as \u201claw,\u201d came to be used to designate the Pentateuch, the Five Books of Moses.
\n613 Mitzvot
\nMany people mistakenly think that the 613 mitzvot are part of biblical law. But nowhere in the Bible is there a list of these commandments, nor is there any direct reference to them. It is only in the Talmud that we read of these 613 mitzvot.
\nAccording to talmudic tradition, the Torah describes 613 obligations, or commandments, required for living a good Jewish life. Many of these could be interpreted as good deeds, such as giving to charity; others have to do with Jewish rituals and ritual behavior, such as reciting prayers and keeping kosher. Some are moral obligations, such as the prohibition against incest. This last is also an example of a negative commandment, of which the sages say there are 365. The remaining 248 they consider positive commandments.
\nSince the sages of the Talmud did not list these mitzvot, there has been much discussion through the centuries about just what makes up the list of 613. Although others have compiled lists, the one most widely accepted is that by noted medieval scholar Maimonides, in his great work the Mishneh Torah.
\nTo these collections one must add, in particular, the Ten Commandments (the Decalogue) that God gave to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai (Exod. 20:1\u201314; Deut. 5:6\u201318, with some variations between the two sets of commandments, such as the different justification for the observance of the Sabbath). (See the box \u201cThe Decalogue, or Ten Commandments\u201d on p. 173 in \u201cSummaries of the Books of the Bible.\u201d) The Ten Commandments, inscribed on \u201ctwo tablets of stone\u201d and eventually placed in Solomon\u2019s Temple, was modeled after the pattern of international vassal treaties between monarchs and their vassals at the time and became the underpinning for all Israelite legislation. Thus, Exodus 20:2 (\u201cI the Lord am your God [the \u2018monarch\u2019] who brought you [the \u2018vassal\u2019] out of the land of Egypt\u201d), similar to Hittite treaties, commences with the identification of the lawgiver and is followed by an historical prologue explaining why the people owe God their undivided loyalty. There then ensues the listing of laws that they are commanded to follow. Thus any breach of the commandments amounted to a breach in the treaty between the People of Israel and God. On the other hand, God as the sovereign has the obligation to protect people if they keep God\u2019s laws.
\nUnique Aspects of Biblical Law
\nIn light of the basic difference between biblical law (divine authorship) and Mesopotamian law (human authorship), and the expressed goal of biblical law: \u201cBut you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation\u201d (Exod. 19:6), it is possible to single out several of its distinctive traits:
\n1. Since law is an expression of divine will, all crimes are considered sins and certain offenses become absolute wrongs incapable of human forgiveness. This applies, for example, to the case of adultery: \u201cIf a man commits adultery with a married woman \u2026, the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death\u201d (Lev. 20:10; compare with Deut. 22:22). Unlike the Mesopotamian laws that permit the husband or the king to decide either to punish the wife and adulterer or to grant them pardon, adultery in the Bible is not merely an offense against the husband but also a sin against God that cannot be pardoned by a human agency.
\n2. The whole of one\u2019s life is directly related to the will of God. Only in Israel are all civil, moral-ethical, and religious obligations interwoven into a single body of legislation. In Mesopotamia, these three realms would be incorporated, respectively, in legal collections, wisdom compilations, and priestly handbooks, all composed by different human authors. Since God is Israel\u2019s sole legislator, the people are ultimately held solely responsible to God for all aspects of their existence.
\n3. Unlike in Mesopotamia, where the king alone was chosen by the gods to write the law, the God of Israel selects all the Children of Israel to be the recipients of the divine law. God\u2019s care and concern extend to all members of this community, not to one chosen individual. Thus everyone is held personally responsible for the observance of the law. This, in turn, leads to the concept of individual and joint responsibility. No longer is it the sole concern of the leader of the community (as was for the king in Mesopotamia) to maintain justice and to protect the rights of the community; it is now the responsibility of every member of the society. Since the law was communicated to all, the obligation for its observance rests on the entire people. Each member of the community, then, has the dual responsibility to observe the law personally and collectively, as a group. Each must see that justice is executed and that all crimes are punished; otherwise the community and its members are threatened with dire consequences. Faithful observance of the law grants divine protection and reward to both the individual and the group. Law becomes the single most important factor in the life and destiny of Israel.
\n4. The law is proclaimed openly to the entire society and is not restricted to any professional class of jurists, lawyers, or judges. Exodus 21:1 makes this patently clear: \u201cThese are the rules that you shall set before them.\u201d Biblical law, publicly promulgated in advance, is to be contrasted with the epilogue of one of the Mesopotamian law collections (the laws of Hammurabi), where the offended party learns of the condition of the law pertaining to his case only after the crime has been committed. Though Mesopotamian law collections were copied in scribal circles, there is no mention in them of making the law public knowledge. In Israelite society, on the other hand, the law was proclaimed publicly at the very outset, at Mount Sinai. And Ezra, in a public ceremony that took place on the first day of the seventh month (Tishrei) read the Torah aloud before the entire population in Jerusalem (Neh. 8:1\u201312), and a public reading was held during the reign of King Josiah (2 Chron. 34:30\u201332).
\n5. Biblical law, then, was a body of teaching that served as an educational tool. Unlike the Mesopotamian collections (with very few exceptions), motive clauses, which gave reasons for observing the law, are occasionally appended to the biblical laws. See, for example, Exodus 22:2, \u201cYou shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt\u201d; and Exodus 22:25\u201326, \u201cIf you take your neighbor\u2019s garment in pledge, you must return it to him before the sun sets; it is his only clothing.\u2026 In what else shall he sleep?\u201d Such explanatory, ethical, religious, and historical additions were intended to appeal to the people\u2019s conscience and motivate them to observe the law.
\n6. Since all human beings are conceived as being created in the divine image, the sanctity of human life is a primary concern of the law. Thus whoever destroys a human life must give a reckoning for it: \u201cWhoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For in His image did God make man\u201d (Gen. 9:6). The uniqueness of human life in the Bible does not allow it to be measured in terms of monetary or property compensation, as it does in Mesopotamian law; see Numbers 35:31, \u201cYou may not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of a capital crime; he must be put to death.\u201d
\n7. Whereas biblical legislation demands \u201ca life for a life,\u201d in Mesopotamia, the law of talion (the law of retaliation, wherein the punishment corresponds in kind and degree to the injury) pertaining to physical offenses committed by one person against a member of the same class or status was extended by analogy to all members of society (except for slaves; see point 8), thus applying the principle of equal justice for all. The punishment is limited to the exact measure of the injury and is restricted to the offender himself, thereby restricting the right of revenge.
\n8. The sole exception to the principle of equal justice is the slave. Nevertheless, all the laws pertaining to slaves are concerned with protecting them and preserving their human dignity. Their status is intended to be temporary and their physical being must be guarded against abuse.
\n9. Brutal punishments (primarily the mutilation of body limbs) and multiple punishments (monetary, mutilation, and bodily blows with a rod), though prevalent in Mesopotamian laws, are all but absent from Israelite law.
\n10. The principle of individual guilt predominates in biblical law. Punishment for secular offenses is meted out to the actual offender and not to someone who acts or serves as one\u2019s proxy (\u201cvicarious punishment\u201d), as, for example, when a son or a daughter is punished for the father, or when the wife of one who raped another woman is handed over to be a rape victim, as in Mesopotamian law.
\n11. Biblical legislation is primarily drawn up in a cause-and-effect (\u201ccasuistic\u201d) style. This legal formulation begins with an \u201cif\u201d clause (the statement of the case) and concludes with an implied \u201cthen\u201d clause (the solution; that is, the penalty). This style of law, which is part and parcel of Israel\u2019s Mesopotamian legal heritage, is pragmatic and does not appeal to any religious postulates. However, biblical law contains another type of legal formulation that is imperative, obligatory, and nonconditional (\u201capodictic\u201d): \u201cYou shall (not),\u201d which commands what one must (or must not) do, prescribing rather than describing. No time limit is placed on its demands since it is always intended to be in force and there are no attached sanctions.
\nThis direct-address formulation, unique to biblical law, is absent from Mesopotamian legal collections. Here, again, a unique aspect of a society can be clarified in terms of its basic constitution. The Israelite community was founded on a covenantal treaty agreement between God and God\u2019s Chosen People. Only in Israel is there a binding relationship between this covenant and the law, which combines impersonal legislation (casuistic law) and personal obligation and commandment (apodictic law). The future of the nation rests entirely on the observance of covenantal law.
\nRepresentative Legal Procedures and Legislation
\nBasic justice was administered by the local court of elders sitting at the city gate, while more difficult cases came before the king (1 Kings 3:16\u201328). Moses is said to have set up a hierarchical system of courts in the desert (Exod. 18:13\u201326), and King Jehoshaphat is credited with appointing royal judges in the cities of Judah (2 Chron. 19:5).
\n\u25cb Property law deals with the ancestral estate. On the father\u2019s death, his sons divided the land into equal shares, the firstborn taking a double share. If one of the sons died childless before there was a division of the estate, either because the father was still alive or because after the father\u2019s death the brothers had continued to hold the land in a kind of partnership (\u201cbrothers dwelling together\u201d), levirate law applied: the surviving brother had to marry the deceased\u2019s widow, and their offspring would take the place of the deceased, thereby preserving his share of the inheritance (Deut. 25:5\u201310).
\n\u25cb If a man died leaving daughters but no sons, the daughters were allowed to inherit the family\u2019s estate (Num. 27:1\u201311, 36:1\u201312).
\n\u25cb Various laws protected the family\u2019s ownership of their land. If poverty forced the owner to sell, he or a kinsman could redeem the land and thus bring it back into the family (Lev. 25:25\u201327). If redemption were not possible, the land would automatically return to its owner at the Jubilee, which occurred every 50 years (Lev. 25:28).
\n\u25cb A person cultivating land bore social responsibilities. He had to set aside part of his crop for the poor and needy (Lev. 19:9\u201310; Deut. 24:19\u201321) and every 7th and 50th year leave his land fallow so that its produce could feed those in need (Exod. 23:10\u201311; Lev. 25:3\u20137).
\n\u25cb The law made great efforts to alleviate debts. Interest was forbidden on loans to fellow-Israelites (Exod. 22:24). Although a creditor was entitled to foreclose a debtor\u2019s possessions, or even his family (2 Kings 4:1), certain items (such as a millstone) could not be taken in payment of debts (Deut. 24:6). Impoverished kinsmen, like land, could be redeemed (Lev. 25:47\u201353) and slaves could be set free automatically after a number of years\u2019 service (Exod. 21:1; Lev. 25:54; Deut. 15:12). It has often been suggested that such laws were merely utopian. In fact, it was common practice for the kings of the ancient Near East to declare a cancellation of debts and consequently emancipate slaves and land. This was regarded as one of the king\u2019s duties, although the timing was left to his discretion. The difference in the biblical law is its replacement of the king\u2019s role by an automatic cycle of 7 or 50 years, which would ensure the enforcement of these reform measures. King Zedekiah actually declared a freeing of slaves, but subsequently the officials and the people forced them into slavery again (Jer. 34:8\u201311).
\n\u25cb Marriage was an alliance between families in which the bride was the object of the transaction. The first phase was an agreement between the groom (or his father) and the bride\u2019s father, who could demand a payment known as mohar for the hand of his daughter (Exod. 22:15\u201316). Payment would normally be in money, but could, as in the case of Jacob, be in services (Gen. 29). Once the mohar was paid, the girl was betrothed, and although the marriage was not yet consummated, the law already regarded her as married (Deut. 22:23\u201329). Divorce could be initiated by the husband alone. A special provision ruled that a wife, once divorced and remarried, could not return to her first husband if her second marriage ended (Deut. 24:1\u20134).
\n\u25cb Polygamy was permitted, but it was forbidden to marry two sisters (Lev. 18:18). This had apparently not been the case in the time of the Patriarchs, for Jacob married Laban\u2019s two daughters, Leah and Rachel (Gen. 29).
\nThe leading motifs of early biblical literature\u2014election, redemption, covenant, and law\u2014are closely interconnected: God elected the Children of Israel to be God\u2019s treasured possession. God\u2019s redemptive intervention into history liberated an enslaved people who became bound to God through a pact whose stipulations demand the utmost obedience. The continued existence of this religious community, according to the Bible, completely depends on the observance and performance of those principles and injunctions that constitute the charter of its covenant with God. The will of God expressed through law is the basis of the covenantal relationship between God and the nation of Israel.
\nShalom M. Paul.<\/p>\n
Biblical Poetry
\nAlthough prose dominates, poetry permeates every part of the Bible. Indeed, about one third of the Bible is poetry. It can be found in almost every book\u2014sometimes just a single line, but there are large blocks of poetry as well: all 150 psalms, the Song of Songs, the oracles of the prophets, and much of Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations.
\nExplaining the nature of biblical poetry is not easy because there are no clear cut distinguishing features to it and the differences between poetry and prose in the Bible are often quite subtle. Look, for example, at these two versions of the first plague on the Egyptians. The account in Exodus is commonly classified as prose, while the retellings in Psalms are categorized as poetry (and are set in line-verse format in the English translation of the Hebrew):
\nMoses and Aaron did just as the Lord commanded: he lifted up the rod and struck the water in the Nile in the sight of Pharaoh and his courtiers, and all the water in the Nile was turned into blood and the fish in the Nile died. The Nile stank so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile; and there was blood throughout the land of Egypt (Exod. 7:20\u201321).
\nHe turned their rivers into blood;
\nHe made their waters undrinkable (Ps. 78:44).
\nHe turned their waters into blood
\nand killed their fish (Ps. 105:29).
\nWhat qualifies the Exodus passages as \u201cprose\u201d and the Psalms passages as \u201cpoetry\u201d? Ask Bible scholars this question and you will get different and sometimes conflicting answers. Nevertheless, in spite of uncertainties in our understanding of this ancient, sacred literature, it is possible to delineate those sections of the Bible widely considered poetry and to outline their key stylistic features.
\nSearching for Signs That It Is Poetry
\nIn the classical period, thinkers like Aristotle and Horace penned theories about the nature, mechanics, and effects of poetry. However, in the Bible we do not find definitions of poetry or discussions of how biblical poetry operates. In fact, biblical Hebrew does not have a general term for \u201cpoetry,\u201d though various terms do seem to signal the presence of a poetic passage. For instance, the passage known as the \u201cSong of Moses\u201d is introduced with the statement: \u201cThen Moses and the Israelites sang this song [shirah]\u201d (Exod. 15:1). David\u2019s eulogy for Saul and Jonathan is labeled as a \u201cdirge\u201d (kinah) (2 Sam. 1:17). Many compositions in Psalms begin with the word mizmor, which is translated as \u201cpsalm\u201d and likely indicates a song accompanied by a stringed instrument. Such terms suggest that a number of labels were used to classify certain types of compositions; yet these titles are not used consistently throughout the Bible, nor are they affixed to every text that we would consider a poetic passage.
\nSince these internal indicators do not point conclusively or consistently to the presence of poetry, we might look to visual means to identify it. When opening selected Hebrew editions or translations of the Bible, one can determine the poetic sections by the distinctive layout of the verses. For example, in the JPS Tanakh, in Genesis 4:23\u201324, the prose format gives way to poetic verse, signaling a shift in language. Yet, in other editions of the Bible, no graphic distinction is made between poetry and prose.
\nThe convention of visually distinguishing poetic passages, called \u201cstichography,\u2019 evolved over time. Bible fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls show that the formatting of texts into verses was sporadic. In talmudic times, spacing was used widely in certain books, but it was not required. The Talmud established special writing for only five sections: Exodus 15:1\u201318, Deuteronomy 32, and Judges 5, which are poetic texts, as well as Joshua 12:9\u201324 and Esther 9:7\u20139, which are lists found in prose passages. Throughout the Middle Ages, Jewish scribes commonly incorporated some type of special spacing not only for the sections mentioned in talmudic sources but also for other parts of the Bible, such as Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Lamentations, the Song of Asaph (1 Chron. 16:8\u201335), and selected lists. After the advent of the printing press, most printed masoretic Bibles abandoned stichographic arrangement of all but those passages mandated by the Talmud. Most modern scholarly editions reverse this trend, employing stichography for everything considered poetry, including many of the prophetic books.
\nPoetry in the Tanakh
\nThough some scholars caution against drawing sharp distinctions between poetry and prose, most agree about which parts of the Bible contain poetry.
\nWritings (Kethuvim) contains the most poetic material, including Psalms, Proverbs, Job 3:3\u201342:6, Song of Songs, and Lamentations, along with scattered poetic selections in Ecclesiastes (for example, 1:2\u20139; 3:1\u20138) and other books (for example, 1 Chron. 16:8\u201335). Poetry overshadows prose in the Latter Prophets, for most of the prophetic books contain poetic verse exclusively or predominantly; Jonah and Ezekiel stand out as exceptions. In the Former Prophets, poems punctuate the narrative account of Israel\u2019s history in Judges 5 (Song of Deborah), 1 Samuel 2:1\u201310 (Hannah\u2019s Prayer), 2 Samuel 1:19\u201327 (David\u2019s eulogy for Saul and Jonathan), 2 Samuel 22 (David\u2019s Song), and 2 Samuel 23:1\u20137 (David\u2019s last words). Some of the smaller poetic passages include Jotham\u2019s fable (Josh. 10:12\u201313) and Solomon\u2019s declaration to God (1 Kings 8:12\u201313).<\/p>\n
The beginning of the book of the Song of Songs, the Rothschild Mahzor, Florence, 1490. The Rothschild Mahzor is one of the most beautiful illuminated Hebrew texts still in existence today. It contains prayers for the entire year, as well as piyyutim (liturgical poems). It also contains seven penitential psalms, \u201cmizmorim penitenziali,\u201d that were used in Christian rituals for penance in times of anguish. Thus, the Mahzor represents the degree of Christian influence on at least upper-class Italian Jews during the Renaissance. This manuscript had been stolen from the Rothschild family by the Nazis, but was discovered after World War II in the possession of a Berlin book dealer. (Courtesy of The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.)
\nThe Torah preserves several lengthy poems, including the Testament of Jacob (Gen. 49:2\u201327), the Song at the Sea (Exod. 15:1\u201318), the Song of Moses (Deut. 32:1\u201343), and Moses\u2019s Blessing (Deut. 33:2\u201329). We also find a number of shorter poetic compositions or fragments, such as the Song of Lamech (Gen. 4:23\u201324); Miriam\u2019s Song at the Sea (Exod. 15:21); the Song of the Ark (Num. 10:35\u201336); the Song at the Well (Num. 21:17\u201318); the Victory Song over Moab (Num. 21:27\u201330); and the Oracles of Balaam (Num. 23:7\u201310, 18\u201324; 24:3\u20139, 15\u201324). In some instances, often in the course of a dialogue, a few poetic verses interrupt the surrounding prose narrative, as when the man names the woman (Gen. 2:23), God speaks to Cain (Gen. 4:6\u20137), and Rebekah\u2019s family bids her farewell (Gen. 24:60).
\nIn each part of the Bible, the poetic material displays a considerable degree of diversity in content. Note the range of poetic expression in Writings, with aphorisms in Proverbs, passionate diatribes on human suffering in Job, sensual love songs in the Song of Songs, and mournful laments for the destruction of Jerusalem in Lamentations. Within the book of Psalms itself, in certain texts the speaker joyfully sings God\u2019s praises, while in others the Psalmist cries out in pain and calls on God\u2019s help. Likewise, the poetry of Prophets contains many passages in which the prophets rail against the people for their moral and religious failings and others in which they exhort their listeners to repent or entice them with visions of a glorious future. The Torah contains a similar poetic panoply, with songs of victory, deathbed blessings, oracles, and other assorted passages. Nevertheless, for all this variety in genre and subject matter, the poetic sections of the Bible exhibit considerable stylistic similarities. Understanding biblical poetry requires a familiarity with the literary devices adeptly wielded by the writers of this poetry; namely parallelism, rhythm, terseness, imagery, metaphor, repetition, patterning, and other effects.
\nParallelism
\nThe identification of parallelism as a central defining feature of biblical poetry traces back to the Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, delivered by Bishop Robert Lowth in 1753. Lowth defined parallelism as a certain \u201cequality\u201d or \u201cresemblance\u201d between the members of a poetic unit. He identified three types of poetic parallelism: synonymous, antithetic, and synthetic. In the most frequent variety, synonymous parallelism, the same sentiment is repeated in different, but equivalent terms, as in Isaiah 60:3:
\nAnd nations shall walk by your light,
\nKings, by your shining radiance.
\nAntithetic parallelism pairs contrary or opposite terms, as seen in Proverbs 27:6:
\nWounds by a loved one are long lasting;
\nThe kisses of an enemy are profuse.
\nThe third and rather amorphous category, called synthetic parallelism, consists of everything that does not fit in the other two classifications. Bishop Roberth Lowth cited Psalm 46:7 as an example:
\nNations rage, kingdoms topple;
\nat the sound of His thunder the earth dissolves.
\nFor over 200 years, Lowth\u2019s tripartite understanding of parallelism dominated the discussion of biblical poetry. Then, starting in the late 1970s and 1980s, a number of studies were published that challenged Lowth\u2019s perception of parallelism and expanded our understanding of the nuances and complexities of biblical verse. In the 1981 book The Idea of Biblical Poetry: Parallelism and Its History, James Kugel contended that the ways of parallelism are numerous and varied, far exceeding Lowth\u2019s limited three categories. He observed that the degree of connection between two parallel clauses may range anywhere from no perceivable correspondence to just short of a word-for-word repetition. He insisted that the second clause does not simply restate the first clause. Instead, the second line expands on the first in a multitude of different ways: reasserting, supporting, particularizing, defining, completing, or going beyond the first line. In his The Art of Biblical Poetry, Robert Alter highlighted what he termed the \u201cimpulse to intensification\u201d in biblical poetry. He argued that even in lines that appear at first glance to be nearly synonymous, a closer reading often reveals a \u201cdynamic progression\u201d from one half of the line to the next.
\nIn the 1985 study The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism, Adele Berlin applied the study of linguistics to the topic of parallelism in a way that helps us uncover and appreciate the intricacies of biblical parallelism.
\nIsaiah 1:10 provides a good example of the dynamic nature of poetic parallelism:
\nHear the word of the Lord,
\nYou chieftains of Sodom;
\nGive ear to our God\u2019s instruction,
\nYou folk of Gomorrah!
