Teaching Bible in Our Rabbinical Schools
ment of a secular institution of to be-constitutes the focus of
study. However, for the correct
understanding of the Bible in its
historical career, the Christian and
Moslem countries of Asia, Europe
and North Africa-and only re-
cently also the countries of the
Western World--during the first
two millenia CE, constituting as
they do the period and regions
in whiCh the Bible was widely
used and regarded as the basis
of the Bible in its historical set- of authority by every important
By HARRY M. ORLINSKY
Teaching Bible in a rabbinical ting, the Near East of the last stratum of society, make up the
school is not the same as teach- two millenia BCE-the period and area of our interest.
ing Bible in the Semitics depart- region in which the Bible came
So it is two different Bibles
that are involved in these two
great, but different, historical
epochs. For we must realize
(From the files of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
clearly that the Bible became
40 Years Ago This•Week: 1930
and remained a living force in
The World Zionist Organization's Actions Committee refused Dr.
Jewish (as in Christian) life
Chaim Weizmann's offer to resign as WZO president after he caused a
precisely because it was lifted
sensation by declaring: "We must agree to 'Palestine becoming a bi-
right out of the living conditions
national state. It is impossible to continue the talks about a Jewish
which had brought it into be-
state as we did during the period when the world was engaged in war
ing and adjusted to the con-
. . . Two nations must exist in Palestine."
Maurice Schwartz, whose Yiddish Art Theater of New York closed
siderably different conditions of
for lack of support, announced he would relocate it in Philadelphia.
the Hellenistic, Roman, Chris-
Dr. Sigmund Freud won the 1930 Goethe Prize.
tian, Moslem, Persian and other
The East Side Chamber of Commerce said 75 per cent of the busi-
cultures and societies of the
nesses in that New York area were in Jewish hands despite an exodus.
Common Era. I use the term
Dr. Paul Goebbels, a National Socialist member of the Reichstag,
"adjusted" in its widest possible
was given a six-week jail term for libelous published remarks about
sense, excluding virtually no im-
Berlin's Jewish police chief.
plications.
Editor's Note: Dr. Harry M. Orlinsky,
author of this essay, is professor of
Bible at Hebrew Union College and higher learning. In a Semitics di.-1
president of Society of Biblical Litera- partment, the primary purpose is
ture. He was chairman of the commit-
tee that supervised the revived transla- to account for the Bible in its his-
tion of "The Torah," which was pub- , torical setting: how and why it
lished by the Jewish Publication So-
ciety, and is author of "Notes on the I came to be. In a rabbinical school,
New Translation of the Torah, a recent the primary purpose is to account
JPS volume. This essay was the sub
stance of an address Dr. Orlinsky de- for the Bible in its historical de-
livered at Camp Kum Warwick, N.Y., velopment: how and why the Bible
sponsored by the Union of American ,
Hebrew Congregations. The summer -as a finished product-came to
group he addressed is called Torah be used and interpreted.
Corps-Plugat Hatorah.
For the proper comprehension
• .
This Week in History
10 Years Ago This Week: 1960
The Zionist Organization of America urged Washington to "under-
take a new initiative to bring Israel and the Arab states into direct
negotiations at the peace table."
The State Department, while warning Kuwait against "unwarrant-
ed" pressure on American businesses to support the Arabs' boycott of
Israel, said the pressure was not an "unfriendly act" because it "was
not directed against the United States as such."
Foreign Minister Golda Meir said Israel would provide 1,000 schol-
arships for studies there by African and Asian students.
Alpha Tau Omega, a top fraternity, said it would "cooperate with
university authorities in their anti-discrimination rulings," but that its
"traditional membership" probably would not change.
George Lincoln Rockwell and seven American Nazi "stormtroopers".
were convicted in Washington Municipal Court on two counts of dis-
orderly conduct in connection with anti-Semitic rallies. New York
State Supreme Court Justice Henry Epstein rejected Rockwell's plea
to speak in Union Square because the resultant "public disorder and
riot" would put the rally beyond "the reasonable scope of the Bill of
Rights."
Premier Hazza al-Majali of Jordan was assassinated with a time
bomb.
The Anti-Defamation League warned Jews to ignore the "unsub-
stantiated rumors" that Presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and
Richard M. Nixon had "anti-Semitic bias."
Two rabbinic leaders said the Czech and Hungarian regimes ex-
pected their Jewish communities to disappear because they are "con-
vinced that religion cannot long endure in the climate of a society that
vigorously pursues a policy of materialistic atheism."
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Hebrew Column
Archeologists
in Sinai Desert
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1. thank you very much
28
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34
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sons
the nights
garden
hook
the dew
the hope
bad (masc. sing.)
orange
41. warm (masc. sing.)
42. doors
43. pure (masc. sing.)
38
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
(two words)
flower
beauty
damp (masc. sing.)
sub
brown
take (plural)
hook
11. bell
13. echo .
