Rating: 
Summary: Old Testament in English from Jewish perspective
Review: As a Christian, I'd heard (favorably) about the upcoming publication of the newest Oxford Jewish Study Bible, so I purchased it at the end of January 04. I have not been disappointed with this purchase. It's a nice addition to my library to have what Christians consider the Old Testament, in contemporary English, in a layout/format, translation and commentary from a Jewish perspective. Note that for example as to commentary: Chapter 52/53 of Isaiah dealing with the "suffering servant", the commentary explains how Christians believe/teach that this is referring to Jesus, but then gives at least two different Jewish perspectives on this passage. Other goodies are diagrams of the temple, and commentaries on the levitical priesthood and temple practice from a Jewish perspective that give insight to those of the Christian faith trying to understand the Jewish roots of our faith.
Rating:
Summary: Another excellent study Bible from Oxford
Review: I also have used and enjoyed the Catholic Study Bible, from Oxford. The Jewish Study Bible has a very attractive format; easy to use and to read. The page-by-page type annotation is welcome for those really studying the text (no need to flip back and forth). Quite in-depth essays on the development of the Bible in its historical and geographical settings follow the text; others on the Bible in Jewish culture are provided for those seeking to understand what this Book means to the Jewish community. A glossary is also provided, of help especially, perhaps, to the non-Jewish reader (like me).
Rating:
Summary: Review
Review: I can't believe anyone has finished reading this book. I am still in the middle. So far it is really interesting, and besides the King's James version, it is the best translation that I have read. It gives you a lot to think about. I have no comment really about how good the translation is, because I am not an expert on this sort of translation. But the notes are very interesting and informative. It seems to be a very modern interpretation by the the experts. It deals with all the studies, contradictions, and errors. It keeps you aware of all the different authors of the Tanakh.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, a Jewish Study Bible
Review: I have wanted there to be something like this on the market for a while, so I was very excited when I found it, and have not been disappointed. This is a wonderful tool for those who study the Bible from an historical critical perspective, as well as those who want an overview of how Jews read the Bible (see especially the essays), and have little need for a purely faith-based study Bible with a specific theological agenda. Which is not to say that this book is perfect, but of those I have seen, it is well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Ian Myles Slater on: Is Up To Date Enough?
Review: I held back from submitting a review until I had worked my way through this hefty volume (or rather, its original material, as I was very familiar with the translation), so I might as well address some of the issues raised in the meantime.
At least some of the earlier reviewers seem originally to have been under the impression that the base text of this commentary was the Jewish Publication Society translation of 1917 (and not happy to find out that it wasn't). That translation (JPS or JPSV for short) was itself a de facto revision of the British Revised Version of 1885, carried out under the direction of (and largely the work of) Max L. Margolis, a distinguished critical scholar. (He had a known distaste for organized religion, which probably helped him ignore objections from some of his supposed colleagues in the Rabbinate.) It *was* the base text in the Soncino Bible Commentary, and the second edition of the Hertz Pentateuch, used in Synagogues for decades, and for a series of commentaries on specific books, published by the JPS itself. The Old JPS "Holy Scriptures" was for me, as for many other Jewish readers in the United States (and elsewhere), the primary introduction to the Bible. (For further details, the essay on Jewish Bible translations in the present volume may be consulted.)
"The Jewish Study Bible" is, in fact, based on the *replacement* for this familiar version, published between 1962 and 1982, as the New Jewish Publication Society Version (NJPSV). The Old JPS version, however, apparently is still being reprinted, fortunately for those who find the NJPSV gratingly modern, or just bland and rather abstract in its choice of words. It is important to keep the two versions distinct, however, as they were carried out following different principles of translation, and have very a different "feel".
The New Translation (now a few decades old) differs dramatically in using modern, instead of modified King James Version, English, in both vocabulary and, more radically, in sentence structure. With its various revisions in 1985 and subsequently, it has the advantage of nearly a century of additional scholarship, especially in archeology and ancient languages. Instead of being stamped with the influence of one strong-minded scholar, it was hammered out by committees of scholars, including representatives of the (modern) Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements. The NJPSV has served as the basis of Reform and Conservative one-volume Torah commentaries, of a JPS five-volume Torah commentary, and of JPS commentaries on various books which are appearing at intervals. The whole translation is also available facing a very beautiful Hebrew text, with selected Massoretic (traditional textual) notes.
Although the translation has been challenged at many points on technical grounds -- with the translators themselves joining in -- Emanuel Tov's "Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible" (1992) singled it out for its fidelity to the received text (any departures are clearly identified), and independence of earlier translations, adding, rather more boldly, that "its exegesis is reliable."