\nThe two lines in this verse (separated by a semicolon), often called \u201ccola,\u201d (colon, singular) certainly meet Lowth\u2019s definition of synonymous parallelism, for the same sentiment appears to be repeated in different, but equivalent terms. However, further investigation reveals varying degrees of equivalence and contrast. We find a number of word pairs that exhibit a high degree of similar meaning. The divine names \u201cLord\u201d and \u201cGod\u201d are more or less synonymous. The verbs \u201chear\u201d and \u201cgive ear\u201d both call on us to listen, though the first verb is more commonplace and the second more poetic. Similarly, the nouns \u201cword\u201d and \u201cinstruction\u201d are both used to designate God\u2019s teaching, though the first term is more general and the second more specific. With the last two words in each colon, we see more contrast. The nouns \u201cleaders\u201d and \u201cpeople\u201d cannot be considered synonymous, for the first word refers specifically to the ruling class, whereas the second denotes the population as a whole. The place names \u201cSodom\u201d and \u201cGomorrah\u201d identify two different cities, though often they are often paired, as in \u201cSodom and Gomorrah\u201d; the two cities symbolize a place of debauchery and sin.
\nIn terms of content, the two lines mean pretty much the same thing: the second colon echoes the basic sentiment of the first. In both sentences, the prophet calls the intended audience to listen to God\u2019s message. By invoking the place names \u201cSodom\u201d and \u201cGomorrah,\u201d Isaiah metaphorically maligns his listeners, a fitting prelude to the divine diatribe that follows.
\nWhen we look at the lines grammatically, we see similar equivalence and contrast. Both sentences contain a verb, followed by a direct object (a noun and divine name) and then the subject (a noun and place name). However, there are a number of contrasting elements. For instance, the masculine Hebrew noun translated as \u201cword\u201d contrasts with the feminine Hebrew word for \u201cinstruction,\u201d and the plural Hebrew word for \u201cchieftains\u201d contrasts with the singular \u201cfolk.\u201d
\nThe interplay of equivalence and contrast on these different levels animates the verse. In addition, the grammar reinforces the prophet\u2019s message. By addressing both the leaders and the people as a whole, Isaiah implies that all strata of society are guilty and thus fitting recipients of his words. In a more subtle manner, the grammatical contrast reinforces this message: masculine and feminine, singular and plural, all need to heed God\u2019s charge to \u201ccease to do evil; learn to do good\u201d (Isa. 1:16\u201317).
\nNow let us compare the relationship between the two cola in Isaiah 1:10, repeated here:
\nHear the word of the Lord,
\nYou chieftains of Sodom;
\nGive ear to our God\u2019s instruction,
\nYou folk of Gomorrah!
\nto the two cola in Hosea 14:2:
\nReturn, O Israel, to the Lord your God,
\nFor you have fallen because of your sin.
\nIn this case, the two halves of the verse do not mirror each other in word pattern or echo each other in meaning. Instead, the second colon continues the topic introduced in the first colon, providing a justification for the prophet\u2019s call to return. Together the words in the two cola in Hosea 14:2 connect to one another and form a sequence, whereas the two parts of Isaiah 1:10 essentially repeat and reinforce the same meaning.
\nOften, the nature of the relationship is not as clear as in Isaiah 1:10 and Hosea 14:2 or a passage may combine various elements. In some cases, how one views the relationships between isolated words and the cola as a whole can influence how one interprets a given passage. For example, Hosea 14:3 reads:
\nTake words with you
\nAnd return to the Lord.
\nIf we consider \u201ctake words\u201d and \u201creturn to the Lord\u201d as phrases that are basically synonymous, we can interpret this passage to mean that repentance involves a verbal confession or declaration of the sort provided by Hosea in the verses that follow this one. In contrast, if we understand the two phrases as two parts of a consecutive sequence, then the passage suggests that one must speak words of contrition before one can reconcile with God.
\nThese examples show how analyzing the various aspects and levels of a poetic passage helps us gain a keener appreciation of the artistry and interpretative possibilities involved in biblical parallelism.
\nMeter and Rhythm
\nIn many types of poetry, meter stands out as a defining feature. The word \u201cmeter\u201d derives from the Greek term \u201cmeasure\u201d and refers to the counting and organization of various aspects of spoken discourse, such as syllables and accents. Over the centuries, scholars have scoured the poetic sections of the Bible, looking for signs of these various forms of meter. One factor that complicates the matter is that, unlike other ancient languages such as Akkadian and Greek, we are not certain just how biblical Hebrew was pronounced since the Hebrew script contained no vowels. Largely influenced by contemporary poetic aesthetics\u2014be that Greek, Arabic, Renaissance, or other types of poetry\u2014some ancient, medieval, and modern scholars have insisted on the existence of biblical meter. Others have maintained that meter does not exist in the poetry of the Bible, and today this is the prevailing opinion. Because biblical poetry does display a certain degree of symmetry and sound patterning, some have suggested shifting the focus of the discussion from meter to the broader notion of rhythm, which refers to various forms of sound repetition and regularity.
\nMany Types of Biblical Poetry
\nThe Bible contains many different kinds of poems: those praising God, praising Israel, and asking for help or protection; poems of mourning or grief, and others of love. With their evocative, measured language, these poems provide a colorful tapestry of the ways ancient Israelites imagined themselves and their relationship to God. Here is a sampling:
\nBlessings
\nJudgment Oracles
\nSeedtime and harvest (Gen. 8:22)
\nThe streets of Jerusalem (Jer. 5:1\u20139)
\nHagar\u2019s blessing (Gen. 6:10\u201312)
\nHowl, you shepherds (Jer. 25:34\u201338)
\nIsaac and Jacob (Gen. 27:28\u201329)
\nWail (Ezek. 30:2\u20136)
\nJacob\u2019s blessing (Gen. 35:9\u201312)
\nLofty Egypt (Ezek. 31:2\u20139)
\nPrayers and Songs of Praise
\nProphecies of Salvation and Consolation
\nMiriam\u2019s song (Exod. 15:21)
\nSwords into plowshares (Isa. 2:2\u20134)
\nRefuge (Ps. 11)
\nI will espouse you (Hosea 2:16\u201325)
\nA Song for the Sabbath (Ps. 92:2\u201316)
\nPaternal love (Hosea 11)
\nHannah\u2019s prayer (1 Sam. 2:1\u201310)
\nJoy to Jerusalem (Zeph. 3:14\u201320)
\nPoetic Moments
\nWisdom Writings
\nRebekah\u2019s family blesses her when she leaves to marry Issac (Gen. 24:60)
\nHappy is the Man (Ps. 1)
\nA vision of the Prophet Isaiah (Isa. 6:1\u20137)
\nIn praise of wisdom (Prov. 1:2\u20137)
\nThe vision of Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 4:7\u201314)
\nThe way of the good (Prov. 2:20\u201322)<\/p>\n
Tree of Life (Prov. 3:13\u201318)
\nTestaments and Pronouncements
\nLove Songs
\nThe last words of David, (2 Sam. 23:1\u20137)
\nSong of Songs
\nDesert of the sea (Isa. 21:1\u201310)<\/p>\n
Dumah (Isa. 21:11\u201312)<\/p>\n
In the steppe (Isaiah 21:13\u201315)<\/p>\n
Laments<\/p>\n
Deliver me (Ps. 3)<\/p>\n
I am weary (Ps. 6:2\u201311)<\/p>\n
How long? (Ps. 13:2\u20136)<\/p>\n
Protect me, O God (Ps. 16)<\/p>\n
Terseness
\nThe rhythm of biblical poetry results in part from the terseness of parallel lines, the fact that the lines of biblical poetry tend to be short and comprise about the same number of words and stresses. Several trends contribute to the terseness of biblical poetry. First, poetic verses frequently omit certain grammatical particles, such as the Hebrew definite article (h), the accusative marker (et), and the relative pronoun (asher). Second, there often are no conjunctions joining cola. In prose, dependent clauses are usually linked with conjunctions\u2014such as \u201cand,\u201d \u201cbut,\u201d and \u201cfor\u201d\u2014that specify how one clause relates to the other. Frequently, as in the above example from Hosea 14:3, two cola appear one after another, merely connected by the conjunction vav, which carries a range of meanings but is translated in Hosea 14:3 as \u201cand.\u201d The vague nature of this conjunction can produce ambiguity, requiring the reader to determine the meaning of the connection. Does the conjunction indicate that the second line repeats the basic idea of the first: \u201cTake with you words and thus return to the Lord?\u201d Or does it imply a sequence of actions: \u201cTake with you words and then return to the Lord?\u201d In many other cases, two poetic lines are juxtaposed with no grammatical marker specifying the relationship between the statements, as seen in the following passages:
\nYou turned my lament into dancing,
\nyou undid my sackcloth and girded me with joy (Ps. 30:12).
\nA garden locked
\nIs my own, my bride,
\nA fountain locked,
\nA sealed-up spring (Songs 4:12).
\nImagery, Metaphor, and Simile
\nThe quotes from Psalms 30 and Song of Songs 4 highlight another defining feature of biblical poetry: the abundant use of imagery. The term \u201cimagery\u201d is complicated and often is used to speak about figurative language in general\u2014imagery\u2014or the more specific figure of speech\u2014metaphor. In Psalms 30:12, the speaker paints a visual picture of a person in mourning who breaks out in dancing\u2014imagery. In Song of Songs 4:12, the speaker also evokes a mental image, but in this case the images of the garden, fountain, and spring function as part of a comparison\u2014the key component of a metaphor.
\nImagery creates a mental image, which can involve sight, hearing, smell, or other senses. For instance, the prophet Joel depicts a future time of judgment, \u201cthe day of the Lord\u201d (Joel 1:15), when \u201cthe beasts groan\u201d and \u201cthe watercourses are dried up\u201d (Joel 1:18, 20). The first comment involves an auditory element, while the second is primarily visual. Amos also speaks about the day of the Lord, warning that \u201cit shall be darkness, not light\u201d (Amos 5:18). When Isaiah speaks about a very different future, he likewise relies on imagery, creating a vision of a wolf dwelling with a lamb and a leopard stretching out alongside a young goat (Isa. 11:6).
\nIn these examples, the speaker uses language to take a snapshot: a picture of predators reclining alongside their former prey, a vision of total darkness, a scene of parched streams and groaning bears. In each case, as the saying goes, one picture is worth a thousand words. Amos does not specify what will happen on the day of the Lord; instead, the image of darkness communicates the general impression that this will be a dreadful time. Similarly, Isaiah paints a series of mental pictures from which his audience can extrapolate that a glorious future will bring peace and harmony among all creatures. In doing so, he taps into a larger motif that signals a return to Eden. With imagery, the poet goes beyond the straightforward language on the page, delivering a more vivid, but less explicit message. Using the listener\u2019s various senses, the writer employs a concrete image to convey a more abstract idea.
\nWhile a metaphor also evokes an image, what makes it distinct is the presence of an analogy, a comparison between a hypothetical situation and an actual one. For example, in the extended metaphor in Isaiah 5:1\u20137 (the Song of the Vineyard), the prophet likens the actual situation, God\u2019s displeasure about Israel\u2019s immoral behavior, to a hypothetical situation: a gardener\u2019s disappointment about the way the vineyard he lovingly tended yielded wild grapes.
\nIn a metaphor, the analogy is implicit; in a simile, it is explicit. Examples of similes abound in biblical poetry, as seen in the following passages from the book of Hosea. At several points, Hosea favorably compares God to dew or rain to send the message that God nourishes Israel and will bring about her revival and success. For instance, in Hosea 14:6, God promises:
\nI will be to Israel like dew;
\nHe shall blossom like the lily.
\nIn this simile, the preposition \u201clike\u201d signals the presence of an analogy.
\nWith a metaphor, the speaker crafts the comparison in a variety of ways. The most obvious type of metaphor takes the form of a predicative statement, as in \u201cthe Lord is my shepherd\u201d (Ps. 23:1), \u201cAll flesh is grass\u201d (Isa. 40:6), and \u201cIsrael is a ravaged vine\u201d (Hosea 10:1). Each of these nominal sentences equates one object with another object, thus creating an anomaly. In other instances, the metaphor is introduced by weaving together words connected with the actual situation and vocabulary associated with the hypothetical situation. For example, in the previous citation from Isaiah 1:10, the prophet compares his audience to the archetypal sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah by linking the second person plural imperative verbs and the nouns \u201cleaders\u201d and \u201cpeople\u201d with the place names \u201cSodom\u201d and \u201cGomorrah.\u201d The Israelites addressed are not, in fact, residents of Sodom and Gomorrah but are only metaphorically equated with them. In Amos 1:2, the metaphor is more subtle, created by pairing a divine subject with a verb primarily associated with the sound produced by lions:
\nThe Lord roars from Zion,
\nShouts aloud from Jerusalem.
\nThe combination of \u201cthe Lord\u201d and \u201croars\u201d creates an incongruity that, in part, marks this statement as a metaphor. A metaphor contains both an analogy and an anomaly; in contrast, a simile lacks any sort of anomalous element, for it explicitly compares two entities without equating them.
\nInterpreting metaphors and similes involves \u201cunpacking\u201d the common features that together make up the analogy. Imagine two overlapping circles (a Venn diagram) with \u201cGod\u201d in one circle and \u201cdew\u201d in another. What qualities do the two have in common? What characteristics would fit in the overlapping section of the two circles? In the abstract, we might compile a list of various attributes shared by God and dew. However, when interpreting the simile as it appears in Hosea 14:6, the relevant question is: What specific qualities stand out in this particular verse? In Hosea 14, the larger context allows the interpreter to decipher the qualities that the two words share, and we see that the subsequent verses describe how Israel will flourish like a verdant plant. One can infer from the larger passage that just as dew nourishes trees and flowers, so God will sustain and support Israel so the nation can thrive.
\nRepetition and Patterning
\nDavid\u2019s tribute to Saul and Jonathan concludes with two phrases invoked to describe the deceased men:
\nHow have the mighty fallen,
\nThe weapons of war perished! (2 Sam. 1:27).
\nIn the first colon, literal language is used to characterize Saul and Jonathan. In the second, David communicates through figurative language, employing the image of abandoned armor to speak of the loss of Israel\u2019s military leaders. The phrase \u201chow have the mighty fallen\u201d is repeated two other times in this passage: once at the end of the first verse (2 Sam. 1:19) and again toward the end of the unit (1:25). When a word or phrase recurs at the beginning and end of a composition, it is called an inclusio, or envelope structure. When a word or phrase repeats a number of times, particularly at marked intervals, it is called a refrain.
\nRepetition stands out as an important way to convey meaning in the Bible. In poetry as well as prose, repetition of key words allows the author to highlight and emphasize central themes. For instance, in Hosea 14:2\u20139, the root shuv (to turn) appears five times. First, the prophet charges his listeners to return to God (14:2, 3); then he promises that God will \u201cheal their turning back,\u201d for God\u2019s anger \u201chas turned away\u201d from them (14:5; also see 14:8). Additional types of repetition can be found in poetic compositions throughout the Bible. In Isaiah 40\u201366, reduplication, or the side-by-side repetition of the same word, punctuates numerous passages, including the well-known verse: \u201cComfort, oh comfort My people\u201d (Isa. 40:1). In certain psalms, the same phrase repeats at the beginning of several consecutive lines, such as \u201chow long\u201d in Psalms 13:2\u20133 or \u201cbless\u201d in Psalms 115:12\u201313. Even more prominently, in Psalms 150, the phrase \u201cHallelujah\u201d (Praise Yah) frames the psalm, functioning as an inclusio; in between, the verb \u201cpraise\u201d starts each of the subsequent 10 lines. As these examples demonstrate, repetition not only conveys meaning, but also serves as a structuring device and enhances the aesthetic quality of the composition.
\nIn biblical poetry, patterns are created through repetition as well as through other means. In various psalms and in the book of Lamentations, the Hebrew verses are arranged alphabetically, in what is called an acrostic (Lam. 1\u20134; Ps. 25, 34, 111, 112, 119, 145). A prominent pattern in the Bible is a chiasm, where elements in a verse or over the larger expanse of a text are arranged in reverse order. Genesis 9:6 provides a good example: \u201cWhoever sheds [A] the blood [B] of man [C], by man [C\u2019] shall his blood [B\u2019] be shed [A\u2019]\u201d (see the diagram on p. 63).
\nAnother form of repetition and patterning involves the use of sound. Alliteration entails the repetition of the same or similar sound. In the Bible we find many examples of consonance, the more specific category of the repetition of consonants. For instance, listen to the way Amos 5:5 incorporates several recurring sound patterns, which Shalom Paul attempts to capture in his English translation:
\nBut do not seek Beth-el!
\nNor go to Gilgal!
\nNor cross over to Beer-sheba!
\nFor Gilgal shall go into galling exile,
\nAnd Beth-el shall become a nullity.
\nIsaiah 5:7 provides a good example of paranomasia, a play on words using similar-sounding words with different meanings:
\nAnd He hoped for justice,
\nBut behold, injustice;
\nFor equity,
\nBut behold, iniquity!
\nOther Poetic Devices
\nParanomasia is one of a host of literary devices found in biblical poetry. For example, Classical Greek rhetoricians coined much of the terminology that is still used today to label the manifold ways language can be manipulated to produce various rhetorical effects. The few mentioned in this section reflect some of the more prominent of such devices in biblical poetry.
\nIn 2 Samuel 1:27, David speaks of Jonathan and Saul as \u201cweapons of war.\u201d He does not compare them to armor, which would constitute a metaphor. Instead, he metonymically speaks of them, using the name of an object with which they are associated. Metonymy involves a connection between two entities related in some sort of a part\/whole manner. Amos creates a metonym when he refers to the ruler of Ashkelon as \u201cthe one who grasps the scepter\u201d (Amos 1:8), thus linking the king with an action and object associated with him.
\nThe book of Amos contains examples of a number of other poetic effects. Amos employs hyperbole, or emphatic exaggeration, when he expresses the message that God rejects religious rituals if people do not act with justice and morality. The juxtaposition of two verbs in the first half of Amos 5:21 amplifies the tone of the passage:
\nI loathe, I spurn your festivals,
\nI am not appeased by your solemn assemblies.
\nEarlier in the book, Amos effectively uses rhetorical questions, constructing a prophecy comprising eight rhetorical questions. He begins by asking: \u201cCan two walk together without having met?\u201d (Amos 3:3). Then, question after question, he draws his audience in so that they eventually recognize his main point: \u201cMy Lord God has spoken, who can but prophesy?\u201d (Amos 3:8). Deutero-Isaiah cleverly crafts a rhetorical question to respond to the Israelites\u2019 feeling of having been abandoned by God:
\nCan a woman forget her baby,
\nOr disown the child of her womb?
\nThough she might forget,
\nI never could forget you (Isa. 49:15).
\nThis rhetorical question forms a metaphor that compares God to a mother to reassure the Israelites of God\u2019s enduring love and commitment.
\nSuch an example demonstrates the way poetic devices often operate in conjunction with one another. In many cases, we can identify the specific type of poetic device found in a passage. In other cases, a writer\u2019s creativity defies easy categorization. None of the stylistic features discussed here is restricted to biblical poetry. They all appear in biblical prose, though not with nearly the same degree of frequency and intensity. Appreciating the artistry of biblical poetry and the depth of its meaning requires being a skillful reader, one who can \u201cunpack\u201d the language, structure, and imagery of a poetic passage and then piece everything back together in a way that gives voice to the ideas conveyed in the elevated discourse of poetry.
\nAdapted from Andrea Weiss, \u201cPoetry,\u201d Encyclopaedia Judaica.
\nThe Books of the Prophets
\nProphets, the second part of the Bible, known in Hebrew as Nevi\u2019im, includes 21 books of the canon, when each of the books are counted. This literature thus composes about one half of the entire Bible and covers about 750 years of biblical history\u2014from the conquest and settlement in the Land of Israel (beginning about 1175 b.c.e.) to approximately a century after the dedication of the Second Temple, in the Persian period (about 425 b.c.e.).
\nThe first part of the prophetic collection is known as the Former Prophets and includes the historical books of Joshua, Judges, 1\u20132 Samuel, and 1\u20132 Kings. The second part, the Latter Prophets, is subdivided into the so-called Major and Minor Prophets. The former includes Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; the latter includes all the others\u2014Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi\u2014in a collection of smaller writings known as The Twelve (Prophets).
\nProphetic Types
\nIn a literature that spans such a vast period of time and that does so with such different genres, one would expect that the nature, function, and representations of prophets and prophecy would vary greatly\u2014and this in fact the case. Moreover, the terms that designate the prophetic figure are many, and these point to different types of experience\u2019s and roles; the modes of expression are also many, and these involve a variety of social spheres and personality types. This said, it should be added that the Hebrew Bible presents all these individuals as legitimate heirs of Moses\u2014the first and greatest of prophets. A charter of proper prophecy is presented in Deuteronomy 18:9\u201322. According to this document, the foundation of the phenomenon of prophecy in Israel thus coincides with the founding of the nation and the Revelation of the Torah. However, the Torah reports the existence of other prophetic types as well. We are told of the prophetess Miriam, Moses\u2019s sister, who sings and dances after the crossing of the sea (Exod. 15:20\u201321) and of the ecstatic seizure of 70 elders in the desert (as well as two outsiders, Eldad and Medad) when the spirit of God rests on them (Num. 11:25\u201329). According to yet another tradition, even Abraham is called a prophet in a divine word to Abimelech, the king of Gerar (Gen. 20:7).
\nThe Former Prophets
\nIn the collection of Former Prophets, a number of people are mentioned who have various oracular or ecstatic experiences and are attached to sacred shrines or to specific groups. Such individuals might be called a \u201cseer\u201d (1 Sam. 9:9), a \u201cman of God\u201d (1 Sam. 9:6; 1 Kings 13:1), or a prophet\u201d (2 Sam. 7:2); and they could answer a specific question by an individual or even deliver a message (1 Sam. 9:6\u201321; 1 Kings 14:5; 2 Kings 22:13)\u2014sometimes at a shrine or during a festival and sometimes also for hire (1 Sam. 9:7\u20138, 12\u201313; 1 Kings 14:3; 2 Kings 8:9). The location of the prophet could also be within the royal palace (2 Sam. 7).
