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1999

R,14 Detroit Jewish News

Mixed Media

New

Timeless Tanach

JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh (Jewish

Publication Society) is a Bible for pre-
sent and future generations of Jews
comfortable with modern scholarship,
at home in contemporary English,
interested in the layers of meaning
embedded in the sacred text. This edi-
tion has roots in the work of a 10th-
century scribe and a 20th-century
computer as well as scores of scholars
in between.
What makes this new edition of the
most widely book
ever published news-
worthy is its layout,
featuring the Hebrew
and English texts side
by side on the same
page, enabling readers
to easily go back and
forth between the
two.
The choice of texts
also is significant: JPS
describes the Hebrew
as the most ancient
complete Hebrew
text. The English is a
translation completed
in the 1980s by sever-
al committees of
scholars, incorporat-
ing findings of recent
biblical scholarship. It
was written in mod-
ern English "that [is] idiomatic, reflec-
tive of the language and spirit of the
biblical period, not Elizabethan
England," as editor-in-chief Dr. Ellen
Frankel explains.
According to the publisher, this is
considered by both Jewish and
Christian scholars to be the most
authoritative translation."
Dr. Frankel says that after consul-
tations with Nahum Sarna and
Chaim Potok, who edited the JPS
Torah Commentary, they decided
that the Leningrad Codex was the
appropriate Hebrew text. That
masoretic text, which includes all
the vowel signs, accent marks, can-
tillation marks, marginal notes and
endnotes which have been transmit-
ted with the text, is traceable back
to a scholar in Tiberias named
Aaron ben Moses ben-Asher, who
flourished circa 930 C.E.
His version was corrected and
recopied by Samuel ben Jacob, a scribe
in Egypt in 1010. When his manu-

"

script was discovered in 1840, it
became known as the Leningrad
Codex. Over the years, international
Bible scholars have edited this codex
for modern use.
In 1987, a team of scholars devel-
oped a computer version, which JPS
obtained. Making many changes in
the text for formatting, punctuation
and typographic markers, the JPS
team made the text their own, copy-
righting it. The preface tells the full
story of the tradition of biblical
transmission and
editing.
Rabbi David
Sulomm Stein,
who has a back-
ground in engi-
neering and
served as manag-
ing editor, co-
designer and
chief proofreader,
points out that
the way this vol-
ume handles
uncertainties in
the text also
makes it unique.
In more than 60
instances, foot-
notes indicate
when more than
one possible
meaning of the
Hebrew is possi-
ble, where a single letter or vowel can
change the meaning of a phrase.
He explains that over the past 1,000
years, as biblical manuscripts have been
transmitted, there have been differ-
ences from one version to another, per-
haps attributable to scribal error. For
example, in 2 Samuel 18.3, the troops
might have said to King David, "Now
there are ten thousand like us," or
"You are worth ten thousand of us."
Similarly, in Psalms 64.7, the poet
might have said, "They have accom-
plished," or "They have concealed."
In most editions, editors have dis-
creetly made decisions about which
possibility to include.
"JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh goes
out of its way to be accountable to
its readers," says Rabbi Stein. "In
the process, it gives readers a unique
window into the history of the
transmission of the Bible text.
Personally, I find that history both
fascinating and humbling."