There are other recent Jewish translations, complete or in progress, some from resolutely Orthodox perspectives, others, like Richard Elliott Friedman's, embracing Higher Critical analysis. A major attempt, by Everett Fox, to follow the Hebrew text as closely as possible while still being intelligible as English, differs quite radically from the NJPSV in style, although often in agreement on the meaning; it is appearing in installments as "The Schocken Bible."
The present commentary, covering the whole Jewish Biblical canon, aims to place the Jewish Bible, as a Jewish text, in the context of modern information, and modern critical theories of various kinds. It is, logically enough, based on what is now the mostly widely used *modern* Jewish English translation.
Obviously, this project will not please those who want to think of the Hebrew text as a revelation dictated to human secretaries, and satisfactorily explained by the great medieval commentators and their latter-day synthesizers, whose views need only be copied (selectively). However, the team which has prepared this commentary, like the team of translators, is extremely aware of Jewish issues, and the kinds of questions Jewish readers are likely to have, even if it does not attempt to give Orthodox answers. (For example, Jonathan Klawans' essay on "Concepts of Purity in the Bible" manages to be clear, accurate, insightful, and probably useful to novice Bible readers -- with a good vocabulary or dictionary -- in a mere seven pages; but it is not a guide to observance of traditional Jewish practices.)
In addition to the annotations to the Biblical text, which are themselves of considerable value, there are excellent essays offerings surveys of scholarship from various points of view, of which those under the heading "Jewish Interpretations of the Bible" might well be read first by those with a limited familiarity with this enormous subject, and can probably be read profitably by advanced students as well.
The results are at times strikingly different from those found in the other Oxford Annotated Bibles, and in other one-volume commentaries, such as the avowedly ecumenical "HarperCollins Study Bible." However, even besides material from the most recent Oxford Annotated Bible edition, there is also a very high degree of similarity, due both the presence of Jewish contributors to the other projects (including some whose work is also found in the present commentary), and to the large amount of commonly received linguistic and material (archeological and other) information with which modern scholarship is conducted.
Although those looking for an Orthodox Jewish approach are likely to be disappointed, if not outraged, traditional Jewish understandings of the text are drawn upon, to a considerably greater degree than in other general commentaries, and some, at least, of the Jewish liturgical uses of Biblical passages are identified, either in essays, or in notes to the passages in their original contexts. As I am sure will be true of every reader with a wide background in Biblical studies, I have a number of points with which I disagree. But I am enormously impressed by the enterprise as a whole.
Rating:
Summary: Ian Myles Slater on: Is Up To Date Enough?
Review: I held back from submitting a review until I had worked my way through this hefty volume, so I might as well address some of the issues raised in the meantime. At least some of the earlier reviewers seem to have been under the impression that the base text of this commentary was the Jewish Publication Society translation of 1917. This was itself a de facto revision of the British Revised Version of 1885, carried out under the direction of (and largely the work of) Max L. Margolis, a distinguished critical scholar. (He had a known distaste for organized religion, which probably helped him ignore objections from some of his supposed colleagues in the Rabbinate.) It was used as the based text in the Soncino Bible Commentary, and the second edition of the Hertz Pentateuch, used in Synagogues for decades. The Old JPS "Holy Scripture" was for me, as for many other Jewish readers in the United States, the primary introduction to the Bible. (For further details, the essay on Jewish Bible translations in the present volume may be consulted.) "The Jewish Study Bible" is, in fact, based on the *replacement* for this familiar version, published between 1962 and 1982, as the New Jewish Publication Society Version. The Old JPS version, however, apparently is still being reprinted, fortunately for those who find the NJPSV gratingly modern, or just bland and rather abstract in its choice of words. It is important to keep the two versions distinct, however, as they were carried out following different principles of translation, and have very a different "feel". The New Translation (now a few decades old) differs dramatically in using modern, instead of modified King James Version, English, in both vocabulary and, more radically, in sentence structure. With its various revisions in 1985 and subsequently, has the advantage of nearly a century of additional scholarship, especially in archeology and ancient languages. Instead of being stamped with the influence of one strong-minded scholar, it was hammered out by committees of scholars, including representatives of the (modern) Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements. The NJPSV has served as the basis of Reform and Conservative one-volume Torah commentaries, a JPS five-volume Torah commentary, and is also available facing a very beautiful Hebrew text. There are other recent Jewish translations, complete or in progress, some from resolutely Orthodox perspectives, others, like Richard Elliott Friedman's, embracing Higher Critical analysis. A major attempt, by Everett Fox, to follow the Hebrew text as closely as possible while still being intelligible as English, differs quite radically from the NJPSV in style, although often in agreement on the meaning. The present commentary, covering the whole Jewish Biblical canon, aims to place the Jewish Bible, as a Jewish text, in the context of modern information, and modern critical theories of various kinds. It is logically enough, based on what is now the mostly widely used modern Jewish English translation. Obviously, this project will not please those who want to think of Hebrew text as a revelation dictated to human secretaries, and satisfactorily explained by the great medieval commentators and their latter-day synthesizers. However, the team which has prepared this commentary, like the team of translators, is extremely aware of Jewish issues, and the kinds of questions Jewish readers are likely to have. In addition to the annotations to the Biblical text, which are themselves of considerable value, there are excellent essays offerings surveys of scholarship from various points of view, of which those under the heading "Jewish Interpretations of the Bible" might well be read first by those with a limited familiarity with this enormous subject, and can probably be read profitably by advanced students as well. The results are at times strikingly different from those found in the other Oxford Study Bibles, and in other one-volume commentaries, such as the avowedly ecumenical "HarperCollins Study Bible." There is also a very high degree of similarity, due both the presence of Jewish contributors to the other projects (including some whose work is also found in the present commentary), and to the large amount of commonly received linguistic and material (archeological and other) information with which modern scholarship is conducted. Although those looking for an Orthodox Jewish approach are likely to be disappointed, if not outraged, traditional Jewish understandings of the text are drawn upon, to a considerably greater degree than in other general commentaries, and some, at least, of the Jewish liturgical uses of Biblical passages are identified, either in essays, or in notes to the passages in their original contexts. As I am sure will be true of every reader with a wide background in Biblical studies, I have a number of points with which I disagree. But I am enormously impressed by the enterprise as a whole.