\nIn other cases, bands of prophets roam about the countryside. They sometimes fall into ecstatic trances to the accompaniment of music and dance and even influence the state of those who pass nearby (as happens to Saul in 1 Sam. 10:5\u20136, 10\u201311) and sometimes do miraculous acts of feeding or healing (as in episodes connected with Elisha and Elijah). Groups of prophets in the employ of kings could also be consulted in times of danger or war, to divine God\u2019s will, although this did not mean that all members of these groups were \u201cyes-men,\u201d and this divergence among the prophets could result in interesting dynamics (1 Kings 22). Groups of prophets of Baal are also mentioned in these historical sources, and in a famous incident Elijah stems their influence when he successfully intercedes with God to bring an end to a long and deadly drought (1 Kings 18). Very rarely do the prophets mentioned in this literature exceed such acts of divination (speaking or acting for weal or woe, in response to a specific behest or occasion); and even where the prophets mentioned elsewhere appear here, prophetic functions predominate (as when Isaiah pronounces the death of the sick King Hezekiah, then heals him and provides divine signs of God\u2019s favor [2 Kings 20:1\u201311]). But this notwithstanding, several examples exist of rebuke against kings for their egregious crimes. Particularly notable are the bold confrontations of Nathan versus David (2 Sam. 11:1\u201312:15) and Elijah versus Ahab (1 Kings 20). (Also see \u201cGroupings of the Prophetic Books,\u201d on p. 181.)
\nThe Latter Prophets
\nThe Latter Prophets presents a completely different phenomenon. There are, to be sure, similarities within the prophetic types found in the Former Prophets: King Zedekiah consults Jeremiah (Jer. 21:1\u20132), and elders consult Ezekiel to divine God\u2019s will in exile (Ezek. 14:1; 20:1). Moreover, Isaiah is presented as a visionary (Isa. 1:1; 2:1\u20134); and the visions and trances of Ezekiel dominate his prophetic experience (Ezek. 1; 8\u201310; 40\u201328), and he also behaves in bizarre ways (Ezek. 4:4\u201312). Visions also dominate the prophetic career of Zechariah (Zech. 1\u20138), and Isaiah was known to engage in strange behavior (Isa. 20:3). But such occurrences hardly offset the abrupt appearance of a new prophetic type in the mid-8th century b.c.e.\u2014perhaps in part a response to the emerging Assyrian empire, poised dangerously on the horizon. From this time on, we find individuals who say that they are compelled by God and \u201csent\u201d by Him to the people, for any of numerous reasons. It might be to announce His words of doom or warning, to interpret disasters to come as divine punishment for many sins (immorality most especially), or to condemn foreign nations for assorted crimes and interpret their attacks against Israel and Judah as the rod of God\u2019s punishment. It could also be to offer the nation hope in the present if they repent of their sins (though this is not always a possibility, or one long extended) and a future consolation after the divine dooms befall the nation, the Land, and the Temple.
\nThe most characteristic term used by the classical prophets is navi, which conveys the sense of a person who speaks on behalf of God and is sent by God to address Israel and the nations. It thus conveys the force of one who is a \u201cverbal medium\u201d of divine messages (see Deut. 18:18 and Jer. 1:7\u20139). Another striking term, used by the prophet Ezekiel, is tzofeh, which conveys the sense of one who is a forecaster of events and also a warner of impending divine punishment (see Ezek. 3:17).
\nAmos, the first of these great men of mission, utters words of divine rebuke and dramatically declares his difference from the earlier and other breed of prophet when he vigorously rejects the aspersion that he speaks for hire in a shrine. To the contrary, he says, \u201cI am not a prophet, and I am not a prophet\u2019s disciple. I am a cattle breeder and a tender of sycamore figs. But the Lord took me away from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, \u2018Go prophesy to My people Israel.\u2019 And so, hear the word of the Lord\u201d (Amos 7:14\u201316). The call to prophesy thus marks an involuntary break in the life of this individual, and he speaks to the nation in words that are not his own. Indeed, the commission to hear and proclaim the word of God to the people is the singular mark of this person who is a conduit of divine concern. But not only that. Interspersed among the prophecies of doom that forecast a dark day of the Lord, the prophet Amos also tries to intercede with God on behalf of the people (\u201cOh, Lord God, refrain! How will Jacob survive? He is so small\u201d [Amos 7:5]) and sometimes succeeds. A century and a half later, Jeremiah also appears in this double role: at once a spokesman for God to the people, and a spokesman for the people to their God.
\nTheir Oratorical Skill
\nAmos\u2019s self-presentation aside, the classical prophets were hardly rough or untutored individuals. Even Amos betrays himself through his complex speeches, artful rhetoric, and knowledge of national history. Careful study of the words of the prophets shows that these are much more than brief or blunt cries of woe and warning. Rather, they show all the signs of crafted speech\u2014with rhythmic patterns, nuanced emphases, and fixed Patterns of emphasis and argumentation. It may be that in certain instances the cries of the prophets were reworked or reformulated by later disciples, who collected and arranged them in thematic clusters or in sequences based on common words. But this editorial process would hardly account for the whole phenomenon. It would rather seem that these people had access to (or were variously trained in) traditional rhetoric and stylistic forms and that this content took on new and renewed modes of expression under the influence of divine inspiration in specific circumstances. Indeed, one is as much impressed by the commonalities among the prophets as by the differences among them.
\nThe content of the prophets\u2019 words also opens a window on features of ancient Israelite religion and culture that would not otherwise be known. Much can be learned from their legal rhetoric. Attention to their words informs us about otherwise unknown or variant traditions about the patriarchs or myths, and through their rhetoric we learn how wisdom sayings, as well as poems and songs, lived in the daily voice of the people. Certainly, in some cases, training or background was a factor. Ezekiel\u2019s use of priestly images, terms, and laws\u2014often at variance with what is known in the Torah\u2014makes us aware how diverse were the traditions of ancient Israel.
\nMorality, Obedience, and Other Common Themes
\nThe struggle with Canaanite idolatry and the practice of illicit acts are regularly condemned in this literature\u2014ranging from the rebuke of sympathies for Baal uttered by such prophets as Hosea (Hosea 2) and Jeremiah (Jer. 2), to critiques of fertility practices and forbidden animal offerings even in the late postexilic period (Isa. 57:3\u201314; 66:3). But by far the most characteristic feature of classical Israelite prophecy is the strong emphasis put on moral right (even over sacrificial rite). From the first, this is the new clarion call. In the 8th century b.c.e., Amos decries the mistreatment of the poor and calls for justice to flow like a mighty stream (Amos 5:24); Isaiah lambasts the people for coming to the shrine with the stain of ethical sin on their hands, and he adds a manifesto of proper acts (Isa. 1:10\u201317) (see \u201cIsaiah, Proponent of Social Justice,\u201d on p. 189). And Micah proclaims \u201cwhat the Lord requires of you: Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk modestly with your God\u201d (Mic. 6:8). Ritual was misbegotten when it was not founded on covenantal morality, and this could result in divine wrath and punishment. Some scholars have even noted this emphasis in some psalms and have suggested that these reflect a distinct prophetic temper (Ps. 15; 24; 50).
\nAnother dominant and emphatic feature of classical prophecy is that the fate of the nation depends on the covenant obedience of the people (and not just on the behavior of the kings, as we often find in 1\u20132 Kings; by contrast, the apologia for the fall of Samaria in 2 Kings 17:7\u201323 reflects the classical prophetic ideology) and that the cycle of sin and punishment may be broken by repentance. Hosea\u2019s powerful appeal to the people to return to the Lord marks the beginning of the new prophecy (Hosea 14), and repeated reflections on this dynamic can be found in subsequent prophets\u2014leading to various theological assessments of the effects of sin, the nature of divine mercy, and the power of repentance itself (see especially Jer. 18; Ezek. 18; and the book of Jonah). Nevertheless, the possibility of repentance was not always available to the people\u2014after repeated warnings, the gates of repentance could be closed. A striking and poignant statement of God\u2019s refusal to heed the intercession of prophets is found in Jeremiah 15:1.
\nAs those who warn and condemn, the prophets were hardly popular figures, and they repeatedly clashed with the people and royal or cultic authorities. Little wonder that in some of the commission scenes, divine protection and support are pointedly emphasized (note especially Jer. 1). For his efforts, Jeremiah was repeatedly put in stocks and ridiculed, and when he went so far as to utter words of doom against the Temple, he was even put on trial for his life (Jer. 7 and 26). This prophet articulates the pathos of the prophetic vocation and also the compulsions of true prophecy: it is, he says, like a fire in the belly, bursting him from within; like a hammer on a rock, producing sparks of fire (Jer. 20:7\u201313; 23:9\u201311, 29). How different is this revelation of prophetic psychology from those false prophets who are condemned for speaking the delusions of their own mind, or who plagiarize the prophetic words of each other (Jer. 23:16, 25\u201326, 31)!
\nAnd yet the prophets are not just speakers of doom. In brief and extended visions, they proclaim a future restoration and utopia\u2014a restoration of the Land, the Temple, and a return of the people to their homeland and the reestablishment of the monarchy; and the beginning of an unprecedented era of peace and well-being, which is imagined as a transformation of nature itself. Fertility will increase without end, sowing and reaping will overlap, and the lamb will even lie near the lion\u2014with no fear. But most of all, a new spirit and knowledge of the Lord will manifest itself in this era. Isaiah foresees a time when the entire earth will be filled with the knowledge of or \u201cdevotion to the Lord as water covers the sea\u201d (Isa. 11:9). And in an arresting image, Jeremiah envisions a time when the \u201cTeaching [torah]\u201d of the Lord will be put into the \u201cinmost being\u201d of the nation and God will \u201cinscribe it upon their hearts.\u201d At that time, \u201cNo longer will they need to teach one another and say to one another \u2018Heed the Lord\u2019; for all of them, from the least of them to the greatest, shall heed Me\u2014declared the Lord\u201d (Jer. 31:33\u201334). The broken tablets of Sinai will thus be made whole and be inscribed in the mind and heart of the people. Obedience to God will not be learned but be a matter of inner instinct. This is the utopian hope.
\nGradually, the prophetic corpus as we have it was compiled and edited to preserve the words of the prophets\u2014keeping alive their tirades against injustice and ritual sin; and the visions of hope and restoration. Disciples would particularly want to collect and memorialize the words of their master. In the process of this act of preservation, the words would come alive and be renewed through reinterpretation. This is particularly noticeable in postexilic works. Repeatedly, the words and images of Isaiah 1\u201312 recur in expanded and revised form in Isaiah 40\u201366, which date to exilic and postexilic times. Circles of the pious in Maccabean times looked back to the words of Isaiah, especially to the account of the suffering servant of God in Isaiah 52:13\u201353:12, and found solace and help in their time of persecution (see especially Dan. 12). Such study and application of these old prophetic biblical books are part of their ongoing acceptance\u2014and their transformation from documents of ancient Israel into spiritual resources for early and later Judaism.
\nFrom Michael Fishbane, The JPS Bible Commentary: Haftarot.
\nWisdom Literature
\nWisdom Literature is the broad literary category that offers advice on how to succeed in life, as well as reflections on its meanings and problems. Unlike much of the Bible, which is concerned with those unique events in history in which God is revealed to the People of Israel, Wisdom Literature is grounded in the everyday: finding a good wife, parenting, making a living, and the like. It seeks to teach the reader the wisdom necessary for being productive and choosing the right course of action. Doing so will provide the learner with security and well-being and maintain the just social order, in accordance with God\u2019s will.
\nThree books of the Bible are included in this body of writings: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (also known as Koheleth), and Job, as well as some psalms that resemble Wisdom texts in language and ideas (Ps. 1; 19:8\u201315; 34; 37; 111\u2013112; 119). Also included are two postbiblical Jewish Wisdom books of the Apocrypha: Ben Sira (also known as Ecclesiasticus) and the Wisdom of Solomon. Some scholars would also include some texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls and some from Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers), in the Mishnah.
\nWisdom Literature was widespread in the ancient Near East, where it was cultivated in literate and sophisticated scribal circles and often directed to young men who would join the high officialdom and even serve in the royal court. Some maxims give advice specific to this setting. Most teachings, however, are of general relevance and include folk proverbs from varied walks of life.
\nNumerous Wisdom writings can be found in ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian works written from as early as the early third millennium up to Hellenistic times. There is strong evidence that some of these books, or at least some of their sayings and teachings, were translated and transmitted in ancient Israel and that they influenced the book of Proverbs.
\nThere are two types of Wisdom Literature: didactic and critical. Didactic Wisdom Literature offers instruction in the skills of leading a good and virtuous life. This group includes Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Ben Sira, and the Wisdom of Solomon. Works in the loosely defined category of critical Wisdom Literature reflect on and criticize doctrines and values found in didactic Wisdom Literature. The foremost biblical example of this is Job. Ecclesiastes belongs both to didactic Wisdom Literature (because much of it teaches how to lead the good life) and to critical Wisdom Literature (because it examines and criticizes the assumptions of conventional wisdom). Psalms 49, 72, and 138 are sometimes associated with critical Wisdom Literature, as well.
\nProverbs as Wisdom
\nThe most important source of didactic wisdom is the book of Proverbs. Proverbs defines its own contents as wisdom: its prologue (1:1\u20137) says that the book is \u201cfor learning wisdom and discipline; for understanding words of discernment\u201d (1:3) and \u201cfor understanding proverb and epigram, the words of the wise and their riddles\u201d (1:6). It often teaches what is wise and urges the reader to strive for it.
\nThe book of Proverbs is a guide to individuals rather than the nation. It is directed particularly to boys and young men, but most of the advice is applicable to all ages and both sexes. It tells readers how to do what is wise in their everyday lives, and it instructs them in the right and prudent ways of behavior that will bring them well-being and success. It teaches them behavior that will bring them \u201cfavor and approbation in the eyes of God and man\u201d (4:4). Unlike so many other books of the Bible, it is silent on the nation of Israel, its history and laws, and the Revelation of divine Torah. The basic teaching of the book as a whole is that the possession of wisdom\u2014which is to say, the human intellect\u2014is a necessary and sufficient condition of being good and doing what is good.
\nThe authors of the book of Proverbs borrowed and reshaped wisdom from earlier texts, most notably from the Egyptian Amenemope and the Aramaic book of Ahiqar. Proverbs is a slice of a tradition that preceded ancient Israel and continued beyond it. This tradition comprised the creation, reshaping, and transmission of wise sayings and teachings about how to live a righteous, productive, and happy life.
\nREADING THE BOOK OF PROVERBS
\nThe book of Proverbs is best read with attention to the different genres it contains. Chapters 10\u201329 have four collections of proverbs, each comprising mostly independent sayings. The proverbs in these collections speak about a great many issues: the behavior of the righteous and the wicked, actions and attitudes that please or disgust God, the ways of getting along well with others, laziness and diligence, effective and deleterious speech, and more. (See \u201cProverbs\u2019 Literary Collections,\u201d on p. 203)
\nIn this part of Proverbs, one can profitably dip in at random and think about each saying by itself. Here are some examples and some thoughts about them:
\nPride goes before ruin,
\nArrogance, before failure (16:18).
\nPride can alienate other people and make one blind to the dangers of one\u2019s own plans. Then comes the fall. One can think of smug politicians and cynical CEOs have found themselves exposed, humiliated, and sometimes jailed.
\nHe who mocks the poor affronts his Maker;
\nHe who rejoices over another\u2019s misfortune will not go unpunished (17:5).
\nIf you insult the poor, you disparage the work of God\u2019s hands.
\nOne who is slack in his work
\nIs a brother to a vandal (18:9).
\nThe lazy man not only does his own job poorly but also ruins what others have achieved. A single slacker working on a project can undermine his co-workers\u2019 best efforts.
\nThe poor man speaks beseechingly;
\nThe rich man\u2019s answer is harsh (18:23).
\nProverbs like 18:23 observe life\u2019s hard realities without offering specific correctives.
\nAs a dog returns to his vomit,
\nSo a dullard repeats his folly (26:11).
\nThis is a deliberately disgusting image of repeated stupidity.
\nMany proverbs are clustered by theme. Proverbs 26:1\u201312, for example, is a series of sayings on folly. Their point is not primarily to scold fools (who, in the book\u2019s view, are a hopeless lot), but rather to condemn certain actions as stupid. Proverbs 16:1\u20139 is a cluster of proverbs on God\u2019s omnipotence and omniscience.
\nReaders of Proverbs soon realize the variation in content and quality of the sayings. Some are dutiful and predictable expressions of religious feelings and principles, others are penetrating and even surprising abservations on human nature, and many offer good practical advice on living a constructive and successful life. Not all sayings will speak to every reader, but everyone can find some that pack insight and good sense into two brief lines.
\nThe book also contains some longer poems. Proverbs 24:30\u201334 reports an anecdote about laziness, and Proverbs 23:29\u201335 is a humorous warning against drunkenness, describing the horrid feeling the next morning. In 30:1\u20139, an otherwise unknown Agur teaches that the most important source of knowledge is the word of God. Proverbs 31:1\u201310 is noteworthy for being ascribed to a woman, the mother of the otherwise unknown king Lemuel. She warns him that royalty must beware of strong drink and loose women and must instead devote themselves to ensuring justice and the care of the poor. Proverbs 31:11\u201331 is a song, commonly called \u201cWoman of Valor,\u201d in praise of the excellent wife. It describes her energetic investment in the household\u2019s well-being and her religious and moral virtues. (See \u201cWoman of Valor,\u201d on p. 204)
\nMajor Units of Proverbs
\nPart
\nVerses
\nHeading (in quotes) or Contents
\nI
\n1:1\u20139:18
\n\u201cThe proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel\u201d
\nII
\n10:1\u201322:16
\n\u201cProverbs of Solomon\u201d
\nIII
\n22:17\u201324:22
\n\u201cWords of the wise\u201d (emended, based on the Greek)
\nIV
\n24:23\u201334
\n\u201cThese too are of the wise\u201d
\nV
\n25:1\u201329:27
\n\u201cThese too are proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah transcribed\u201d
\nVI
\n30:1\u201331:31
\nFour Appendices
\nVIa
\n30:1\u20139
\nThe Words of Agur
\nVIb
\n30:10\u201333
\nEpigrams and Aphorisms
\nVIc
\n31:1\u20139
\nThe Teaching of Lemuel\u2019s Mother
\nVId
\n31:10\u201331
\nWoman of Valor
\nEcclesiastes (or Koheleth)
\nAs mentioned earlier, Ecclesiastes belongs to both didactic Wisdom Literature and critical Wisdom Literature. The author is reusing, reshaping, and recombining old forms to present new insights into the nature of the world and the powers of wisdom. Koheleth was traditionally identified with King Solomon, but scholars today agree that the book was written in a much later period. Thus it is significant that the speaker is not called Solomon by name. Koheleth speaks as king only once; elsewhere he speaks as a nonroyal sage, one who blames the government for injustices, and the epilogue never indicates that Koheleth is a royal figure. Koheleth is, instead, a literary figure who is given the Solomon-like blessings of power and wealth as well as the wisdom to examine the true value of those assets. (See \u201cWho Is Koheleth?\u201d on p. 209)
\nWithin the book, a number of traditional literary forms can be identified, including the following.
\nMaxims and proverbs. Much of the book is a collection of (short) proverbs and (longer) maxims praising wisdom, giving advice, and offering observations on the ways of the world. Ecclesiastes 4:17\u20135:6; 7:1\u201312, 16\u201321; 8:1b\u20138; 9:17\u201310:20; and 11:1\u20136 contain series of proverbs.
\nReflective poems. The book contains three poems contemplating the nature of the world and human life: 1:3\u201311, on the repetitiveness of natural phenomena; 3:1\u20139, on the existence of a \u201ctime\u201d for every deed and event; and 12:1\u20139, on the inevitable movement of human life to death and darkness.
\nThe Structure of Ecclesiastes
\nThough the book is not organized into a tight structure, its major components can be identified:
\nTitle and statement of principle (1:3)
\nThe repetitiveness of nature and human history (1:4\u201311)
\nIntroduction of Koheleth and his task (1:12\u201318)
\nReflections and meditations (2:1\u20134:16)
\nCounsels and teachings (4:17\u201311:6)
\nThe light of life (11:7\u201310)
\nThe darkness of death (12:1\u20138)
\nEpilogue (12:9\u201314)
\nREADING ECCLESIASTES
\nKoheleth mentally wanders through life, \u201cturning about\u201d in his heart, as he puts it, to examine human nature, God\u2019s treatment of the world, government, and more. The reader is invited to follow him on his journey, which turns out to be a grand circuit, beginning and ending in the lament, \u201cVanity of vanities! Vanity of vanities!\u2026 All is vanity\u201d (1:3 and 12:8).
\nWhile Koheleth is observing life, he is also observing himself\u2014reporting what he planned, did, experienced, and thought. Not only should readers consider Koheleth\u2019s statements, they should also think of him as a person treading toward understanding and acceptance of life\u2019s frustrations and uncertainties. This means that the author is telling us something about the powers and limitations of the human mind. It also implies that some of the feelings and ideas that Koheleth reports may be temporary and transitional, left behind at a more mature stage in his development, as when he says that he had come to loathe life (2:17\u201318; 4:3) but later declares that it is sweet (11:7).
\nKOHELETH\u2019S THOUGHT
\nThe book of Ecclesiastes is a reflection on life together with advice on making one\u2019s way through it. Koheleth introduces himself as a wise king who sought to examine all that happens on earth (1:12\u201318), including toil, wisdom, and pleasure. His goal is to determine \u201cwhat is good for man to do under the heavens during the few days of his life\u201d (2:3). He amassed wealth and belongings, and this accomplishment seems to have given him pleasure, but ultimately he found it senseless (2:4\u20132:26).
\nAs Koheleth proceeds on his investigation of reality, he judges much of what he sees as hevel, a key word that literally means \u201cvapor\u201d but can be translated in several ways, including \u201cvanity,\u201d \u201ctransient,\u201d \u201cfutile,\u201d \u201cabsurd,\u201d and \u201csenseless.\u201d But alongside this pessimism, Koheleth suggests various ways of adjusting to this reality and maneuvering through life\u2014above all, by enjoying the good things that come to hand (2:24; 3:12, 22; 5:17; 8:15; 9:7\u20139; 11:7\u201310). Still, he begins and concludes with the judgment that recurs throughout the book, \u201cAll is vanity\u201d (1:3; 12:8).
\nKoheleth stands apart from other ancient Near Eastern sages in his determination to discover truth using his own individual reason and experience alone. This is the approach of philosophy (though very different in method from the Greek philosophers), and its appearance in Ecclesiastes probably reflects a Jewish awareness of this type of thinking among foreign intellectuals.
\nMAIN INTERPRETATIONS OF ECCLESIASTES
\nThe central message of the book has been understood in various ways, including the following:
\n1. Advocacy of Torah study and good deeds. The traditional approach understands Koheleth as confirming that Koheleth judges matters of this world, all that is \u201cunder the sun,\u201d to be trivial. All that is truly valuable are study of Torah and good deeds.