15. cost of
17. to lead
It is equally true that mod-
ern biblical scholarship, mostly
Protestant, has been nothing
short of revolutionary in mak-
ing us comprehend the Bible in
a manner and to an extent that
was impossible and unimagin-
able prior to the 20th Cen-
tury; for this we must all be
forever most grateful. Yet we
can gain even deeper compre-
hension of the Bible if we study
the medieval Jewish commenta-
tors increasingly, systematically
and critically, for they will sup-
ply us with considerable inform-
ation and understanding that
will go well with the extrabib-
Heal data unearthed in more
re cent ti e
I say this, because of my ex-
perience in translating the Bible
as a member of the committee that
produced the Protestant Revised
Standard Version of the Old Testa
ment (1952) and of the commit-
tee that produced the new Jew-
ish Publication Society's version of
the Torah (1962). In the volume
of Notes on the New Translation
of the Torah, due to appear any
day now (it appeared on March 4),
I wrote, "A major consequence of
this new (JPS) translation is the
realization that the traditional in-
terpreters of the Bible-beginning
with the earliest rabbinic litera-
ture and extending through Saadia,
Rashi, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Radak,
Ramban, Ralbag, Sforno, and
Abravanel, to Luzzatto, Malbim,
and others-command in vastly
increased measure the respect and
gratitude of modern critical schol-
arship.
"These traditional commentators
gain our scholarly respect not from
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,
. A llman
ACROSS
21 only
23. pirates
26 doll
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6 (they) engraved
9 and wind
10 apple
12 (he) pushed
14 page
16 children
19 who
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When studying the Bible in its
historical setting, it is the langu-
ages and cultures and histories of
Sumer, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt,
the Hurrians, the Hittites. Canaan,
Moab, Ammon. Edom, Aram, Pho-
enicia, Philistia, and the like, that
must be studied; and the arche-
ology of these lands and civiliza-
tions assumes major significance
for the serious student of the
Bible. For the study of the Bible
in its historical development, how-
ever, it is rather the opinions and
interpretations of Rabbi Akiba in
the 2nd Century, of the Talmudic
Rabbis and the Masoretes in the
centuries that followed, of Saadia
Gaon in the 10th Century, of the
incomparable Rashi in the 11th
Century, of his grandson Rashbam
in the 12th, of the acute Ibn Ezra
and of Radak-the greatest of the
Kimchis-in the 12-13th centuries,
of Ramban in the 13th, Ralbag in
the 14th, Abravanel in the 15th,
and Sforno in the 16th Century-
it is to these Jewish masters of
biblical exegesis that we must turn.
A is-man expedition from the anti-
quities department in Jerusalem visited
the Sinai Desert, and made an arche-
ological survey for a week. The ex-
pedition traveled to Sinai to get to
know the region of Kadesh-Barnea,
which was one of the important stops
of the children of Israel when they
wandered through the desert on the way
from Egypt to the land of Canaan.
Kadesh-Barnea is situated next to an
Important road-junction which connects
the land of Israel and Egypt with the
Sinai Desert. The spot is today called
Tel Kudeirat and is situated in a fer-
tile valley blessed with water. The
spring, Ein Kudeirat, flows strongly
(lit. with much force). The members
of the expedition found a wall circling
the valley in which Kadesh-Barnea is
situated. Its length is about five kilo-
meters and it stands to this day at
a height of 1! ,2 meters above ground.
One of the members of the expedi-
tion related that on their way in Sinai
they found a great number of rock
drawings. The drawings were from the
Nabatean, Roman and early Arabic
18. you sat (plural)
20. right
22. voices
24. apartment
25. blood
27. expensive
30. wave
33. (they) flew
34. the brother
35. committee
36. (they) drank
the Iron Age. The expedition also visit-
ed a small island in the Gulf of Ellat
and found ruins of buildings from the
Middle Ages on IL
40. (he) moved
by Brit Ivrit (Hama in conjunction
with Keren Mittman Latarbut Yehudit.
39. piece (of bread)
Feature Sponsored by Tarbut Foundation for the Advancement of Hebrew Culture.
blind acceptance of their views
but rather from a critical evalua-
tion of their exposition in a man-
ner that any modern commenta-
tor expects from his peers." And
in an article on Jewish influence
on Christian translations of the
Bible, ("Jewish Scholarship and
Christian Translations of the He-
brew Bible," Yearbook LXIII cf
the Central Conference of Ameri-
can Rabbis, 1953, pp 235-252), I
dealt inter alia with the central
role that Rashi's commentary-by
way of the Jewish convert to
Christianity, Nicolas de Lyra-
played in the making of Martin
Luther's great German translation
and-through Luther-of William
Tyndale's English version; with
the influence of David Kirnchi
(Radak), so pervasive that, as put
by Max L. Margolis in his fine
little book on The Story of Bible
Translations, it "may be traced in
every line of the Anglican (so-
called King James) version of
1911"; with the way in which
Abraham ibn Ezra influenced the
translation of the word tzedaka
of Proverbs 8.18: "prosperity" in-
stead of traditional "righteous-
ness" and the like.
In a rabbinical school it is not
easy to combine the two ap-
proaches, though much of the prob-
lem would be solved if a post-
graduate course in Bible leading
to the PhD degree were simul-
taneously available to the interest-
ed student. Lacking that, the stu-
dent has to depend on his teacher
and on the secondary literature-
where he is usually limited to the
English language-for information
of extrabiblical origin.
Professional biblical scholars
have tended to dismiss them as
well-meaning and learned men
who lacked the critical attitude
that distinguishes the scientifically
minded from the merely learned
student of the Bible-as we say in
Yiddish, der gelernter as distinct
from der vissenshaftlicher. Of
course the traditional Jewish com-
mentators-just like the non-Jew-
ish prior to the 19th Cen-
tury - were not archeologists,
trained historians, cuneiformists,
Egyptologists, and the like, but
they knew the Bible. They knew
Hebrew. They had a feeling for
the nuances of a biblical Hebrew
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