Rating:
Summary: Split in Judaism
Review: I love this book and the reviews by the readers. It documents my own evolution and the problem I have with those in a different space/time mentality. This book will be my intellectual companion together with the Encyc Judaica cdrom. With this book, any non-Jew can argue with Jews about Judaism :)
Rating: 
Summary: This translation is both inaccurate and blasphemous.
Review: I received the book I purchased from you, "The Jewish Study Bible: Featuring the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation," in good condition and very fast. The problem is with the translation: It's WRONG! I was expecting this to be an updated version of the JPS translation, like they claim it is; however, it is an entirely different translation that has completely different meanings of many of the passages. For example: It claims that the Jewish story of Creation was taken from the old Mesopotamian myths. And in Genesis 1:11, it has God implanting the earth with vegetation, rather than the seeds that will eventually sprout the vegetation. This version is very inaccurate, to say the least. I am disappointed and disgusted with the "Jewish" Publication Society, they have made a mockery of Judaism with their new translation. In short, I need to return this book.
Rating:
Summary: At last, an English Bible with chutzpah!
Review: I've always been a fan of the TANAKH Translation of the Hebrew Bible (aka Old Testament), but have been unable to find a volume that had study notes for the entire translation. The Jewish Publication Society (copyright holder of the TANAKH) has nice Commentaries on the individual books of the Torah (plus Jonah and Esther), but these cover only the books mentioned and are too unwieldy for everyday use. Oxford Univ. Press has produced a great single-volume work that is beautifully typeset and easy to read. Each book has an engaging introduction and helpful sidebar notes and commentary provided by reputable Jewish scholars. These notes are organized as thought units, not as random facts and definitions. Although the TANAKH does not break down the text into subunits with section heads, the scholars providing the notes do this in a non-obtrusive manner. I find this to be a very respectful way to treat the Scripture text. (Many Christian study Bibles intrude upon the text in such a willy-nilly manner it can be hard for even a serious Bible-reader to know where the Scripture ends and the "commentating" has begun.) The volume concludes with 200-pages worth of essays: 7 on Jewish interpretation of the Bible; 8 on the Bible in Jewish life and thought; and 9 on backgrounds for reading the Bible (some of which are adaptations of essays found in Oxford's Annotated Bible). Like most study Bibles, the Jewish Study Bible has a timeline to help the reader get an approximate sense of when key biblical events occurred. What's nice about the JSB is that it also has a Chronological Table of Rulers listing rulers not directly referenced in the Bible; this helps the reader better place those that are. The 20-page glossary covers literary and theological terms (casuistic law, etiology, haplography, Oral Torah, etc.) as well as key names and terms from the biblical text. As for "chutzpah"...this can be found in the commentator's note on Isaiah 44.9-13: "God rebukes [the people] for their chutzpah in questioning the means through whom God chose to work." I offer this as evidence that the authors do not confine themselves to dry, esoteric scholarly ways of expression.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent notes and essays
Review: The translation is easily readable; I don't have the background to comment on accuracy. The notes are conveniently in the margins. They explain some of the terminology, compare this translation to others, put the text in its cultural and religious context, compare passages to other Biblical and non-Hebriac religious texts. The essays give insight into various viewpoints on the books - Rabbinic, historical, even Christian! The notes and essays use the latest available textual and historical evidence and tools. And all at a great price. This should certainly be your TANAKH of choice.
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