\n2. Advocacy of the enjoyment of life. Several times Koheleth insists that people should \u201ceat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil\u201d (3:14, for example). Some consider the message of the book to be the importance of enjoying life to the full.
\n3. Polemic against traditional wisdom. Koheleth directs a radical, unrelenting attack on the traditional beliefs of the sages and denies the reality of a moral order. The world is full of injustice. God is an unpredictable and distant ruler. Human wisdom, lavishly praised in the book of Proverbs, disintegrates before life\u2019s puzzles. All that is left is the pleasure of the moment, which alone may soothe the troubled spirit.
\n4. Living life in the face of life\u2019s absurdity. The underlying issue is the question of whether there is meaning to life, whether life somehow makes sense. The book is full of contradictions, because this is what Koheleth sees; and in his eyes, the contradictions indicate a breakdown of meaning. He perceives, without resolution, the contradictions of a just God allowing injustices, the righteous suffering the fate that only the wicked deserve, and the wise suffering the fate that only a fool deserves. Still, he does consider some things to be worthwhile, such as moderate work, love and friendship, gaining and using whatever wisdom is within our capacity, being reasonably righteous, fearing God, and, most emphatically, finding temperate enjoyment of the pleasures that come to hand. These good things do not solve the problems Koheleth sees, but they do allow him to conclude that life itself is good and should be enjoyed before death blots out everything (11:7\u201310).
\nThe author refuses to accept a simple and clear solution. He sees no stable meaning in life and denies the readers a stable resting point where they might find the meaning of the book. The book should be read with an openness to the discomfort it expresses and a willingness to pursue the author\u2019s meaning while recognizing that the goal cannot be finally and securely achieved.
\nThe epilogue (12:9\u201314) speaks about Koheleth as a sage of the past whose words are to be appreciated but treated warily. In the end, what is important is fear of God and keeping his commandments. The epilogue is usually regarded as a pietistic warning added by a later scribe. It may, however, be the author\u2019s own conclusion. Until now, he has let Koheleth\u2014his literary character\u2014describe his explorations and findings. Now the author speaks in his own voice to remind the reader that philosophical investigations such as Koheleth\u2019s are acceptable as long as we do not abandon the essential religious demands, wherever our search might lead us.
\nJob
\nThe book of Job has a clear and meaningful design, except for two digressions that stand outside this structure and are summarized at the end.
\nPrologue (chapters 1\u20132). The book opens, in prose, with a story about the righteous man Job. At the urging of the Adversary (usually called Satan), God decides to test Job by inflicting on him horrendous suffering to see if he will remain faithful. Job bears his pain while maintaining faith in God\u2019s justice. Three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, come from afar to comfort him, and they sit with him for seven days. It is important to note three assumptions inherent in the prologue: Job is innocent, his pain is in no way punishment, and God is basically just, though his infliction of Job is, as God says, \u201cwithout cause\u201d (2:3); the purpose of the affliction is to test the purity of his piety.
\nDialogue (chapters 3\u201338, excluding 28). Job suddenly bursts out with bitter complaints\u2014first at life itself, then at God\u2019s injustice. Job repeatedly insists on his own innocence and demands that God appear to argue his case or at least to specify Job\u2019s putative wrongdoings. The friends first comfort Job and then, with increasing vehemence, condemn him. Each speech by Job is followed by the reply of a different friend. There are three such cycles in the extended dialogue, in chapters 3\u201327. (The third speech of Zophar seems to be lacking. Most likely, however, the speech is still there, after 27:13, but the heading introducing the Zophar\u2019s words was accidentally omitted by an ancient copyist, so that the entire chapter now seems to belong to Job.)
\nIn his final speech (chapters 29\u201331), Job recalls his former good days, when he was in fellowship with God and honored by men, then he bewails his current degradation, and finally he declares his innocence by oath.
\nGod\u2019s speeches (chapters 38\u201342:6). God appears in a whirlwind to Job and challenges him to debate. God speaks about the mysteries and wonders of creation, before which Job can only stand in humility and awe. At the end, Job humbles himself and repents.
\nEpilogue (chapter 42:7\u201317). At God\u2019s direction, Job\u2019s friends ask his forgiveness and are in turn forgiven. God then restores Job\u2019s fortunes, making them even greater than before, and he lives out a prosperous and long life.
\nTwo digressions. The poem on wisdom and Elihu\u2019s speech do not fit into the book\u2019s otherwise clear and logical structure. They might be later additions (note how well God\u2019s speeches, starting in chapter 38, would immediately follow Job\u2019s final declaration of innocence in chapters 29\u201331). Alternatively, the digressions might be intended by the author as a way of slowing the pace and putting off the denouement that will come with God\u2019s speeches.
\nThe poem on wisdom (chapter 28). This poem asks, rhetorically, \u201cWhere can wisdom be found?\u201d The answer is that it cannot be found, even in the farthest reaches of creation. God alone knows where it is. God created it and said to humans that the fear of God and the avoidance of evil alone constitute wisdom. This is the only real wisdom that humans can have.
\nElihu (chapters 32\u201337). After Job and his three friends stop speaking (in frustration at what they see as each other\u2019s obtuseness), a new participant, Elihu, speaks up. He says that he held his silence because he is younger than the others, but he can no longer hold back his thoughts. He is angered by what he sees as Job\u2019s self-righteousness and irritated at the friends\u2019 failure to respond adequately.
\nElihu first speaks of the possibility that misery, such as in sickness, can have an educational function, warning people away from further sin. If the sufferer repents, an angel might speak on his behalf and convince God to spare the sufferer. Elihu accuses Job of wickedness and arrogance and declares God\u2019s justice, power, and goodness. Much of Elihu\u2019s speech, it should be said, is in very obscure Hebrew.
\nTHE CHALLENGE TO THE READER
\nThe interpretations of Job are many and varied. Prominent among the proposals for the central message of the book are the following:
\n1. God is mysterious. Innocent suffering can occur, contrary to the friends\u2019 declarations, but humans have to recognize that God\u2019s ways are hidden from their comprehension. They may complain of their suffering (as many psalmists do) and insist on their innocence, but in the end they must accept the limitations of human knowledge and humble themselves before God\u2019s wisdom and power.
\n2. God is gracious. In the end, God\u2019s appearance shows Job that his suffering is not punishment (for God never blames it on Job\u2019s sin), and the fellowship that God\u2019s appearance offers comforts Job. Fellowship with God is the comfort that sufferers can hope for.
\n3. God is unfair. God did indeed inflict unwarranted suffering on Job, and (in the author\u2019s view) Job\u2019s railings were justified. When Job humbles himself before God, he does so tongue-in-cheek. After God\u2019s speeches, Job says, in 42:6: \u201cTherefore, I recant and relent, being but dust and ashes\u201d (literally, \u201c\u2026 on dust and ashes\u201d). Others would translate, \u201c\u2026 and feel sorry for dust and ashes,\u201d that is to say, for wretched humans, who are but dust and ashes. Job is cowed by God\u2019s power, but he really feels revulsion before the divine dictator and pity for lowly mankind. This is the author\u2019s extraordinarily rebellious but carefully hidden message.
\nIt is important to keep in mind that there are three levels of communication in the book of Job. (1) On the human plane, Job and the other characters speak in their inevitable ignorance and try to make sense of what they see. Into this plane God intrudes at the end and speaks with Job, but he brings no new revelation, nothing that Job could not have known otherwise. (2) On the heavenly plane, God communicates with the divine beings (literally, \u201csons of God,\u201d the members of the celestial court). God makes decisions about human fate, of which humans will never know. (3) On the literary plane, above the heads of all the characters, the author communicates with his readers, observing the characters\u2014including God (and possibly judging God). The author tells the readers things that humans could never know: what motivates God, what God cares about, the fact that suffering can occur without guilt, and the importance that God places on individual humans and their genuine righteousness and piety.
\nReading a book, especially a challenging one like Job, involves two phases. The first phase is to understand the book on its own terms. This means looking for the message the book is trying to communicate and what it wishes the reader to believe. The second phase is to step back and evaluate this message according to one\u2019s own values. Two readers can understand a book\u2019s message in the same way, yet one can agree with it and the other reject it. They may agree that God\u2019s declaration of God\u2019s power and mystery are intended to respond to Job\u2019s questions, but while one may find this personally satisfactory, the other may believe that God\u2019s response fails to engage Job\u2019s real crisis: suffering horrible tragedies for no good reason. God does not offer a response to this crisis, and in any case, Job has all along acknowledged God\u2019s power and mystery. It is no argument against a particular interpretation to say that it produces an unsatisfactory answer to the problem the book addresses. Perhaps, after all, there is no satisfactory answer to the problem of unjust suffering. And perhaps, in the end, God implicitly acknowledges this when God ignores Job\u2019s suffering to speak about Himself.
\nAdapted from Michael V. Fox, The JPS Bible Commentary: Ecclesiastes.
\nMethods of Bible Study
\nWhat we think the Bible is helps determine the way in which we read it. Traditional Jewish commentators believe that the words of the Bible were revealed by God to Moses. Therefore, when there seem to be contradictions or errors, the commentators set about to harmonize apparent inconsistencies into one true and consistent Bible text. They also try to explain any discrepancies between biblical concepts and the ideas and beliefs of their own time. Interpretation is thus a necessity for every generation.
\nModern critical scholarship reads the Bible as a document of religious faith expressed within a specific culture, tied to a specific time, limited by the meaning of the authors. Every text of the Bible, in this view, is time bound. In contrast to this, traditional commentators in every age seek the timeless, eternal voice of God in the words of the Bible; their reading of the Bible is informed by a deep theological commitment to an eternal God whose very word is understood as being imbedded in the text.
\nTraditional Methods
\nOver the centuries, traditional commentators have used several different approaches to discover the layers of meaning in the Bible. A convenient way to think about these approaches or levels is through a Hebrew acronym that was created for this purpose: PaRDeS. The \u201cPa\u201d is for peshat, \u201cR\u201d for remez, \u201cDe\u201d for derash, and \u201cS\u201d for sod.
\nThese ways of reading the Bible for Jews are meant to be complementary, not mutually exclusive. Jewish reading of scripture is not overly concerned with establishing one \u201ccorrect\u201d reading, and many of the greatest scholars of the tradition have been content to entertain several seemingly opposed interpretations of a single passage.
\nTo illustrate what PaRDeS means, let us briefly examine two verses that tell of the journey of Abraham (then known as Abram) from Egypt to Canaan:
\nAnd he proceeded by stages from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been formerly, between Bethel and Ai, the site of the altar that he had built there at first; and there Abram invoked the Lord by name (Gen. 13:3\u20134).
\nFour Approaches to Reading the Bible
\nJudaism has traditionally fostered a \u201cmultiple-lens\u201d approach to reading the Bible. Jews of any background may draw on any or all of these ways of understanding the Bible at any given time:
\n\u25cb Peshat is the plain sense reading. It looks to the surface meaning of the text, drawing on knowledge of word meanings, grammar, syntax, context, cognate Semitic languages, archaeology, and history.
\n\u25cb Remez is the allegorical, or symbolic, reading. It looks for parallels between the scriptural text and more abstract concepts. This kind of reading sees biblical characters, events, and literary compositions as standing for other truths.
\n\u25cb Derash is the inquiring or interpretive reading. It looks for further layers of meaning. Midrash, the Jewish tradition of interpreting the scripture through creative storytelling, derives from this way of reading.
\n\u25cb Sod is the mystical reading. It looks at the biblical text as a symbolic code, which with piety and effort will yield hidden wisdom and personal connection with the Divine. The Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbalah relies on complex symbolic interpretation of each individual letter of the biblical text.
\nAdapted from Cullen Schippe and Chuck Stetson, The Bible and Its Influence.
\nThe commentators interpret the text using the following approaches:
\n\u25cb Peshat: The plain, literal sense of the verse in its context. Abraham returns to Canaan from Egypt \u201cby stages\u201d; he moves from one oasis to another.
\n\u25cb Remez: The allegorical or symbolic meaning of the verse. The word \u201cAbram\u201d is understood to be the soul; his travels trace his spiritual journey.
\n\u25cb Derash: The homiletic (or interpretive) meaning of the verse as viewed outside of its original context. Specific ideas and values are derived from the text, whether the text, in its literal meaning, could mean this or not. This approach reveals Abram\u2019s true intention: to visit many places where he could teach the word of God.
\n\u25cb Sod: The secret, mystical interpretation of the verse. This approach teaches that the Land of Israel draws Abram from a purely nonphysical state of being to one of concrete physical reality.
\nPaRDeS has become a well-recognized framework for understanding traditional methods of Bible study. No single method of interpretation is considered to be the best, because the Bible is layered with meaning; it is multifaceted. Although each verse means something in its specific context, it can mean many other things as well. This is demonstrated in editions of miqra\u2019ot gedolot, a traditional edition of the Bible in which each page contains the biblical text in Hebrew, ancient Aramaic translation of the text, and a number of medieval commentaries in Hebrew. (See \u201cMiqra\u2019ot Gedolot,\u201d on p. 133) Different interpretations are placed on the same page, making clear that there is no one definitive interpretation of any verse.
\nPESHAT AND DERASH
\nThe most important traditional methods of study are peshat and derash. Peshat is literal; it is exegesis, or \u201creading out\u201d from the text to understand its original meaning. Derash is nonliteral; it is eisegesis, or \u201creading into\u201d the text. Although it may seem that peshat preceded derash, the historical fact is that derash was the primary Jewish method of study until the 11th and 12th centuries c.e.\u2014the time of Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Rashbam.
\nDerash implicitly states that what these words may have meant originally in their context is not necessarily all that they mean. We of a later generation can understand these same words in a different manner.
\nTo illustrate how peshat and derash produce quite different interpretations, let us focus on Genesis 49:10, a verse that many call the most controversial in all of Genesis. Jacob, the third of the patriarchs after Abraham and Isaac, gives his last will and testament to his 12 sons, including these words to his son Judah.
\nThe JPS translation is:
\nThe scepter shall not depart from Judah,
\nNor the ruler\u2019s staff from between his feet;
\nSo that tribute shall come to him*
\nAnd the homage of peoples be his.
\n*Literally, \u201cUntil he comes to Shiloh.\u201d
\nMany explanations have been given for the word \u201cShiloh.\u201d Rashbam, a great peshat commentator and the grandson of Rashi, states that this verse is a prediction of events that will happen centuries in the future. After the successful reigns of two kings from the tribe of Judah, David and Solomon, Solomon\u2019s son Rehoboam will be unable to hold the kingdom together. Rehoboam will come to the northern city of Shechem and antagonize the 10 northern tribes, who will then secede from the United Kingdom. Rashbam explains that the scepter will not depart from Judah until Rehoboam comes to Shechem (which is next to Shiloh), because that is where the kingdoms will be divided. In this interpretation of Genesis 49:10, Jacob predicts that Judah\u2019s privilege of sovereignty over his 11 brothers will last only until he (Judah\u2019s descendant) comes to (the city of) Shiloh.
\nThis peshat interpretation places the verse in a historical context. The verse is a reference to a one-time event that will be fulfilled. If this interpretation is correct, it makes the verse \u201cUntil he comes to Shiloh\u201d into a prediction of an event of historical interest.
\nDerash moves the discussion to a different level. In Rabbinic interpretation, this verse becomes the primary source in the Torah for belief in the Messiah. Thus, in this verse Jacob is blessing and prophesying about his son Judah, the ancestor of King David; Jacob\u2019s last words to Judah seem to be a logical place for a reference to the Messiah, who will be descended from Judah and that great king. The ancient Aramaic translation of this same verse is \u201cuntil the Messiah, to whom the kingdom [Shiloh as shelo, or \u201chis\u201d] comes.\u201d Unlike Rashbam\u2019s comment that the scepter will remain with Judah for only a limited time, this interpretation states that \u201cthe scepter will never depart from Judah\u201d\u2014because the Messiah, a descendant of the tribe of Judah, will reign forever.
\nThe literal, peshat, meaning of the verse, in its historical context has nothing to do with events 1,000 years after the time of King David. But the derash reading takes this verse from a specific historical reference to a verse of the greatest magnitude for Judaism and the future of humankind.
\nREMEZ
\nThe third element of PaRDeS is remez, the allegorical, or symbolic, reading. While the great period of this type of interpretation encompassed the 14th through 16th centuries, when such luminaries as Levi Ben Gershom, Isaac Ben Moses Arama, Obadiah Ben Jacob Sforno, and Judah Abrabanel wrote their commentaries, one of the most famous Jewish allegorists is a thinker from the Rabbinic period, Philo of Alexandria.
\nThe peshat, or contextual, reading of the passage is that Cain the farmer, murdered Abel, a shepherd, because Cain resented the fact that God preferred Abel over him. Philo\u2019s remez, or symbolic, interpretation is that Cain and Abel are two aspects of the soul; Cain is every human\u2019s capacity to do evil and Abel is every human\u2019s ability to do good; and every person\u2019s soul is in conflict. The Hebrew root on which the name \u201cCain\u201d is based means \u201cto acquire, to possess,\u201d and Cain\u2019s mistake is that he owns the land and its produce. He does not understand that everything comes from God (Philo, Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 2). Cain is possessive and self-centered. God first created Cain, the human soul, but then added Abel, whose ability to be concerned about others is symbolized by his profession of caring for and tending animals. Cain and Abel, then, are no longer characters in a story but the character traits of every human being. The principle of self-love, symbolized by Cain, is modified by God-love, symbolized by Abel. And the law of the Torah commands humans to reach out of themselves and truly fulfill themselves as moral beings.
\nA human being must not forget the true purpose of life\u2014the fulfillment of the soul. Cain should not have murdered Abel; he should have protected and nurtured him. Humans are capable of both good and evil; our actions affect our souls. The law of the Torah is wise and understands our psychic conflicts; it is the solution to the Cain within us.
\nIn remez, a traditional commentary finds broader meaning in the biblical text. A literal interpretation limited in scope is replaced with a symbolic explanation that is more edifying.
\nSOD
\nWe turn now to mystical interpretation. One of Rashi\u2019s most important accomplishments was transmitting the important Rabbinic midrashim (creative interpretations) on the biblical text. Later commentators, however, would often have difficulties with Rashi\u2019s presentation of these midrashim at face value. Mystical commentators gave these same midrashim deeper, secret meanings (sod).
\nThe following example may more fully illustrate the mystical development of midrashim. In both the story of the Burning Bush (Exod. 3\u20134) and the Call of Moses in Egypt (Exod. 6\u20137), we have the same elements:
\n\u25cb God tells Moses of God\u2019s plan to save Israel and commands Moses to tell the people of the plan.
\n\u25cb Moses learns God\u2019s sacred name, which had not been known before.
\n\u25cb God commands Moses to go to Pharaoh.
\n\u25cb Moses objects that he is of clumsy speech, and Aaron is therefore appointed as a spokesman.
\n\u25cb Moses and Aaron confront Pharaoh and are rejected.
\nWhy does God call Moses a second time\u2014and why are all of these elements, especially the appointment of Aaron, repeated?
\nHere are two ways of answering these questions. The first is from the sage Yosef ben Akiva (Midrash Rabbah 5:22). He said that Moses argued:
\n\u201cI know that You will deliver the Israelites one day, but what about those who have been buried alive in the building?\u201d Then did the divine attribute of justice seek to strike Moses, but after God saw that Moses argued in this way only because of Israel\u2019s suffering, He retracted and did not allow the attribute of justice to strike him, instead dealing with him according to the divine attribute of mercy.
\nMoses\u2019s question is very much like the question many modern Jews have asked: \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful and comforting that the State of Israel now exists, but where was God during the Holocaust while 6 million were being killed?\u201d Here Moses says, \u201cIt\u2019s wonderful that You\u2019re going to save the Israelites from slavery, but what about all of the Israelites who have been killed during their enslavement to these evil Egyptians?\u201d The sages saw God as having two attributes: the attribute of justice, which is represented by the divine name Elohim, and the attribute of mercy, which is represented by the divine name Adonai. The attribute of justice (Elohim) wants to kill Moses for his challenging question, but the attribute of mercy (Adonai) wants to save him, because it knows that Moses is asking only out of his anguish for those who have been killed.
\nGod\u2019s second call to Moses is, in this reading, part of a dramatic situation that needs a solution, an interesting challenge to God that needs an answer. Moses and God, at odds with each other, must be reconciled. To bring about this reconciliation, God needs to send forth a renewed call, full of reassurance for Moses, who needs to hear everything all over again. And that is why, according to this midrash, God calls a second time, so similar to the call at the Burning Bush.
\nThe second way of answering the two questions comes from the Zohar (the central book of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism), and it explains that different aspects of God, represented by the sefirot, are part of the dramatic dialogue between God and Moses. This sod interpretation then goes on to explain that two methods of communication\u2014voice and utterance\u2014are represented by the figures of Moses and Aaron (see next paragraph). The Zohar then wonders how Moses can bring up the problem of speaking again, because it had already been dealt with at the Burning Bush. The apparent redundancy points to an inner meaning. Moses has voice but lacks utterance. Pharaoh can hear God\u2019s demands only if voice and utterance are one. God gives Aaron (utterance) to be at the side of Moses (voice). But it was only at Mount Sinai that voice was actually united with utterance. It was only then that Moses was healed of his impediment, when voice and utterance were united in him as their organ.
\nIn modern literary terms, we can speak of the content of God\u2019s message, represented by Moses (voice), and the form, symbolized by Aaron (utterance). Traditional interpretation strives to unite the words of the Bible with the revelations of God. If the Bible is the word of God, then its words, its utterance, express the content of God\u2019s revelations. Every utterance, every word, must be filled with meaning; it is the task of the commentator to discover the levels of meaning. Moses needs Aaron, content needs utterance, and the Bible needs commentary.
\nFor the reader who believes that the Bible is the word of God, discovering the levels of meaning in the biblical text is a fundamental part of life. But what of the reader who does not believe that the Bible is the revelation of God, who thinks that traditional commentaries are inventing all meaning above the level peshat? For this reader, traditional Jewish commentary can be understood as a fascinating process, a dialogue between the sacred text and the generations of Jews who have kept it at the center of their lives. Commentary is not simply an attempt to know what the Bible is saying, it is also the intellectual foundation for the process by which Judaism has grown, adapting to new environments and cultural situations. The openness to new interpretation assumes the belief, or concept, that God\u2019s revelations are still unfolding.
