Torah: The Five Books of Moses

Rating:
Summary: Easy to read for first timers.
Review: I had never read the Torah before so getting this version that is simple and understandable was a wise choice. Unfortunately, there was little english character Hebrew included so if you're after Hebrew pronunciation and speak english only (and therefore understand english characters only) you're out of luck.

Having said that I understood the book only too well and as a result will never read it again. I would judge this a must read.

Rating:
Summary: Literally a revelation
Review: I now realise that I had never really understood the Five Books of Moses before I read this superb translation. It is written in easy to understand, modern English but unlike say the "Good News" version it brings out the full meaning without oversimplification. Many Christians devalue the Old Testament and imagine that only the New Testament is worth studying. However, to those who think that the Laws of Moses are archaic and outmoded, or who imagine that "Love your neighbour as yourself" is solely a New Testament idea, I say read this and be amazed. The Old Testament God is as close to us and full of love for us as Jesus.

Rating:
Summary: Literally a revelation
Review: I now realise that I had never really understood the Five Books of Moses before I read this superb translation. It is written in easy to understand, modern English but unlike say the "Good News" version it brings out the full meaning without oversimplification. Many Christians devalue the Old Testament and imagine that only the New Testament is worth studying. However, to those who think that the Laws of Moses are archaic and outmoded, or who imagine that "Love your neighbour as yourself" is solely a New Testament idea, I say read this and be amazed. The Old Testament God is as close to us and full of love for us as Jesus.

Rating:
Summary: Easy to read for first timers.
Review: This excellent translation breaks completely away from the "Bible English" epitomised by the King James version. Orlinsky is one of the greatest ever bible translators - he was also involved with two other major translations, the RSV and the NRSV. While it would not be difficult to find a few places where I would have translated differently, on balance this translation is as good as any now available and better than most.

Rating:
Summary: A Commendable Translation
Review: Translating the Hebrew writings commonly and collectively known as the Old Testament is a complex task. Not only is the scholar faced with the absence of written vowels, leading to many uncertain words, but there are also the wide varieties of literary types (histories, poems, narratives, tales, songs, etc.) to not only translate but convey into an intelligible English that preserves the meaning as well as the style of the original. Add to this the intense religious importance of the work to the three major religions on the world and all the feeling that can accompany that and the task is, to put it mildly, heroic. Moreover, some translations are made from the Masoretic text, others from the Septuagint, still others from combinations of the two. While the Septuagint is actually an older version, it is also in Greek. Thus the translator is faced with the choice between Scylla and Charybdis when choosing a source document - the older Greek and thus twice removed, being a Greek translation of an older Hebrew or perhaps even Aramaic text, or the more recent (ninth century B.C.E.) Masoretic text that is at least in Hebrew. Most often the result of all this textual and linguistic juggling is the production of a mere shadow of the original. In the case of the JPS Torah, the result is better than average.

The word choices made by the translators are often, if not conventional, very good. The footnotes are informative and there is an honesty to the work not commonly found when such material is translated, as when the meaning of a Hebrew word is not known, it is declared as unknown. Alternate or conventional variations are also offered if the point is very contentious. Occasionally, for the point of clarity, the translators inject their own phrase to replace one that simply will not translate without horribly distorting the flow of the passage. However, when this is done, the fact and the actual literal passage is always preserved in a footnote. While the language does not match the stylistic subtlety from one book to another that would be perceived by a reader if the original language text was consulted, as is so finely wrought in Mr. Lattimore's New Testament translation, it is certainly an improvement over many previous translations.

There are some who would argue that the poetic flow of the text so widely praised in such a work as the King James Bible is absent in the JPS Torah. To consider this point, the question must be asked whether the ultimate goal is poetry or accuracy. In all cases save perhaps the long poem near the end of Deuteronomy, accuracy must be esteemed higher than poetics.

The text of Genesis is particularly good. The translation well preserves the fact that Genesis is a compilation of not only different editions of earlier works but interwoven accounts of the same stories, especially the creation and the flood narratives. Deuteronomy is also to be commended as it clearly stands out as an independent work written to cover the same material as is contained in Exodus and Numbers. Readers accustomed to the cohesively edited texts, such as KJV and RSV, may find these differences somewhat disturbing; however to those not accustomed to noticing such differences, they are not likely to be noticed.

On a more mundane level, the book is much easier to read than a standard Bible. The text is clear and of a size common to most books. It is not arranged in those ridiculous, space saving columns so common in most Bibles; rather, paragraphs are used where appropriate, verse stanzas likewise. What makes it even better is that even though the line numbers are used, they are not dominant and so can be easily ignored. Best of all, the translators took some note as to where a story obviously ends and a new one begins, and they broke the paragraphs accordingly (even if it did not agree with the line and section numbers). By themselves, these reasons alone would nearly justify reading this edition.

In the end, the JPS Torah is to be highly recommended over all comprehensive editions of the Bible. In fact, those truly interested in getting a better feel for the Biblical texts should read the JPS Torah, Prophets, and, Writings (or their combined form in the TANAKH), along with Richard Lattimore's translation of the New Testament. These will give the reader a distinctly more accurate translation, as well as a better flavor of the original texts, than any other publicly published editions.