\nModern Methods
\nUnlike traditional interpretive approaches to the Bible, modern biblical criticism is based on two assumptions: (1) Because the Bible is a collection of documents written in human language by human authors, it is subject to the same methods of historical and literary investigation as all other books and documents. Modern critical study ignores the idea of divine authorship, that all levels of meaning emanate from God. (2) The biblical texts must be understood in their original, historical, and cultural contexts. Modern biblical criticism employs many methods of interpretation, the most important of which are textual criticism, source criticism, literary criticism, structuralism, and deconstructionism.
\nTEXTUAL CRITICISM
\nTextual criticism attempts to understand the words written by the Bible\u2019s human authors. The oldest complete forms of the books of the Bible extant today are in manuscript (handwritten) copies, none of which is earlier than the 10th century c.e. There is, therefore, a gap of as much as 2,000 years between the original writing of the document and the earliest complete copy to which we have access.
\nOf the several thousand manuscript copies and fragments of the various parts of the Bible that exist today, it is very likely that no two are identical. This is to be expected. How could any literary work that was handed down for many generations be free from error? And yet, the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls from Qumran, dating from 2,000 years ago (and thus 1,000 years earlier than the complete copies), confirms the general reliability of the basic textual tradition that has been transmitted.
\nModern study of the Bible has benefited greatly from the diligent research of textual critics. This type of criticism is the basis for the translation of the Bible from its original Hebrew and Aramaic into the languages of the modern reader. In that every translation is an interpretation, the basis for translation must be studied carefully.
\nMany of us naively assume that the Bible we use today is an exact copy of one original text, but there are many versions of the text of the Bible. Most of the English translations of the Bible under Jewish auspices are based on what is called the masoretic text, a text that has been passed down to us by a group of scholars and scribes called the Masoretes, who lived around 1,000 years ago. (See \u201cThe Masoretes\u2014Preservers and Protectors of the Hebrew Bible\u201d on p. 20.) This text is the Bible as we know it. We have a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible that is well over 1,000 years older than the masoretic text. Of the manuscripts that we actually have, the Greek version, the Septuagint, is much closer in time to the original Bible. If there is a difference between the Septuagint text and the Hebrew masoretic text, the Greek is not necessarily more valid simply because it is older. However, when there are significant differences, the Greek version is given serious consideration.
\nIn the masoretic text, we read about Moses\u2019s parents in Exodus 6:20: \u201cAmram took to wife his father\u2019s sister Jochebed, and she bore him Aaron and Moses.\u201d The Greek version of this verse reads: \u201cAmram took to wife the daughter of his father\u2019s brother.\u201d Why would anyone present a different version of that verse? Probably because the Septuagint translators could not accept the idea that, by the standards of other parts of the Bible, Moses was born out of an incestuous union. Thus, for example, we read in Leviticus 18:12: \u201cDo not uncover the nakedness of your father\u2019s sister; she is your father\u2019s flesh.\u201d The Greek version has Amram marrying his cousin, but the masoretic text states that Amram married his aunt.
\nHistorically speaking, Amram could not have known the prohibitions expressed in Leviticus. But it is difficult to think of Moses as the product of a union that he himself will later call an abomination, especially for a religious person. So the Greek version subtly makes a dogmatic correction in its translation of the verse. This example shows how the slightest divergence in a reading can change a point or avoid difficulties in a text. Because of variant readings, it is a useful method of study to examine all early versions of the biblical text in our search for every possible meaning.
\nSOURCE CRITICISM
\nThe Torah may seem to present a unified account of Israelite history and law during the Patriarchal and Mosaic periods. Detailed study of the text, however, has led modern critical scholarship to conclude that the Torah is a compilation from several sources, different streams of literary traditions, that were composed and collected over the course of the biblical period (ca. 1200\u2013400 b.c.e.). Because the Torah, in this perspective, is an amalgam of the works of different authors or schools, it contains an abundance of factual inconsistencies; contradictory regulations; and differences in style, vocabulary, and even theology.
\nThe first period of Israelite history is that of the patriarchs, described in Genesis. Beginning with Exodus, the Torah describes events of the Mosaic period.
\nHow did the religion of the patriarchs differ from that of Moses? The Torah makes it abundantly clear that most of the commandments and laws revealed to Moses are new. What about the faith of Moses as opposed to that of the patriarchs? The Torah presents the idea that Moses had a more intimate relationship with God than the patriarchs did: \u201cGod spoke to Moses and said to him, \u2018I am the Lord [YHWH]. I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as El Shaddai, but I did not make Myself known to them by My name YHWH\u2019 \u201d (\u05d9\u05d7\u05d5\u05d4 in Hebrew and \u201cAdonai\u201d or \u201cthe Lord\u201d is often substituted for it) (Exod. 6:2\u20133). The patriarchs knew God as El Shaddai, but Moses will know God by God\u2019s more sacred, more intimate name, YHWH.
\nThe revelation of God\u2019s name is literally an epoch-making event. When Moses and the Israelites are informed of God\u2019s name, they become a special people with the destiny of having a sacred covenant with God. This new revelation of God\u2019s name raises two striking questions. First, this name of God was already used in Genesis. In Genesis 4:25\u201326 we read: \u201cAdam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth.\u2026 And to Seth \u2026 a son was born, and he named him Enosh. It was then that men began to invoke the Lord [YHWH] by name.\u201d Thus we learn that long before Moses, even long before Abraham, people used the name YHWH. How, then, can Exodus 6 tell us that the patriarchs used the name El Shaddai only? There are texts in Genesis that use the name El Shaddai, but there are even more texts that use the name YHWH. Moses\u2019s mother, Jochebed, bears a name compounded with YHWH. So how can name YHWH be considered new to Moses?
\nSecond, God had already revealed the name YHWH to Moses at the Burning Bush. \u201cMoses said to God, \u2018When I come to the Israelites and say to them, \u201cThe God of your fathers has sent me to you,\u201d and they ask me, \u201cWhat is His name?\u201d what shall I say to them?\u2019 And God said to Moses, \u2018Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh\u2019 \u201d (Exod. 3:13\u201314). Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh means \u201cI will be what I will be,\u201d and YHWH means \u201cHe will be.\u201d God explains: \u201cThis shall be My name forever, \/ This My appellation for all eternity\u201d (3:15). If the name YHWH had already been revealed to Moses in Exodus 3, why is it given as if for the first time in Exodus 6?
\nTo review, although the distinctively Israelite name of God is YHWH, various sources disagree as to when this name was first used. Two sources tell us that YHWH was a name not revealed to the Israelites until God revealed it to Moses at the Burning Bush (Exod. 3:13\u201315) and in Egypt (6:2\u20133). Both of these sources, however, disagree with the third source, which declares that the name YHWH was known from the beginning of history, from the time of the immediate descendants of Adam and Eve (Gen. 4:26). These facts suggest the existence of different theological perspectives concerning the time of the great turning point in Israelite religion, when it becomes a faith very different from that of the surrounding peoples.
\nThe names that are used for God have served as important clues in the separation and discovery of the sources that make up the Torah. The different names of God have led source-critical scholarship to find independent traditions, each of which uses the divine name in a different way. These traditions are independent of and contradict each other. How does scholarship explain all of these variations? Different theories have emerged to explain the divergences along theological, geographic, and chronological lines. Thus there may be a northern and a southern version of the same story, which would account for inconsistencies. The stories were written over the course of centuries and reflect an evolutionary process that incorporated interpretations and as additions the text developed.
\nThere is great agreement among scholars that the Torah in its final form is a work composed and edited from four literary complexes. The oldest of these is the Yahwistic source, designated by the letter J because it consistently uses the name YHWH (spelled \u201cJahweh\u201d in German) and because of its special interest in places located in the Southern Kingdom of Judah. This tradition seems to have been written in the 10th century b.c.e.
\nThe Elohistic source, designated E, is so named because of its use of the divine name Elohim and its interest in the northern tribes, of which Ephraim was the most important. It probably was written between 900 and 800 b.c.e., presenting material parallel and supplementary to that found in J.
\nThe Priestly source, designated P, uses the divine name Elohim (until Exod. 6) and contains a great many ritual texts. Scholars greatly disagree concerning the date when this source was written. Some place it as early as J and E, but others posit a date as late as the Babylonian exile (6th century b.c.e.). As an extension of this debate, some scholars refer to H, a fifth literary source for the Bible. H is identified with the Holiness Code (Lev. 17\u201326), which, while considered Priestly literature, is often considered too different from the rest of Leviticus and other Priestly sections of the Bible to have been written at the same time. Those differences have led some scholars to separate out the Holiness Code from other Torah sources.
\nThe Deuteronomic source, designated D, is considered to have been written later (8th to 7th century b.c.e.). It reviews certain stories and presents legislation that sometimes differ from the first four books. It is important to note that contradictions exist not only within narrative material but also within the laws of the Torah. For instance, Exodus 21:2\u201311 states that a male slave should be released after six years of servitude. This law, however, does not apply to female slaves (21:7). In Deuteronomy 15:12, the same requirement of release is extended to both male and female slaves.
\nMost scholars believe that the Torah was compiled and edited by Priestly redactors in Babylonia between 600 and 400 b.c.e. (See \u201cThe Torah\u2019s Four Sources,\u201d on p. 10.)
\nLITERARY CRITICISM
\nThough source criticism has contributed a great deal to our understanding of the growth of biblical traditions, by definition it ignores the literary unity of the final form of a text. In reaction, literary criticism developed, to examine the literary characteristics (including narrative technique, tone, theme, structure, imagery, repetition, reticence, and character) of the texts. In simple terms, source criticism is interested in cutting up the texts to find the different layers of tradition; literary criticism considers the text as it stands now, as a whole, not as it once may have been. Literary criticism is both like and unlike traditional Jewish commentary. It looks at the Bible as a unified whole but has no theological commitment and sees it as the creation of human authors. Source criticism is interested in the process that wove the different texts, by different authors, together. In contrast, literary criticism sees texts as coherent wholes that create meaning through the integration of their elements, irrespective of the authors and their intentions.
\nAs earlier noted, Exodus 6 repeats a great many of the elements present in Exodus 3. The sages of the Midrash and the mystics of the Zohar created stories to explain this repetition. Similarly, literary criticism does not see the two texts of Exodus 3 and Exodus 6 as contradictory but as different parts of an ongoing narrative. Moses receives a renewed call to action in Exodus 6 because he has become so disenchanted by his early failure to convince Pharaoh to let the people go. This new revelation completes the revelation at the Burning Bush. God tells Moses that the mission for which he was called on at the Burning Bush will occur in due time; Moses should not be dismayed by his initial failures in Pharaoh\u2019s court and with his fellow Israelites. He reminds Moses that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob received revelations and promises, and yet it was not in their times that the promise to possess the land was fulfilled. As the genealogy indicates, the Israelites have gone from being a family to being a people, and so the divine promise will be carried out, the liberation from Egypt will occur, and the Israelites will return to their land.
\nLiterary criticism finds unity and purposeful repetition where other approaches find disharmony and contradiction.
\nSTRUCTURALISM AND DECONSTRUCTIONISM
\nIn the past, it was thought that texts communicate meaning straightforwardly and simply. Language was supposed to give an exact picture of the world. In modern thinking, however, it is understood that all words have complex relationships with other words and that it is the patterns of language that give words meaning. All language is figurative; there is a great distance between language about the world and the world itself. Language and literature are cultural phenomena, and structuralism looks at texts and analyzes the basic mental patterns that underlie these social and cultural phenomena.
\nIt was once assumed that the author of a text intended a meaning and that the reader could understand that intention. In modern thinking, however, it is understood that ambiguities in language and context increase the chances of misunderstanding. Even when a writer and a reader live at the same time and in the same place, a reader could still offer different plausible interpretations of a writer\u2019s text. When centuries and geography separate writer and reader, misunderstanding is almost certain.
\nWe assume that any text we read has a clear meaning that it is trying to convey. A method called deconstruction claims that a text itself undermines that meaning by presenting evidence against its own case. A text often makes its case by choosing one alternative over another. In the process, however, the other alternative is brought into the picture, enabling the reader to consider it. The writer\u2019s preferred alternative is not necessarily rejected as a result, but it now is seen as only one possible option. The authority of the text breaks down, the text folds in on itself (usually at some weak point), and its center no longer holds.
\nLet us look at Exodus 6 again, this time to demonstrate how a text deconstructs. As we saw from the perspective of source criticism, Exodus 6 seems to be about the name of God. The Patriarchs knew God as El Shaddai, but now Moses and the Israelites will know God by God\u2019s true name, YHWH.
\nBut what does it mean to \u201cknow the name of God\u201d? When Moses, at the Burning Bush (Exod. 3\u20134), asks for the name of the god who has sent him to the Israelites on the mission of liberation, God answers, \u201cI will be what I will be [Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh]\u201d (3:14). Moses goes to Pharaoh in YHWH\u2019s name: \u201cThus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Let My people go.\u201d Pharaoh replies: \u201cWho is the Lord that I should heed Him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go\u201d (5:1\u20132). Moses thinks that he has met with failure: \u201cO Lord, why did You bring harm upon this people? Why did You send me? Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has dealt worse with this people; and still You have not delivered Your people\u201d (5:22\u201323).
\nWhat is the \u201cname\u201d of God? It certainly is neither a description nor a definition of God. God\u2019s name seems to be God\u2019s power. Once both the Egyptians and the Israelites experience the power of God through the plagues, the name of God will be known throughout the world. But God\u2019s power is not in God\u2019s name.
\nIndeed, the name YHWH is a \u201cnon-name\u201d name, a way of undermining the whole idea that God can have a name at all. Moses asks God for God\u2019s name, and God replies, \u201cI will be what I will be.\u201d Thus this text, which seems to be about the revelation of God\u2019s name, contains within it the concept that God cannot have a name at all. Admittedly, the midrash, the Zohar, and the source critics all seek to use the different names of God illustrated in the book of Exodus as a code by which to crack the meaning of the Bible. But there really is only one name of God\u2014YHWH\u2014which is not a name at all but an expression of the namelessness of God.
\nThis reading of the texts from Exodus is only one interpretation, and these texts, as the other types of criticism indicate, may be about the revelation of God\u2019s name, and the different names of God may each have its own significance.
\nWhen a text is deconstructed, however, we are no longer sure what it is trying to say. In the case of the Bible, traditional commentary would agree that no one should claim to have the definitive interpretation of a passage, for every word of the Bible has an infinite range of meanings. Deconstruction tries to be without biases, in contrast to traditional exegesis\u2014which is based on the strongest possible theological basis. Nevertheless it is fascinating that a modern method joins Jewish commentary in striving to keep the biblical text open for our interpretations and for those who will read the Bible in the centuries to come. There is something about the Bible that prevents all commentators, whether traditional or modern, from finding definitive solutions; the problems usually remain problems. The Bible remains open; no one can close it.
\nFrom Benjamin Edidin Scolnic, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary.
\nCommentaries on the Bible
\nThe Tanakh, the Hebrew, is the foundational sacred text of the Jewish religion. Of its three divisions, Torah, Prophets (Nevi\u2019im), and Writings (Kethuvim), the Torah is the most hallowed. Even before its final redaction and especially since, the entire Tanakh, but especially the Torah, has been subject to interpretation and reinterpretation to meet the needs of succeeding generations who sought to understand its words and find meaning and instruction in them.
\nAs was explained in the previous chapter, the Bible has traditionally been interpreted according to several methods, which are often referred to by the acronym PaRDeS; these stand for peshat, remez, derash, and sod. Peshat is the plain or contextual meaning of the text; remez, the allegorical or philosophical; derash, the homiletical; and sod, the mystical. (See \u201cFour Approaches to Reading the Bible,\u201d on p. 108.)
\nThis chapter focus on peshat Bible commentary, beginning with the early Karaites and Saadiah ga\u2019on. In actual fact, the earliest systematic Jewish biblical commentary to have reached us is the commentary on the Minor Prophets by Daniel ben Moses al-Qumisi, who moved from his home in Persia to Jerusalem in the 9th decade of the 9th century. He was followed a generation later by Saadiah ga\u2019on, a great scholar and communal leader, and then by Japheth ben Eli, the greatest Karaite commentator of all time.
\nPeshat interpretation involves determining the grammatical state and fundamental meaning of each word in a verse, the syntactic relationships among those words, and the immediate and broader contexts of each verse to see how the words and the sentences fit together as a meaningful whole.
\nWhy the Need for Commentary?
\nAccording to tradition, the Torah contains the literal word of God as dictated to Moses at Mount Sinai, who wrote it down for future generations. Its text was held to be sacred, inviolable, and, on its deepest level, beyond human understanding. The rest of the Tanakh is thought to have been divinely inspired and has also been treated with great reverence. Yet, it was generally accepted that the \u201cTorah was written in human language\u201d and therefore should have meaning on a human level even if ultimately its deepest meaning is unfathomable. Thus each generation of readers has felt compelled to plumb its depths to derive additional meaning from its passages.
\nCommentary represents the search for meaning. There are two types of meaning that readers can seek in the text, two questions that they can ask of it. First, \u201cWhat does this text mean?\u201d\u2014that is, what was the writer trying to say when writing this text? Or in other words, \u201cHow might the author have expressed him- or herself in plain language if he or she were writing today?\u201d The quest for answers to this question is the foundation of peshat commentary. Occasionally, a definitive answer can be given for a particular word, verse, or passage, but quite often we do not have enough information to give such an answer.
\nThe second question is, \u201cWhat does this text mean for me?\u201d This is a more personal question, one that each commentator, and each reader for that matter, needs to answer for himself or herself. The search for meaning in a sacred text like the Bible is an ongoing enterprise, which engages countless individuals over the course of many generations.
\nTo paraphrase Ecclesiastes 12:12, \u201cOf the making of commentaries there is no limit.\u201d Each generation produces its scholars, who provide new insights into the meaning of the text in the first sense, the original intent of the author. And each generation of Bible readers needs its commentators to help individuals read the Bible, understand its meaning, and derive from it new meanings that are relevant to their lives.
\nThe Bible\u2019s Challenges to Comprehension
\nThe Bible, a relatively small collection of works of various genres written over a period of at least 500 to 600 years (approximately 7th\u20132nd centuries b.c.e.), presents many challenges to readers. Many of its words are ambiguous or simply unknown, appearing only once or twice, defying definition. Their meaning must be conjectured, based on context and parallels in other ancient Semitic languages. A frequent footnote in biblical translations to this very day reads: \u201cMeaning of Hebrew uncertain.\u201d
\nThe consonantal text of the Tanakh was probably fixed in the tannaitic period (2nd\u20133rd centuries c.e.), but until the time of the Masoretes the text was transmitted without punctuation or vowels, leaving room for ambiguity and misunderstanding. Even the work of the Masoretes did not eliminate all uncertainties from the biblical text. Sometimes there are extra words; sometimes words may be missing. In a number of cases two alternative readings are given for the same word. The narrative often leaves gaps that need to be filled; occasionally, there are seemingly unnecessary repetitions or needless details; there are problems with chronology, with events apparently related out of sequence; the order of passages often does not make sense or the connections between passages are not readily obvious. Sometimes the biblical text seems to contradict itself.
\nFor the reader who believes that the Bible is the word of God, there are also challenges of a philosophical or theological nature. How do we explain contradictions between our experience and events described in the Bible? What about contradictions between contemporary science and the biblical text, such as in the case of the Creation story in Genesis, or Joshua\u2019s battle at Jericho, where we are told that the sun stood still?
\nAll of these issues are troubling and demand resolution. This is where commentary comes into play.
\nThe Commentator\u2019s Tools
\nIN THE MIDDLE AGES
\nAs already mentioned, contextual peshat commentary proper began in the early Middle Ages, with the first Karaites and Saadiah ga\u2019on in the 9th and 10th centuries, who initiated the systematic study of Hebrew grammar and lexicography and the application of these disciplines to the biblical text. Hebrew linguistics developed steadily through the following centuries and was a powerful tool for the biblical commentator. Grammar texts and biblical lexicons or \u201cbooks of roots\u201d contain a great deal of basic interpretive material. They enabled the comparison of all the instances of the appearance of words of the same root throughout the Bible and the application of these results to verses where the meaning was unclear.
\nAnother important tool for the medievals was comparative lexicography\u2014the mining of other Semitic languages for cognates, words that could possibly have the same or similar meanings as puzzling biblical words. Especially important for this purpose were Rabbinic Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic.
\nSome commentators focused on realia to the extent that they were able, trying to identify species of plants and animals, place names, and geographic features. Their awareness of these disciplines depended on their own education and on contacts they had with other scholars, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and with travelers to the Middle East. In general, this information was spotty.
\nIN THE MODERN PERIOD
\nIn the Middle Ages and early modern period, knowledge of the archaeology of Palestine and the ancient Near East was nonexistent, as was knowledge of the ancient civilizations that inhabited these areas. All this has changed in the modern period, especially in the last 200 years, which has witnessed a veritable explosion of discovery, producing a wealth of new information about the material and literary cultures, languages, and history of the ancient Near East. These scientific developments have opened up new vistas for Bible scholars and commentators. Entire languages and their literatures have been discovered and deciphered, creating many opportunities for determining the meaning of puzzling passages. Especially important have been the discoveries of the Ugaritic and Mesopotamian (Sumerian and Akkadian) literatures, but Egyptian literature and Moabite and Phoenician inscriptions have made contributions as well.
\nThe field of archaeology has also shed much light on the biblical period, revealing a great deal about ancient material culture and necessitating the revision of biblical history, calling into question many views that had been long accepted. The debates over issues of dating, chronology, and historicity still rage on, with no resolution in sight.
\nThe discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has had a huge impact as well, making accessible for the first time manuscripts that are 1,000 years older than those available in the Middle Ages. (See \u201cThe Dead Sea Scrolls,\u201d on p. 15.) Important use has also been made of the ancient versions of the Bible, especially the Septuagint and other Greek versions, but also the Aramaic, Syriac, Latin, and Samaritan. All can provide important information for contemporary commentators, enabling them to attain a more accurate picture of the original text.
\nTo all this one may add general advances in all the sciences, which have given us a deeper understanding of how the world works. This vast storehouse of knowledge can be brought to bear on deciphering the ancient biblical texts.
\nWith such new knowledge at their disposal, modern commentators have real advantages over their medieval predecessors. So why bother reading the classical commentaries at all? Because, while they may have been scientifically, linguistically, and archaeologically \u201cchallenged,\u201d they made up for these deficiencies with their intimate knowledge of the text and a sensitivity to its nuance that few moderns have. Their ability to make associations based on memory, before the age of concordances, CD-ROMS, and other mechanical aids, often yielded startling insights into the biblical text that have not lost their value and significance. And they were intimately familiar with Rabbinic literature, the repository of the Oral Law and lore, which also can be used to elucidate the text. The Rabbis, after all, were also very careful readers, and the word and narrative associations they make are often illuminating and instructive. Many of their comments and insights have the weight and authority of ancient tradition. So, though not every word of every early commentator may appeal to us, a commentator who was an original and insightful thinker is still well worth consulting.
\nTraditional commentators, with some exceptions (discussed later), generally accept the Mosaic authorship of the Torah (that the Torah was dictated in its entirety by God to Moses at Mount Sinai) and the general inviolability of the masoretic text\u2014the biblical text as established by the Soferim (scribes) of the Talmudic period and the Tiberian scholars called Masoretes, who were active from the early 6th to the early 10th centuries. (See \u201cThe Masoretes\u2014Preservers and Protectors of the Hebrew Bible,\u201d on p. 20). Modern non-Orthodox commentators accept to a greater or lesser extent the conclusions of modern biblical scholarship: that the Tanakh was the product of a long process of development that culminated sometime in the Second Temple period and involved, especially in the case of the Torah, combining sources from different schools of thought into one more or less cohesive unit. They recognize that the masoretic text, while generally stable and free of error, can on occasion be inaccurate. In general, the text of the Torah is less likely to require correction than that of the other biblical books, but it too is not completely immune.
\nMany modern, nontraditional commentators adopt a literary approach, which views the text we have as a complete unit whose reputed sources do not concern them. This approach shares much with the approach of the traditional commentators, who were sensitive to nuance and detail and the unusual turn of phrase and who never considered that the text was anything but a unified whole.
\nBiblical Commentary through the Ages
\nThis section provides a chronological overview of the major biblical commentators, their works, and their methodologies. The availability of English translations is noted.
\nCLASSICAL COMMENTARIES
\nSaadiah ben Joseph (Saadiah ga\u2019on; 882\u2013942). Born in Egypt, Saadiah moved to Iraq, where he rose to prominence, eventually becoming ga\u2019on of Sura, the head of the most influential academy of its day. Besides being a communal leader, Saadiah was a prominent scholar who did pioneering work in a number of disciplines, including philosophy, Hebrew grammar, and biblical commentary. He was the first Rabbanite commentator. He translated the entire Bible and commented on many books, including the Torah, Isaiah, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and the Five Scrolls. All his works were written in Arabic, and very few were translated into Hebrew, so they were not well known in western Europe in the Middle Ages. His commentaries are systematically organized with introductions dealing with grammatical, interpretive, and philosophical issues. He also set out principles for writing commentary, and this guided his work, much of which was directed toward refuting the claims of the Karaites and defending the Oral Law.
\nSaadiah in English: Rabbi Saadiah Gaon\u2019s Commentary on the Book of Creation, trans. Michael Linetsky (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 2002) (on Gen. 1:1\u201328:9); The Messiah in Isaiah 53, trans. Joseph Alobaidi (Bern and New York: Peter Lang, 1998) (on Isa. 52:13\u201353:12); The Book of Theodicy: Translation and Commentary on the Book of Job, trans. Lenn Evan Goodman (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988); The Book of Daniel: The Commentary of R. Saadia Gaon, trans. Joseph Alobaidi (Bern: Peter Lang, 2006).
\nJapheth ben Eli (10th century). A leader of the Jerusalem school of Karaite scholars, Japheth was the greatest Karaite commentator of all time, perhaps the only one to have translated and commented on the entire Bible. His commentaries became his life\u2019s calling and were intended to provide his community with an adequate treatment of scripture that could stand up against the Rabbanites, led by Saadiah ga\u2019on and his followers. Japheth developed a literary-contextual approach, which was profoundly influential and set the tone for succeeding generations of commentators, both Karaite and Rabbanite. Many of his comments gained currency through the mediation of Abraham ibn Ezra, who quoted him often, sometimes without acknowledgment, sometimes to refute his views. Only a small number of his many commentaries have been published in modern editions. Even fewer have been translated from the original Arabic.
\nJapheth in English: The Messiah in Isaiah 53, trans. Joseph Alobaidi (Bern and New York: Peter Lang, 1998) (on Isa. 52:13\u201353:12); Jewish Exegesis of the Book of Ruth, trans. D. R. G. Beattie (Sheffield, UK: Department of Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield, 1977) (erroneously attributed to Salmon ben Jeroham); A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, trans. D. S. Margoliouth (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1889).
\nRashi (Solomon ben Isaac; 1040\u20131105). Solomon ben Isaac, commonly known as Rashi, the most popular Jewish Bible commentator of all time, was born in Troyes, in northern France, where he lived most of his life, except for a few years spent studying in the talmudic academies of Mainz and Worms. He was one of the leading rabbinical figures of his day, a spiritual and communal leader, renowned for his wisdom, scholarship, modesty, and devotion to the truth.
\nRashi wrote commentaries on almost the entire Bible as well as an indispensable and arguably more important commentary on the Talmud. In his commentaries, which are steeped in the Rabbinic tradition, we see a newly discovered awareness of grammar and sensitivity to context, which led to selectivity in the inclusion of midrashic material. The genius of Rashi\u2019s commentaries lies in their clarity of language, the felicity of expression, and the skillful selection and editing of his sources. While Rashi\u2019s commentaries usually include only what is necessary to explicate the text, occasional reference is made to contemporary social or economic conditions. The impact of the Crusades is especially felt in his commentary on Psalms, written after 1096, in which numerous references to the nation Edom (a symbol of Rome in Rabbinic literature) are applied to the Christian Crusaders. Rashi was a brilliant stylist, and his blend of contextual (peshat) commentary and ethical homiletics have helped give his commentary pride of place in the canon of classic Jewish texts that are still studied widely today.
\nRashi in English: Pentateuch with Targum Onkelos, Haphtoroth and Rashi\u2019s Commentary, trans. M. Rosenbaum and A. M. Silbermann (London: Shapiro, 1929\u20131934; New York: Hebrew Publishing Co., 1934); The Pentateuch and Rashi\u2019s Commentary: A Linear Translation into English, trans. Abraham Ben Isaiah and Benjamin Sharfman (Brooklyn: S.S. & R., 1949\u20131950); The Metsudah Chumash\/Rashi, text trans. Avrohom Davis; Rashi trans. Avrohom Kleinkaufman (vols. 1\u20132) and Avrohom Davis (vols. 3\u20135) (Hoboken, NJ: Distributed by Ktav, 1991\u20131996); The Torah with Rashi\u2019s Commentary, trans. Yisrael Isser Zvi Herczeg (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 1995\u20131998). Rashi\u2019s entire commentary on Prophets and Writings is also available in the English translation of A. J. Rosenberg; Miqra\u2019ot Gedolot: A New English Translation (New York: Judaica Press, 1969\u20131997). Metsudah is also publishing a linear translation of the Tanakh with Rashi: The Metsudah Tanach Series (Brookline, MA: Distributed by Israel Book Shop, 1997\u20132002 to date); so far Joshua (trans. Avrohom Davis), Judges (trans. Yosef Rabinowitz), 1 Samuel (trans. Yaakov Y. H. Pupko), 2 Samuel (trans. Avrohom Davis), 1 and 2 Kings (trans. Yaakov Y. H. Pupko), and the Five Scrolls (trans. Avrohom Davis and Yaakov Y. H. Pupko) have appeared. Mention should also be made of the important scholarly edition and translation of Rashi on Psalms by Mayer Gruber, Rashi\u2019s Commentary on Psalms (Leiden: Brill, 2004; paperback reprint, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2007).
\nRashbam (Samuel ben Meir; ca. 1080\u2013ca. 1160). The grandson of Rashi, Rashbam is the foremost figure in the northern French school of peshat commentary. He is best known for his Torah commentary (he also probably commented on most of the Five Scrolls and possibly Job), in which he shows himself to be a radical adherent to peshat interpretation, even to the point of favoring it over Rabbinic tradition when the two clashed. His stated goal was to gain an understanding of the text as it was written. He distinguished between halakhic commentary, used to establish Jewish practice, and peshat commentary, used to determine the meaning of the text, and he saw a legitimate role for both. He was himself a halakhic scholar who wrote commentaries on certain talmudic tractates. He showed considerable interest in matters of grammar and style. For instance, he was the first medieval commentator to notice the biblical literary technique of foreshadowing, providing information in anticipation of a later need for it.
\nRashbam in English: Rabbi Samuel ben Meir\u2019s Commentary on Genesis (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1989); Rashbam\u2019s Commentary on Exodus, trans. and ed. Martin I. Lockshin (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997); Rashbam\u2019s Commentary on Leviticus and Numbers, trans. and ed. Martin I. Lockshin (Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2001); Rashbam\u2019s Commentary on Deuteronomy, trans. and ed. Martin I. Lockshin (Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2004); The Commentary of R. Samuel ben Meir Rashbam on Qoheleth, trans. Sara Japhet and Robert B. Salters (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1985).
\nIbn Ezra, Abraham (1089\u20131164). Ibn Ezra was a prominent Spanish grammarian, biblical commentator, philosopher, and poet who left his homeland in 1140 and wandered through much of western Europe, eventually ending up in London, where he remained for the rest of his life. He produced commentaries on a good number of biblical books, some even in two successive versions. His commentaries are based on a thorough knowledge of Hebrew grammar and lexicography and an appeal to reason and logic. They represent a distillation of the finest achievements of the Spanish school of commentary, which emphasized the importance of grammar and philology. He believed that scripture uses human language and must conform to the rules of grammar, syntax, and rhetoric. In line with other Spanish commentators, he ignored changes in spelling or wording if the meaning of the passage was not affected. Thus textual variants, unusual spellings, and stylistic variation, as are found in parallel halves of many verses of biblical poetry, were not relevant for him.
\nIbn Ezra was a steadfast opponent of the Karaites and often criticized them in his commentaries. He was a loyal defender of the Oral Law and never accepted as peshat an interpretation that contradicted Jewish law. He incorporated into his commentaries his philosophical views, especially about creation and God\u2019s relationship with the Land and People of Israel. While he had a conservative view of the biblical text and rejected all attempts at emendation, he did raise questions about the Mosaic authorship of certain verses in the Torah (for example, Gen. 12:6, 22:14; Deut. 3:11), which he claimed were later additions, and especially of the last 12 verses of Deuteronomy (\u201cthe secret of the twelve\u201d), which eulogize Moses and tell of his final hours, and which Ibn Ezra claims were written by Joshua.
\nIbn Ezra in English: Ibn Ezra\u2019s Commentary on the Pentateuch, trans. H. Norman Strickman and Arthur M. Silver, 5 vols. (New York: Menorah, 1988\u20132004); The Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah, trans. Michael Friedlander, 4 vols. (London: N. Tr\u00fcbner, 1873\u20131877; reprint, New York: Feldheim, 1964); The Commentary of Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra on Hosea, trans. Abe Lipshitz (New York: Sepher Hermon Press, 1988).
\nKimchi, David ben Joseph (Radak; ca. 1160\u20131235). Radak was a grammarian and Bible commentator, the most famous member of the illustrious Kimchi family of Narbonne, Provence. He wrote commentaries on the Torah, Prophets, Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and Chronicles. His grammatical works, Shorashim and Mikhlol, especially the former, also contain considerable material of exegetical value. His commentaries, which often relied on his predecessors, represent the best of the Spanish peshat tradition but also are sensitive to the midrashic tradition as exemplified in the commentaries of Rashi.
\nRadak was a philosophically trained follower of Maimonides who did not shy away from introducing philosophical ideas into his commentaries. He also did not hesitate to apply certain biblical prophecies and psalm verses to the state of the Jews in his own day, and prayers and hopes for the coming of the Messiah and the ultimate redemption are frequently found in his writings. The fact that his commentaries, which were extremely popular, were peppered with anti-Christian polemical statements secured his reputation as a defender of the Jewish faith.
\nRadak in English: Hachut hameshulash, trans. Eliyahu Munk (New York: Lambda, 2003) (on Genesis); The Longer Commentary of R. David Kimhi on the First Book of Psalms: I\u2013X, XV\u2013XVII, XIX, XXII, XXIV, trans. G. H. Box (London: SPCK, 1919); The Commentary of Rabbi David Kimhi on Psalms CXX\u2013CL, trans. Joshua Baker and E. W. Nicholson (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1973).
\nNachmanides (Moses ben Nachman; Ramban; 1194\u20131270). Bible commentator, talmudist, kabbalist, and communal leader in Gerona, Spain, Ramban is best known for his commentary on the Torah, which marked a new stage in the history of biblical interpretation, being the first that was influenced by both the Andalusian and Ashkenazic traditions. Though a product of Christian Spain, he undoubtedly felt himself to be part of the Andalusian commentary tradition and indeed enriched it with many insightful comments. At the same time, he had absorbed the work of Rashi and the northern French school and held it in high regard. Furthermore, he was wont to draw on the vast resources of Rabbinic literature\u2014Talmud and midrash as well as gaonic and mystical works.
\nThough certainly trained in grammar and philology, he found the grammatical approach of the Spanish school as exemplified by Abraham ibn Ezra too narrow and limiting. He was therefore sympathetic to Rashi and his selective use of midrashic material, seeking to strike a balance between the two approaches and to adopt a more holistic approach to the text. His commentaries encompass issues of theology, ethics, history, and character analysis, thus weaving a particularly colorful and variegated tapestry that operates on several levels. He is famous for his psychological insights and deep understanding of human nature.<\/p>\n
A page from the Mishneh Torah, Spain, 15th century. Perhaps the most well-known, important work of medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, the Mishneh Torah is a comprehensive code of Jewish law. It incorporates the positions of the Ge\u2019onim, medieval Jewish scholars, into a code of law that derived from the Talmud. The scope and precision of this work made it a vital contribution to Judaism\u2019s Written Tradition. (Courtesy of The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.)
\nRamban was also a kabbalist, steeped in the mystical traditions of the Proven\u00e7al school of Kabbalah, and he made numerous allusions to esoteric meanings of various biblical texts. He was also one of the few medieval commentators who made use of typology, seeing the deeds of the Patriarchs as foreshadowing what would happen to their descendants, a theological notion articulated in the expression ma\u2019aseh avot siman levanim (\u201cthe deed of the ancestors is a sign for the offspring\u201d).
\nRamban in English: Ramban\u2019s entire Torah commentary was translated by Charles B. Chavel: Ramban (Nachmanides), Commentary on the Torah, 5 vols. (New York: Shilo, 1971\u20131976). A new translation by Yaakov Blinder and Yoseph Kamenetsky has begun to appear: The Torah: with Ramban\u2019s Commentary, 3 vols. to date: (Brooklyn: Mesorah, 2004\u2013) (For Genesis and Shmemot-Yitro).
\nLevi ben Gershom (Ralbag, Gersonides; 1288\u20131344). A Proven\u00e7al philosopher and biblical commentator, Ralbag may well have been the most original Jewish thinker of the late Middle Ages. He commented on the Torah, the Early Prophets, the Five Scrolls, and Job. While his commentaries are laced with philosophical insights, they contain much straightforward peshat interpretation as well. His commentaries are divided into three sections: (1) an explanation of the difficult words in the passage; (2) an expanded paraphrase of the text; and (3) a list of lessons, both moral and philosophical, that can be derived from the passage. The last may have been inspired by the practice of contemporary Christian commentators.
\nRalbag in English: The Commentary of Levi ben Gerson (Gersonides) on the Book of Job, trans. Abraham L. Lassen (New York: Bloch, 1946); Commentary on Song of Songs, trans. Menachem Kellner (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998).
\nAbarbanel, Isaac (1437\u20131508). Abarbanel (also spelled Abrabanel and, Abravanel), statesman, philosopher, and student of Isaac Arama, was the greatest Spanish biblical interpreter of the 15th century. He produced voluminous commentaries on the Torah, Prophets, and Daniel, which are thoughtful and thought-provoking. The commentaries are arranged in problem\/solution fashion. His primary focus was peshat, but he also incorporated midrashim that he found acceptable. In his theology, he rejected the rationalist position in favor of one based on faith, which he felt was more in line with that of the sages. As a product of the Renaissance, he was open to new ideas and introduced much contemporary thought into his writing. His commentaries on Samuel and Kings are full of his ideas on the monarchy, which, based on his personal experience, he did not hold in high esteem.
\nSforno, Obadiah (1475\u20131550). The most famous Italian biblical commentator of the 16th century, Sforno wrote commentaries on the Torah and the book of Psalms in the peshat tradition. Sforno was a rabbi, a trained physician, and a cultured individual, a true product of Renaissance humanism, whose values infuse his works.
\nSforno in English: Commentary on the Torah, trans. Raphael Pelcovitz, 2 vols. (Brooklyn: Mesorah, 1987\u20131989).
\nEphraim Solomon ben Aaron of Luntshits (1550\u20131619). A rabbi, preacher, and communal leader in Prague, Luntshits was the author of Keli Yeqar (Precious Vessel; not Keli Yaqar, as is commonly assumed; cf. Prov. 20:15), a very popular homiletic commentary on the Torah, reprinted in many editions of miqra\u2019ot gedolot down to this day.<\/p>\n
A page from a Bible, Yemen, 15th century. Yemenites were prodigious in producing Bible commentaries, especially in the 15th century. Therefore, Bibles such as this one usually contained a short masoretic introduction, and often also contained Arabic commentaries. The pictures and patterned text that decorate the borders of the biblical text itself represent the Yemenite custom of illuminating text and writing commentary notes in the margins. (Courtesy of The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary.)
\nKeli Yeqar in English: Kli Yakar, trans. Elihu Levine (Southfield, MI: Targum Press; Nanuet, NY: Feldheim, 5762\u2013 \/2002\u2013) (2 vols. on Exodus); Kli Yakar: The Commentary of Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim Luntshits, the \u201cKli Yakar,\u201d trans. Albert M. Kanter (Skokie, IL: HTC Press, 2003) (on Deuteronomy only).
\nIbn Attar, Chayyim ben Moses (1696\u20131743). Ibn Attar, born in Morocco, was the author of the compendious Torah commentary Or ha-Chayyim. This commentary, besides containing elements of peshat interpretation based on responses to the writings of his predecessors, includes psychological analyses of the biblical characters and their motives, interpretations of Rabbinic statements, moral instruction and admonition, mystical lore, halakhic discussions, and historical and personal reflections.
\nThe commentary has appeared in many editions, both separately and in miqra\u2019ot gedolot editions, and has been published in English translation by Eliyahu Munk; Or Hachayim: Commentary on the Torah, 5 vols. (Jerusalem and Brooklyn: Hemed Books, 1995).
\nMendelssohn, Moses (1729\u20131786). Mendelssohn was a German philosopher and man of letters. He was the editor of a new edition of the Bible intended for the educated German-speaking Jewish laity, which featured a carefully edited Hebrew text, a German translation in Hebrew characters, and a commentary in Hebrew called the Bi\u2019ur (Commentary), culled for the most part from the best medieval peshat commentators (Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Rashbam, Ramban) but also including new linguistic and literary insights. Mendelssohn was assisted in this enterprise by other scholars, including Naphtali Herz Wessely (1725\u20131805) and Solomon Dubno (1738\u20131813). The authors of the commentary went out of their way to include both halakhic and aggadic Rabbinic interpretations, trying to demonstrate their beauty and value to an audience that may have had little exposure to Rabbinic literature and probably held it in disdain. The Bi\u2019ur went through many editions in the 19th century, making it one of the most popular commentaries of its time.
\nMeklenburg, Jacob Zvi (1785\u20131865). A rabbi in Koenigsberg, Meklenburg was the author of Ha-Ketav veha-Qabbalah (The Text and the Tradition) (1839; 2nd ed., 1852; 3rd ed., 1880), a commentary on the Torah. While his stated purpose was to demonstrate through linguistic and other means that the Rabbinic interpretations of scripture were reasonable and totally justified, in actuality his commentary is for the most part devoted to peshat interpretation, drawing on his contemporaries and predecessors in the German Jewish community. It thus represents a summation of the interpretive work of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
\nHa-Ketav veha-Qabbalah in English translation by Eliyahu Munk, Haketav vehakabbalah: Torah Commentary, 7 vols. (Jerusalem: Lambda, 2001).
\nLuzzatto, Samuel David (Shadal; 1800\u20131865). Italian rabbi, scholar, and theologian, Shadal has been called the first of the modern Jewish Bible commentators. He lectured on the Bible and biblical criticism at the Rabbinical Seminary in Padua and wrote \u201cIntroduction to the Criticism and Interpretation of the Torah\u201d (1829), in which he deals systematically with issues of redaction, textual criticism, and ancient versions and their reliability. He is the author of commentaries on the Torah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Psalms 49 and 51, and Ecclesiastes.
\nMiqra\u2019ot Gedolot
\nSpecial editions of the Bible, called miqra\u2019ot gedolot, are characterized by their layout: pages have only a few lines of Hebrew text and Aramaic translation to allow room for the notes of an array of commentators. The Hebrew term miqra\u2019ot gedolot actually means large-format edition of the Bible, but in practice the size of editions vary from small to oversize.
\nShadal\u2019s commentary in English: The Book of Genesis: A Commentary, trans. Daniel A. Klein (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1998).
\nHirsch, Samson Raphael (1808\u20131888). Hirsch, a prominent German rabbi and ideologue of Neo-Orthodox Judaism, produced an extensive commentary on the Torah in German (later translated into English and Hebrew) as well as a commentary on Psalms, which had a unique approach based on his understanding of the symbolic nature of the Hebrew language. Apologetic in tone, the commentaries have as a principal goal the demonstration of the essential moral and ethical superiority of the Jewish faith.
\nAn English translation, The Pentateuch, was prepared by Isaac Levy (London: I. Levy, 1958\u20131962; 2nd ed., 1962\u20131967).
\nMalbim, Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Michal (1809\u20131879). Malbim was a prolific eastern European scholar who strove to demonstrate the unity of the Oral and Written Laws, in response to the perceived attacks by 19th-century reformers. He commented on all of the books of the Bible. His commentary on Leviticus is based on the Rabbinic halakhic midrash Sifra. He reproduces the midrashic text and comments on it and the accompanying biblical text in his commentary titled Ha-Torah veha-Mitzvah (The Teaching and the Commandment). He produced similar commentaries for Exodus, based on the Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, and on Numbers and Deuteronomy, based on Sifrei. For Genesis and other biblical books without halakhic midrashim, he modeled his commentary after that of Isaac Abarbanel, prefacing each section with a series of questions, which he then answered in sequence. Malbim\u2019s commentary has been reprinted often and is still highly regarded in traditional circles today.
\nMalbim in English: Malbim: Rabbenu Meir Leibush ben Yechiel Michel; Commentary on the Torah, trans. Zvi Faier, 5 vols. to date (Jerusalem: Hillel Press, 1978\u2013) (on Genesis and the first 12 chapters of Exodus); Malbim on Mishley: The Commentary of Meir Leibush Malbim on the Book of Proverbs, trans. Charles Wengrov, abridged and adapted (Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1982); Malbim\u2019s Job: The Book of Job, trans. Jeremy I. Pfeffer (Jersey City, NJ: Ktav, 2003); Malbim on the Book of Ruth: The Commentary of Rabbi Meir Leibush Malbim, trans. Shmuel Kurtz (Jerusalem and New York: Feldheim, 1999).
\nBerlin, Naphtali Tzevi Judah (Netziv; 1817\u20131893). Berlin, head of the prestigious Volozhin yeshivah, published his Torah commentary Ha\u2018mek Davar (Delving Deeply into the Matter) in 1879\u20131880. In this commentary he tried to demonstrate the inseparable link between the words of the Torah and those of the sages and to show that the former must be understood in light of the latter. He stressed over and over again that the Torah is divine and that every word and sentence in it was put there for a reason. He believed that the correct study of the Bible would lead a person to upright behavior. He set as a goal for his students not only intimacy with the biblical text but the ability to derive moral lessons and teachings that would make them better people and bring them closer to God.
\nNetziv in English: The Commentary of Rav Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin to Shir Hashirim, trans. and annotated by Dovid Landesman (Kefar Hasidim: Jewish Educational Workshop, 1993).
\nMODERN COMMENTARIES\u2014THE ISRAELI SCENE
\nSifre ha-Miqra, commentary by E. S. Hartom, ed. Moses David Cassuto et al., 15 vols. (Tel Aviv: Yavneh, 1956\u20131961); many subsequent printings.
\nThis popular commentary was conceived by Cassuto, a Hebrew University Bible professor, who apparently managed to edit only the first volume before his demise. Hartom completed the work (except for Chronicles, which was completed by others following his method). This is a straightforward peshat commentary, intended for a lay audience. It includes no references to other commentaries or scholarly works by other authors and avoids source criticism. It has been very popular in Israel for several generations, especially among high school students preparing for their matriculation exams. It includes some maps but no other illustrations.
\nDa\u2019at Miqra (Knowledge of Scripture) (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 1970\u20132001).
\nProduced under the auspices of the prestigious publishing house of the Religious Zionist establishment, this set of commentaries by Orthodox Israeli Bible scholars attempts to remain faithful to the tradition and yet still take into account the findings of modern scholarship and archaeology. Special attention is paid to realia: flora, fauna, and artifacts that would be of special interest to the well-informed Israeli audience. Many of the commentaries focus on the literary aspects of the text. It includes many black-and-white illustrations. So far only the commentary on Psalms by Amos Hakham has been rendered into English: The Bible: Psalms with the Jerusalem Commentary, trans. Israel V. Berman, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Kook, 2003).
\nOlam ha-Tanakh (The Biblical World), ed. Menahem Haran, 25 vols. (Tel Aviv: Davidzon-Iti, 1993\u20131994). (The first edition began to appear in 1983 under the title Entsiqlopedyah Olam ha-Tanakh but was never completed.)
\nA popular scientific commentary, it is intended for an educated lay audience. Copiously illustrated in color with special attention given to archaeology, flora, and fauna, the commentaries are written by a team of Israeli and American Bible scholars, with many comments individually signed.
\nMiqra le-Yisra\u2019el (A Bible Commentary for Israel), ed. Moshe Greenberg and Shmuel Ahituv (Tel Aviv: Am Oved; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1990\u2013).
\nThis scholarly commentary by both Israeli and non-Israeli Jewish Bible scholars is intended for scholars, students, and an educated lay audience. Its stated goals are to provide a modern professional commentary on the Bible based on all aspects of Jewish culture. The entire range of biblical, linguistic, and archaeological scholarship is taken into account, as well as various modern critical methodologies\u2014historical, literary, rhetorical, and redaction criticism\u2014and comparative Semitics and lexicography. The role of each book in the history of Jewish thought and biblical interpretation is also discussed. The following volumes have been published to date: Isaiah 40\u201366 (Shalom M. Paul), Joshua (Shmuel Ahituv), Judges (Yaira Amit), 1 and 2 Samuel (Shimon Bar Efrat), Joel\u2013Amos (Mordechai Cogan, Shalom M. Paul), Jeremiah (Yair Hoffman), Ezekiel (Rimon Kasher), Obadiah\u2013Jonah (Mordechai Cogan, Uriel Simon), Song of Songs (Yair Zakovitch), Ruth (Yair Zakovitch), and Esther (Adele Berlin).
\nLeibowitz, Nechama (1906\u20131997). The quintessential teacher, Leibowitz made a major contribution to the revival of Bible study in modern Israel. She taught thousands of students to appreciate the beauty of the biblical text and the variety of approaches found in the traditional and modern commentaries. In her studies of the weekly Torah portions (Studies in Bereshit, Studies in Shemot, and so on, trans. Aryeh Newman [Jerusalem: WZO, 1972\u20131982]), she cited a dazzling array of sources, from the Talmud and midrash all the way to modern interpreters such as Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, and Benno Jacob as well the occasional Christian commentator, following the long-standing tradition of using the best of the world\u2019s knowledge to glorify and exalt the Torah.
\nHer studies, which grew out of the weekly parashah sheets that she used to circulate among her devoted students, are models of pedagogical technique, presenting various views on a topic in the weekly Torah portion, sometimes indicating her preference, other times leaving the question open for further discussion or reflection.
\nLeibowitz\u2019s approach has been followed by many Bible translators and commentators even if they did not share her theological views. Her influence on Jewish biblical studies, especially in modern religious circles but beyond them as well, has been enormous.
\nMODERN COMMENTARIES ON THE TANAKH FOR ENGLISH READERS
\nSoncino Books of the Bible, ed. Abraham Cohen, 14 vols. (Hindhead, UK: Soncino Press, 1945\u20131952), several subsequent editions.
\nThis series includes the Hebrew text, the Old Jewish Publication Society (OJPS) translation (1917), and a commentary \u201cdesigned for the ordinary reader of the Bible rather than the student.\u201d Textual emendation is scrupulously avoided, and the commentary draws on Rabbinic literature, classical Jewish commentaries, and Christian expositors. The commentaries were prepared by a team of Anglo-Jewish scholars. The commentaries on the books of the Torah differ from the others in that they contain an anthology of classical medieval commentators: Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Ramban, Radak, Rashbam, Ralbag, and Sforno. Authors of commentaries on the other books are as follows: Eli Cashdan (Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi); A. Cohen (Psalms, Ecclesiastes); S. Fisch (Ezekiel); Harry Freedman (Joshua, Jeremiah); S. Goldman (Samuel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Lamentations, Esther); S. M. Lehrman (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Song of Songs); Victor E. Reichert (Job, Ecclesiastes); Israel W. Slotki (Kings, Isaiah, Chronicles); Judah J. Slotki (Judges, Ruth, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah).
\nMiqra\u2019ot Gedolot: A New English Translation, trans. A. J. Rosenberg (New York: Judaica Press, 1969\u20131997): Torah (B\u2019reishit and Shemot, 5 vols. only); Prophets and Writings, 24 vols. (complete).
\nThis is a modern edition of the miqra\u2019ot gedolot for the English-speaking community. Each volume features the complete Hebrew text of the biblical book in question with the traditional commentaries as well as a concise, modern English translation of the text with extensive commentary. In addition, Rashi\u2019s commentary is translated in its entirety, as are selections from Talmud and midrash, Ramban, Sforno, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, and other commentaries never before translated.
\nArtScroll Tanach Series, ed. Nosson Scherman (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 1976\u20131998).
\nIncluded here are individual volumes with Hebrew text and commentary in English anthologized from talmudic, midrashic, and later Rabbinic sources. The following have been published to date: Genesis (6 vols.; Meir Zlotowitz), Leviticus (2 vols.; Nosson Scherman, Hersh Goldwurm), Joshua (Reuven Drucker), Ezekiel (Moshe Eisemann), Minor Prophets (Matis Roberts), Jonah (Zlotowitz), Psalms (5 vols.; Chaim Feuer), Proverbs (Eliezer Ginsburg), Job (Moshe Eisemann), Five Scrolls (Meir Zlotowitz), Daniel (Hersh Goldwurm), Ezra (Yosef Rabinowitz), Nehemiah (Yosef Rabinowitz), 1 and 2 Chronicles (Moshe Eisemann).
\nThis project was never completed and seems to have been suspended in favor of the following one.
\nThe Early Prophets: With a Commentary Anthologized from the Rabbinic Writings, ed. Nosson Scherman (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 2000\u2013), 3 vols. to date (Joshua\u2013Judges, Samuel, Kings).
\nThis new edition by ArtScroll includes the Hebrew text of Rashi, Radak, and the Altschulers (Metzudat David and Metzudat Tziyyon [18th century]). The accompanying commentaries are much shorter than those of the earlier edition.
\nThe JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1989\u20131996).
\nThe series offers detailed scholarly commentaries on the Five Books of Moses by leading American Jewish Bible scholars (Genesis and Exodus: Nahum Sarna; Leviticus: Baruch Levine; Numbers: Jacob Milgrom; Deuteronomy: Jeffrey Tigay). It is characterized by both scholarly rigor and sensitivity to Jewish tradition.
\nThe JPS Bible Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1999\u2013).
\nThis series follows the same path as the JPS Torah Commentary series. To date the following volumes have been published: Haftarot (Michael A. Fishbane, 2002), Jonah (Uriel Simon, 1999), Ecclesiastes (Michael V. Fox, 2004), and Esther (Adele Berlin, 2001).
\nThe Living Nach: A New Translation Based on Traditional Jewish Sources, ed. Yaakov Elman (New York and Jerusalem: Moznaim Publishing, 1994\u20131999), 3 vols. (Early Prophets, Later Prophets, Sacred Writings).
\nA sequel to Aryeh Kaplan\u2019s The Living Torah (see below), this publication offers \u201ca clear and modern English translation based on traditional Jewish sources,\u201d along with extensive notes citing traditional commentators, as well as maps, bibliography, and index.
\nTanach: The Torah, Prophets, Writings, Stone Edition, ed. Nosson Scherman (Brooklyn: Mesorah, 1996).
\nThis volume is a companion to the popular Stone Chumash published by ArtScroll\/Mesorah (see below).
\nThe Jewish Study Bible, ed. Adele Berlin and Marc Brettler (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
\nThis is a one-volume edition of the Bible, modeled after the New Oxford Annotated Bible, with commentaries by Jewish scholars and an extensive essay section divided into three parts: (1) \u201cJewish Interpretation of the Bible,\u201d tracing the history of interpretation from the Bible itself (inner biblical interpretation) to modern times; (2) \u201cThe Bible in Jewish Life and Thought,\u201d which outlines the role of the Bible in Judaism and the Jewish community; and (3) \u201cBackgrounds for Reading the Bible,\u201d which deals with various issues in modern biblical and ancient Near Eastern scholarship. The English translation used as the basis for the commentary is the New Jewish Publication Society (NJPS) translation (1985). It is published without the Hebrew text.
\nThe Commentators\u2019 Bible: The JPS Miqra\u2019ot Gedolot\u2014Exodus, ed., trans., and annotated by Michael Carasik (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2005).
\nThis volume includes the Hebrew text, the OJPS and NJPS translations, fresh translations of Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, and Ramban, and selections from other commentators\u2014Joseph Bekhor Shor, Hizkuni, Radak, Abarbanel, and Sforno\u2014all arranged in a similar fashion to the standard editions of the classic miqra\u2019ot gedolot text. The nature of the translation is somewhat controversial, as the translator has the medieval exegetes often commenting on the text of the modern English translations. In the author\u2019s own words: \u201cA basic assumption of this translation is that commentators are rewriting their original comments today, in contemporary English, for readers who do not know Hebrew.\u201d
\nSYNAGOGUE TORAH COMMENTARIES, OR HUMASHIM
\nThe three major modern movements have each produced editions of the Torah with commentary, for use in the synagogue.
\nOrthodox
\nPentateuch and Haftarot, ed. Joseph H. Hertz, 5 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929\u20131936); 1 vol. (London: Soncino, 1938); 2nd ed., with holiday haftarot (London: Soncino, 1979).
\nThis commentary, written by a team of Anglo-Jewish scholars and edited by Hertz, a former chief rabbi of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, draws on a wide range of sources, including ancient versions, classical Jewish commentaries, and many non-Jewish scholars and theologians. The tone is often highly apologetic, as the editor vigorously defends the Mosaic authorship of the Torah and rejects the higher biblical criticism of Julius Wellhausen and his school. This was the Humash of choice in many Orthodox and most Conservative congregations for over half a century, until the publication of the Stone (ArtScroll, Orthodox) and Etz Hayim (Conservative) Humashim.
\nThe Soncino Chumash, ed. A. Cohen, Soncino Books of the Bible (Hindhead, UK: Soncino Press, 1947).
\nUnlike the rest of the commentaries in the Soncino Books of the Bible series (see above), this Torah commentary is anthologized from the classical medieval Jewish commentaries.
\nThe Living Torah: The Five Books of Moses and the Haftarot, a new translation based on traditional Jewish sources, with notes, introduction, maps, tables, charts, bibliography, and index by Aryeh Kaplan (New York: Maznaim, 1981).
\nThe translation is rooted in Jewish sources and follows the traditions of interpretation found in Rabbinic literature. This is especially important in the description of the construction of the Tabernacle and the legal sections in Leviticus. It also avoids archaic or obsolete language to convey the message that the Torah is a living document. Idiomatic language is translated idiomatically. The notes, which are substantial enough to constitute a brief commentary, cite many traditional commentaries and other s<\/p>\n
The Chumash: The Torah, Haftaros, and Five Megillos, Stone Edition, ed. Nosson Scherman (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 1993).
\nThis edition, published by ArtScroll, has largely replaced the Hertz and the Soncino in Orthodox synagogues in North America. The commentary anthologizes comments from Rabbinic literature, the classical commentaries, and recent generations of haredi (piously Orthodox) Torah scholars.
\nThe Gutnick Edition Chumash with Rashi\u2019s Commentary, Targum Onkelos, Haftaros and Commentary Anthologized from Classic Rabbinic Texts and the Works of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, comp. Chaim Miller (Brooklyn: Kol Menachem, 2006).
\nThis new edition of the Humash for synagogue use, published by the Lubavitch Hasidic movement, includes a new translation based on Rashi\u2019s commentary and an anthologized commentary with a distinct Hasidic flavor, featuring the sichos (instructional talks) of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. An interesting feature is the column \u201cClassic question,\u201d which highlights a problem in the text and offers a number of interpretations from Rabbinic literature and classical commentaries.
\nConservative
\nEtz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, ed. David L. Lieber (New York: Rabbinical Assembly and United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, 2001).
\nThis volume includes commentary that is based on the JPS Torah and Bible Commentary series, as well as homiletical insights and halakhic instructions, supplemented by 166 pages of essays on biblical topics written by Conservative Bible scholars, a glossary, maps, and a few illustrations.
\nReform
\nThe Torah: A Modern Commentary, ed. W. Gunther Plaut (New York: UAHC, 1983).
\nThis very popular one-volume edition of the Torah uses the NJPS translation, with supplementary material, incorporating the findings of biblical scholarship and archaeology into the late 1970s. The original volume, whose text reads from left to right, was intended for adult education classes; a later edition (blue binding), has the text arranged from right to left, for easier use during synagogue services.
\nThe Torah: A Modern Commentary, rev. ed., ed. David E. S. Stein (New York: URJ Press, 2005).
\nThis revision was begun by Gunther Plaut and Chaim Stern in the late 1990s and completed by Stein. It features a new translation by Stern of Genesis and the haftarot and a gender-sensitive adaptation of the JPS translation for the rest of the Torah that more accurately reflects the role of women in biblical society, as well as an updated commentary that incorporates recent scholarship and is cognizant of changing social perspectives regarding homosexuality, intermarriage, and divorce.
\nOTHER TORAH TRANSLATIONS AND COMMENTARIES
\nThe Five Books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; A New Translation with Introductions, Commentary, and Notes, trans. Everett Fox (New York: Schocken, 1995).
\nA translation based on the methods of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, which attempts to reflect the original as closely as possible and be sensitive to the sounds of the Hebrew text. The translation pays particular attention to instances of wordplay, puns, word repetition, alliteration, and other literary devices of sound and tries to reproduce them in English. The commentary focuses on the \u201cwholeness\u201d of the biblical texts and strives to point out unities, connections, and thematic development. This work does not include the Hebrew text.
\nThe Five Books of Miriam: A Woman\u2019s Commentary on the Torah, by Ellen Frankel (New York: Putnam, 1996).
\nSomething of a cross between midrash, meditation, and performance, this book presents a series of conversations on the weekly Torah readings between a variety of characters, mostly biblical women, but also \u201cour daughters,\u201d \u201cour mothers,\u201d \u201cour bubbes,\u201d \u201cthe rabbis,\u201d \u201cthe sages in our own time,\u201d \u201cLilith the rebel,\u201d and \u201cBeruriah the scholar.\u201d Unlike conventional commentaries, this one does not follow the text verse by verse, but focuses on several topics in each parashah, always from a woman\u2019s perspective. This volume does not contain the biblical text, either in the original Hebrew or in translation.
\nCommentary on the Torah, by Richard Elliott Friedman (New York: HarperCollins, 2003).
\nFriedman, a well-known Bible scholar (University of Georgia, Athens), has written a commentary in the classical style, presenting an integrated understanding of the biblical text, seeking to elucidate problems that have never been solved and pointing out new problems that have never before been addressed. Friedman wishes to continue the work of the classical commentaries, while adding to them the insights of recent biblical scholarship: archaeology, Semitic philology, ancient Near Eastern history and culture, textual criticism, and ancient versions. Furthermore, like the classical commentators, he tries to show the essential unity of the Torah and to demonstrate its relevance to life. He deals with the usual textual, literary, and historical matters but also with moral issues raised by the text. The book includes the Hebrew text as well as a new English translation, which tries to remain as faithful as possible to the Hebrew text.
\nThe Five Books of Moses, trans. Robert Alter (New York: Norton, 2004).
\nThis is a new translation and commentary by a prominent Berkeley professor of comparative literature and scholar of the Bible as literature. Its fine translation and insightful commentary are based on modern biblical scholarship and the author\u2019s deep familiarity with the style and language of the biblical text. Though not ideologically opposed to the idea of multiple authorship of the Torah, Alter is more interested in the Torah as a finished, unified literary product. This work does not include the Hebrew text.
\nThe Contemporary Torah: A Gender-Sensitive Adaptation of the JPS Translation, ed. David E. S. Stein; consulting eds. Adele Berlin, Ellen Frankel, and Carol L. Meyers (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2006).
\nThis translation by the editor of the new Reform Torah commentary differs somewhat from the latter, but is based on the same principles. It attempts to assess how ancient Israelites would have understood the gendered language of the biblical texts.
\nThe Torah: A Women\u2019s Commentary, ed. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Andrea Weiss (New York: URJ Press, 2007).
\nThis volume, published by the Reform movement and written entirely by Jewish women\u2014Bible scholars, rabbis, historians, philosophers, and archaeologists\u2014eighty contributors in all\u2014includes the Hebrew text, an English translation, and an innovative, eclectic commentary. Each Torah portion, or parashah, is preceded by an overview, followed by the Hebrew text and a linear translation, along with a central commentary by a biblical scholar, which draws on modern biblical scholarship and other scholarly disciplines, while highlighting issues pertaining to women. The central commentary on each section is followed by a short counter-commentary offering a different viewpoint. A third contributor offers a post-biblical interpretation, focusing on how Rabbinic literature and traditional Torah commentaries addressed issues pertaining to women. \u201cContemporary reflections\u201d introduce philosophical, theological, and other approaches relevant to the Bible and Jewish life today; and \u201ccreative voices\u201d offer imaginative responses to the text in the form of poems, modern midrash, and other artistic expressions.
\nCase Studies: Comparing Commentators
\nLet us now look at a few examples of difficult biblical texts and see how commentators through the ages have dealt with them. Some of these verses have been called cruxes\u2014verses that defy interpretation and have never been satisfactorily explained\u2014others invite a variety of interpretations, none definitive.
\nGARDEN OF EDEN\u2014A REAL EYE-OPENER
\nOne of the high points of the Garden of Eden story is reached when the serpent succeeds in convincing the woman to partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
\nWhen the woman saw that the tree was good for eating and a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable as a source of wisdom, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave some to her husband, and he ate (Gen. 3:6).
\nThe problematic phrase here is \u201cthe tree was desirable as a source of wisdom\u201d (nechmad ha-etz le-haskil). The phrase \u201cas a source of wisdom\u201d is le-haskil in Hebrew. This word is ambiguous and could have any of several meanings.
\nSaadiah derives the word from sekhel and haskalah, meaning \u201cknowledge\u201d and \u201clearning,\u201d which basically agrees with the translation cited here.
\nRashi comments: \u201cAs he [the serpent] had said to her, \u2018(and you will be like divine beings) knowing good and evil,\u2019 \u201d thus connecting this phrase to the previous verse. Eve was completely taken in by the serpent and believed his words, that eating of the fruit would lead to knowledge of good and evil.
\nRamban comments: \u201cFor with it, one will know [yaskil] how to desire[lachamod]; lust was ascribed to the eyes and desire to the mind.\u201d Ramban thus connects the two parts of the verse \u201cdelight to the eyes\u201d and \u201cdesirable as a source of wisdom,\u201d marking the moment of the awakening of passion and desire in the human psyche.
\nRobert Alter translates the phrase as \u201cthe tree was lovely to look at,\u201d pointing to the Targums (Aramaic translations of the Bible), which translate le-haskil as \u201cto look at.\u201d The attraction of this interpretation is that it creates a parallel between ta\u2019avah, \u201clust,\u201d and nechmad (from the root chamad, \u201cto desire\u201d) and la-einayim, \u201cfor the eyes,\u201d and le-haskil, \u201cto look at.\u201d
\nAnother possibility, not mentioned by other commentators is that le-haskil means \u201cto achieve success,\u201d as it does in several other verses (for example, 1 Sam. 18:14). Thus, the phrase could mean \u201cthat the tree was desirable as a means for attaining success.\u201d For this verse, there are many possibilities of interpretation, none of which is clearly the correct one.
\nIn the next verse, after Adam and Eve have partaken of the forbidden fruit, we read in the NJPS translation:
\nThen the eyes of both of them were opened and they perceived that they were naked; and they sewed together fig leaves and made themselves loincloths (Gen. 3:7).
\nHere the question is, What happened to Adam and Eve after they ate the fruit? What transformation is described by the phrase \u201cthe eyes of both of them were opened\u201d?
\nRashi comments: \u201cScripture speaks about wisdom rather than actual sight. The end of the verse proves this point: \u2018and they knew that they were naked.\u2019 Even the blind man knows that he is naked. But what does it mean by \u2018they knew that they were naked\u2019? They had one commandment to fulfill\u2014not to eat the fruit of the tree\u2014and they were stripped of it.\u201d
\nRashi, who here, as is often the case, has taken his material from the midrash (Bereshit Rabbah 19:6), wishes to teach a moral lesson: The couple attained a certain knowledge and understanding from eating the fruit. The knowledge of their nakedness is not of their physical nakedness but of their lack of commandments to fulfill, since they had violated the only one they had. They were thus spiritually and morally naked and impoverished. For Rashi, the opening of the eyes leads to the attainment of knowledge, which instills in them a sense of guilt.
\nRadak has a different take: \u201c \u2018Then the eyes of both of them were opened.\u2019 The eyes of their heart. That is why it says \u2018and they knew\u2019 and not \u2018and they saw,\u2019 for what they saw now was what they saw then. Rather, after they ate from the fruit of the tree, the lust for sexual intercourse was born within them and the sex organ became hard out of lust. This was an embarrassment to them, that they had lost control of a bodily organ. This is a case of tit for tat since they had abandoned the authority and command of God.\u201d
\nThe point here is the meting out of divine punishment for their action in a way that is appropriate to the act. Just as they had violated God\u2019s command and defied divine authority, so that God was not in control of them, so would they lose control of a bodily organ, which would take on a life of its own under certain circumstances and cause them embarrassment. For Radak, the opening of the eyes signifies the awakening of sexual desire.
\nS. R. Hirsch points to the shame that the couple now felt at their nakedness: \u201cAs long as Man stands completely in the service of his God, he has not to be ashamed of any part of his body. Even the bodily lures and attractions are pure and godly as long as they submit themselves as means for God\u2019s holy purposes. But when this condition is not entirely there we certainly should be ashamed of displaying them\u201d (The Pentateuch, trans. Levy, p. 77). Thus the knowledge that the couple gained is associated with the shame they felt for their nakedness, as a result of their rebellion, a feeling they had not experienced before.
\nThese are only three of an array of interpretations given to this verse. They all have merit and bear witness to the richness and suggestiveness of the text.
\nTHE AKEDAH STORY\u2014THE RAM THAT DIDN\u2019T GET AWAY
\nAnd Abraham raised his eyes and saw, and look, a ram was caught in the thicket by its horns (Alter, Gen. 22:13).
\nAt issue here is the phrase \u201ca ram.\u201d The masoretic text reads ayil achar, literally \u201ca ram, after.\u201d Alter\u2019s translation reflects the reading in many ancient versions, which read echad (one, or the indefinite article \u201ca\u201d) for achar, replacing the resh of achar with a dalet, which resembles it very closely. But one could challenge this reading by pointing out that echad is really superfluous and the verse would read just as well without it. One could also argue that the more difficult reading could be the authentic one, since the natural tendency would be to correct a difficult word to one that is more understandable. Yet there is no question that for those commentators who wish to preserve the reading in the masoretic text, this verse is challenging.
\nRashi attempts to resolve the problem: \u201cAchar: After the angel said to him: \u2018Do not reach out your hand against the lad,\u2019 \u201d he saw it as it was caught, as it says in the Targum: \u2018And Abraham raised his eyes after these things.\u2019 \u201d According to Rashi\u2019s reading, which is influenced by the midrash, achar refers to events that had just happened. The problem with this is the location of achar. If this interpretation were correct, achar should really begin the verse, which preferably should read, achar ha-devarim ha-eleh (after these things) or, even better, acharei khen (afterward) (cf. Gen. 25:26).
\nIbn Ezra reads the phrase as follows: \u201cafter it was caught in the thicket by its horns.\u201d According to this reading, the verse should be read with the Hebrew particle asher understood before ne\u2019echaz (caught). Abraham saw the ram only after it had been caught in the thicket by its horns (ve-hinneh ayil achar asher ne\u2019echaz ba-sevakh be-karnav). (Ibn Ezra uses the prefix she-, for asher, but she- appears only in late biblical Hebrew.)
\nRashbam has a slightly different take: \u201cAnd saw, and look! a ram passed in front of him, after which it got caught by its horns in the thicket. In other words, afterward [achar], he saw the ram while it was passing by get caught in the thicket of the forest. He thought to himself: Certainly this angel must have come to fulfill God\u2019s mission and God prepared this ram for me instead of my son; therefore it got caught in the thicket so that I could take it.\u201d He then gives some biblical verses to prove his point that achar means \u201cafterward.\u201d Netziv (N. Berlin) in Ha\u2018mek Davar elaborates on Rashbam. He says that if the ram were already caught in the thicket, Abraham might have thought it belonged to someone who had left it there. If it were running wild, he would have had difficulty catching it. But, in this case, when he watched it first running loose, then getting caught, he sensed that there was providence at work here and that this ram was meant for him.
\nThe reading by Rashbam and Netziv is a valiant attempt to make sense of this difficult passage. It dramatizes the action and tries to explain why Abraham was convinced to sacrifice the ram instead of Isaac. Still this interpretation is not without its own linguistic and grammatical issues. This verse remains a difficult crux.
\nTHE JOSEPH STORY\u2014HOW DEEP IS MY VALLEY?
\nHe sent him [Jacob sent Joseph] from the valley of Hebron (to find his brothers) [me-emek Hevron] (Gen. 37:14).
\nMany commentators have remarked on the peculiarity of this verse, since it is well known that Hebron is in the mountains. Robert Alter comments simply, \u201cThe validity of this designation can be defended only through ingenious explanation because Hebron stands on a height.\u201d Nahum Sarna suggests that the text may be referring to the location of the Cave of the Machpelah in a field outside the city. But this hardly sounds like a valley.
\nRashi, following the Talmud and midrash, states:
\nBut Hebron is on a mountain, as it is stated (Num. 13:22): \u201cand they went up into the south and reached Hebron.\u201d However, (the valley of Hebron alludes to) the profound counsel [etzah amuqah] of that righteous one (Abraham) who is buried in Hebron, to fulfill that which was told to Abraham at the covenant between the pieces \u201cfor your seed will be a sojourner in a land not theirs\u201d (Gen. 15:13).
\nNechama Leibowitz comments on Rashi\u2019s statement:
\nSince Hebron was in the mountain and not the valley, the apparently superfluous insertion emek is taken, figuratively, to imply \u201cdeep,\u201d in the sense of \u201cmysterious.\u201d Hebron is taken as a figurative expression for the patriarch Abraham who was buried there. Thus we have an allusion to the \u201cmysterious advice\u201d imparted to Abraham regarding the future of his descendants, that they would sojourn in a land not their own. It was this prophecy that Jacob and Joseph were fulfilling unwittingly; the father\u2014in sending, and the son\u2014in going to seek his brothers.
\nRashi does not simply see here a geographic designation, the place of Joseph\u2019s departure on his way, but a causal designation. The One, who is the cause of all causes and the leader of all travelers, takes Joseph out of his house according to that \u201cprofound counsel\u201d\u2014according to that profound plan which he planned and imparted to Abraham and whose meaning is unfathomable (Studies in Bereshit, p. 395; second paragraph translation revised by author).
\nThis is a case of a verse for which there is probably no satisfactory peshat explanation. In such cases, traditional commentators look for deeper meanings that bring us into other realms, be they theological or mystical in nature.
\nJACOB\u2019S BLESSING\u2014WHOSE SHECHEM IS IT ANYWAY?
\nAs Jacob is approaching death in Egypt, he calls Joseph to his side to give him his final blessing.
\nThen Israel said to Joseph, \u201cI am about to die; but God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers. And now I assign to you one portion [Shechem achad] more than to your brothers [al achekha], which I wrested from the Amorites with my sword and bow\u201d (NJPS Gen. 48:21\u201322).
\nThis passage raises several questions that have never been satisfactorily explained:
\nWhat is the meaning of shechem achad?
\nWhat is the meaning of al achekha?
\nWhat exactly did Jacob do to the Amorites? When did he fight them with sword and bow?
\nThe following are some attempts to explain this difficult verse. (It should be noted that there are no capital letters in Hebrew, so proper names cannot be visually distinguished from regular nouns.)
\nRashi and many other traditional commentators understand the word shechem mentioned here as the actual city of Shechem (near present-day Nablus, in the West Bank), which ended up in the territory of Ephraim, son of Joseph, after the conquest.
\nIn Rashi\u2019s words:
\nAnd now I assign to you. Since you are going to the trouble of attending to my burial, I have also assigned a place for your burial. Which is it? Shechem, as it is written: \u201cAnd the bones of Joseph which they had brought up from Egypt they buried in Shechem (Josh. 24:32). \u201cOne portion\u201d (shechem achad) \u201cmore than to your brothers\u201d (al achekha). Shechem itself shall be for you an additional portion over that of your brothers. With my sword and bow. When Simeon and Levi killed the inhabitants of Shechem, all the surrounding neighbors gathered together to oppose them and Jacob took up weapons against them.
\nRashi\u2019s comments serve to edify, in that they praise the virtue of attending to the burial of the deceased. The connection with the city of Shechem resonates because of the later association of that city with the tribe of Ephraim.
\nBut there are problems with this interpretation. The phrase shechem achad can hardly refer to the city Shechem. Why modify it with the adjective achad, \u201cone Shechem\u201d? This makes little sense. Also the feminine form achat rather than the masculine form of the adjective is called for since cities are grammatically feminine in Hebrew. Furthermore, there is no evidence in the biblical story itself that Jacob took up arms.
\nRashi himself must have felt discomfort with this line of interpretation, since he offers an alternative:
\nAnother interpretation: shechem achad. This is the birthright, that his sons will get two portions. And shechem has the connotation of \u201cportion,\u201d and this has many parallels in the biblical text [Rashi cites Ps. 21:13, Ps. 60:8, Hosea 6:9, and Zeph. 3:9; in none of these verses does shechem clearly mean \u201cportion\u201d]. Which I wrested from the Amorites. From the hand of Esau who committed an Amorite-like deed. Another possibility: He used to stalk his father with the utterances of his mouth [imrei fiv, a play on words, imrei being reminiscent of Emori]. With my sword and bow. This is his wisdom and his prayer.
\nThis line of interpretation follows the midrash fairly closely. The meaning \u201cportion\u201d for shechem seems to be derived from the context. None of the supporting verses Rashi brings clearly supports this derivation. Esau was the progenitor of the Edomites. The association of Esau with the Amorites is midrashic and has no textual support. Least of all is there support for the accusation of Esau stalking Isaac with words, which is purely homiletic and intentionally polemical. Finally, the association of Jacob\u2019s sword and bow with wisdom and prayer is possibly a reflection of Rabbinic pacifism and an acknowledgment that there is no evidence that Jacob fought anyone with sword and bow. This second interpretation of Rashi is also quite weak.
\nRamban associates shechem achad with the birthright, explaining that Jacob was prophesying that Joseph\u2019s children would inherit two portions of territory; in other words, Joseph inherited the family birthright. The reference to the Amorites is related to the conquest of the land after the Egyptian exile, which began with the Amorites on the east side of the Jordan. This land fell to the tribe of Manasseh. Ephraim also captured land that belonged to the Amorites (Judg. 1:35). \u201cWith my sword and my bow\u201d refers to the necessity to capture the land by force. The ability to capture was due to the merit of the forefathers, including Jacob. Ramban also suggests that Jacob alluded to the eventual capture of the land from the Amorites by performing some symbolic act with his weapons, although this is not mentioned in the text. Ramban\u2019s interpretation has the advantage that it avoids the awkwardness of referring to the city Shechem with the masculine adjective. It also transfers the events to the future and makes Jacob\u2019s words into a prophetic statement applying to the time of the conquest of the land. Nonetheless, it still does not adequately explain the term shechem achad.
\nRobert Alter offers a new reading of this verse. He translates shechem achad as \u201cwith single intent\u201d and the verse: \u201cAs for me, I have given you with single intent over your brothers what I took from the hand of the Emorite (sic) with my sword and with my bow.\u201d Alter explains:
\nThe phrase represented here by \u201cwith single intent\u201d is a notorious crux, but previous interpreters may have been misled by assuming that it must be the object of the verb \u201chave given.\u201d \u2026 But the very phrase used here, shechem \u2019ehad, occurs at one other place in the Bible, Zephaniah 3:9, where it is used adverbially in an idiomatic sense made clear by the immediate context: \u201cfor all of them to invoke the name of the Lord, \/ to serve Him shechem \u2019ehad (King James Version, with one consent; Revised English Bible and New Jewish Publication Society Bible, with one accord).\u201d This, then, is an expression that indicates concerted, unswerving intention and execution, and as such is perfectly appropriate to the legal pronouncement of legacy by Jacob in which it appears. Once the phrase is seen as adverbial, the relative clause, \u201cwhat I took \u2026\u201d falls into place with grammatical preciseness as the object of the verb \u201chave given,\u201d and in this reading, no particular city or region need be specified (The Five Books of Moses, trans. Robert Alter, p. 281).
\nAlter\u2019s solution to the shechem achad crux has merit, but his translation of the verse still leaves unanswered the question of what it was that Jacob took with sword and bow. The translation \u201cover your brothers\u201d may be overly literal. I would therefore suggest that: al achekha could mean \u201calong with\u201d or \u201cin addition to your brothers\u201d (al has this connotation in biblical Hebrew; compare with Gen. 28:9, al nashav, \u201cin addition to his wives\u201d). This would then signify Jacob\u2019s inclusion of Joseph and his sons in the family inheritance, thus formally welcoming him back into the fold. Furthermore, if we follow Ramban\u2019s view that this is a prophetic statement and that Jacob is referring here to future conquests, he is then promising Joseph and his sons a fair share in the family inheritance when they return to the land of Canaan and do battle with the Amorites.
\nThe verse might then be translated: \u201cAs for me, I promise with single intent to give you, along with your brothers, that which I shall take from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.\u201d
\nThis example illustrates how interpreters can build on the insights of their predecessors to gain new insights into difficult texts.
\n\u201cDO NOT GO NEAR A WOMAN\u201d\u2014A FOCUS FOR FEMINISTS
\nOne final example illustrates how certain verses can become controversial due to changing social and cultural circumstances. When the Israelite nation is standing at the foot of Mount Sinai in anticipation of hearing God\u2019s words in an awe-inspiring revelatory moment, Moses instructs the people as follows:
\nAnd he [Moses] said to the people, \u201cBe ready for the third day: do not go near a woman\u201d (Exod. 19:15).
\nAt first blush this would seem to be an exclusionary statement, the word \u201cpeople\u201d apparently including only the men. Does this mean that the women were not meant to be included in the Revelation, or is the intent less sinister?
\nThis verse received very little attention from the classical commentators. Only Rashi addresses the issue, stating on the basis of the Mishnah that this restriction was intended to ensure that the women would be in a state of purity to receive the Torah. Thus the Mishnah, followed by Rashi, offers a way of reading the verse that is inclusive of women in the Revelation event. Nevertheless, the language is exclusionary, and this point is addressed by two of our modern commentaries.
\nRichard Elliott Friedman states:
\nIf he is speaking to \u201cthe people,\u201d which includes both men and women, why does he say, \u201cDon\u2019t come close to a woman\u201d? Like many passages, this may have two opposite interpretations. It may be a case of male chauvinism in language, in which an address to the people means the men. Or it may reflect a perception that a command to abstain from sex for three days needs to be particularly directed to men because men are more likely than women to violate the instruction (Commentary on the Torah, Friedman, p. 233).
\nThe new Reform commentary adjusts the translation to read: \u201c(the men among) you should not go near a woman\u201d (The Torah: A Modern Commentary, p. 475). Further clarification is given in the comment on 20:14, the last commandment of the Decalogue, which again is addressed to men: \u201cThe Decalogue is inclusive of women except when the subject is sexuality. In the ancient Near East, sexual mores for men and women were not symmetric\u201d (The Torah: A Modern Commentary, p. 480).
\nFeminist Responses to Moses\u2019s Warning
\n\u201cThere can be no verse in the Torah more disturbing to the feminist than Moses\u2019s warning to his people in Exodus 19:15,\u201d says Judith Plaskow in her book Standing at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective. \u201cFor here,\u201d she explains, \u201cat the very moment that the Jewish people stands at Sinai, ready to receive the covenant \u2026 Moses addresses the community only of men.\u201d Indeed, her book takes its title from this verse, and it has become the locus classicus for Jewish feminism; there are essays, poems, and passages in feminist literature that quote this verse as an example of the exclusion of women from tradition.
\nFeminist scholar Ellen Frankel comments on this passage in her Five Books of Miriam, in which she envisions how Jewish women and their biblical foremothers might have responded:
\nBefore unveiling the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai, God instructs Moses to tell the people to prepare themselves by entering into a state of purity for three days. But when Moses relays God\u2019s instructions to the people, he embellishes them, adding his own warning: \u201cDo not go near a woman.\u201d What\u2019s he up to\u2014and why does God let him get away with it?
\nHuldah the Preacher answers: Throughout the four books of the Bible in which Moses is the main character\u2014Exodus through Deuteronomy\u2014God constantly instructs him to convey messages to the people. And as with any game of telephone, sometimes something gets lost or garbled in the translation.
\nWily Rebecca disagrees: No, in conveying God\u2019s message to the people, Moses deliberately changes the audience addressed. God\u2019s original instructions\u2014\u201cBe ready for the third day\u201d\u2014include all the people; Moses, however, addresses himself only to men: \u201cDo not go near a woman.\u201d In commanding the people to purify themselves for three days, God is asking them to mark a distinction between the profane realm of the everyday and the sacred realm of Revelation. Moses, however, redivides the two realms differently: for him, the profane realm includes all the people; the sacred only men. To enter the latter realm, as Moses sees it, requires isolation from women.
\nLilith the Rebel concurs: In giving Moses these instructions, God entrusts him with a sacred task: to safeguard the people from death, which threatens them if they come too close to holiness or approach it improperly prepared. But Moses violates this trust by adding his own interpretation: \u201cDo not go near a woman.\u201d And it\u2019s not the only time he does this. in fact, this habit of literary license ultimately costs him his passport to the Promised Land.
\nFriedman\u2019s first comment is probably closer to the mark. In ancient societies, the language often tended to be male-centered and exclusionary. His second comment is more apologetic in tone. The new Reform commentary reminds us that the biblical text needs to be understood in its broader social-historical context.
\nEach Commentary Offers New Insights
\nThe commentaries discussed earlier in this chapter, which for the most part (except for the Israeli publications and a few of the classical commentaries, such as those of Ralbag, Abarbanel, and Berlin), are available in English translation, and can be grouped into four major categories: (1) the classical medievals, (2) the scientific modernists, (3) the traditional modernists, and (4) the modern traditionalists.
\nThe classical medievals come from different backgrounds and have varying approaches to the text. All are firmly grounded in the rabbinic tradition, but many refer to it only on occasion, preferring to adhere to the peshat reading. They resort to external sources to varying degrees. All have gained acceptance in the canon of Jewish biblical interpretation.
\nWomen\u2019s Contributions to Biblical Scholarship
\nThe proliferation of Jewish women\u2019s writing on the Bible, in its very diversity, is a force for liberation and transformation. It exemplifies women\u2019s access to education and to the institutions of higher education and publication, and it allows women\u2019s views to stand alongside those of male scholars in shaping the field of biblical studies. Whether they do or do not view the Bible as a positive force in women\u2019s lives, they themselves, as women writers on the Bible, model the possibilities for Jewish women to become engaged and make strong contributions in the form of works that will be read and have influence on other scholars and in the broader community.
\nFrom Adele Reinhartz, \u201cJewish Women\u2019s Scholarly Writings on the Bible,\u201d The Jewish Study Bible.
\nThe scientific modernists are comfortable in the world of contemporary biblical scholarship and are active participants in its discourse, but they tend to avoid its nihilistic excesses, such as recent trends questioning the historical veracity of the Davidic monarchy or dating the entire biblical corpus to the Hellenistic period. Many are faculty members at Israeli or North American universities.
\nThe traditional modernists are open to and use the findings of modern biblical scholarship and archaeology as long as these don\u2019t challenge the integrity of the biblical text and traditional attributions of authorship. Source criticism is, for the most part, rejected, but literary analysis is warmly embraced. Proponents of this approach include Shadal (S. D. Luzzatto), Nechama Leibowitz, the authors of the Da\u2019at Miqra series, and many faculty members of Bar-Ilan and Yeshiva Universities.
\nThe modern traditionalists are exemplified by the commentators of the ArtScroll Chumash and Tanach series. These commentators, for the most part, ignore modern biblical scholarship and base their commentaries on a restricted number of approved sources with impeccable religious credentials, such as the classical commentators and luminaries of the yeshivah world.
\nAwareness of these trends can help one make an informed decision about which commentaries to purchase or consult. The classical medieval and modern traditional commentaries can teach us how to read the text more closely, raise our sensitivity to every detail and nuance in the text, and heighten our awareness of the relationship between small details and the big picture. Modern commentaries such as Friedman\u2019s, Alter\u2019s, and the more scholarly ones such as Miqra le-Yisra\u2019el and the JPS Commentary series are needed to incorporate \u201cthe new interpretations being revealed every day,\u201d based on new discoveries in archaeology and Semitic philology and the literary, theological, and personal insights of a new generation of scholars and readers.
\nThe Bible is a text that is endlessly open to interpretation. Each comment in every commentary is a link in the great chain of interpretation that joins the generations and ultimately leads back to biblical times. Each of us brings to the Bible his or her own knowledge, understanding, and sensibilities and can provide new insights not seen by previous readers. The process of interpretation is ongoing and unending, keeping the Bible fresh, alive, and full of meaning, commentator after commentator, reader after reader, generation after generation.ources.<\/p>\n
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