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Don't play games with me. The old testament is the Jewish bible.
Actually, no. The Jewish Bible also contains the pure-politics/nationalism/ practicality-driven writings as well. Ever heard of the Book of the Maccabees, Books of Ezra, and Enoch, and the Septuagint? Those are books they read,too.
Also, they suppliment it with a HUGE dose of reading the Talmud--which is the greatest error in their approach to God.
None the less, the OT isn't the same. The narrative in the Jewish Bible is WAY more political and nationalistic, which is sad.
If you're interested in learning something today, you'll learn that the OT is not NOT the Tanakh. The OT is the Chrstian mistranslations of the Tanakh. Jews do not read mistranslations. We read the source material, which is the Tanakh itself (written in Hebrew) - not some biased mistranslated version of such.
Sorry to have to burst your little bubble but the Septuagint is a Greek translation by 72 Hebrew scholars from the Hebrew. The Hebrew people used the Septuagint extensively. So actually, they do use translations.
Abraham Benisch translation
The first Jewish translation of the Bible to English was a bilingual edition by Abraham Benisch, A Translation of the Old Testament, Published with the Hebrew Text, published in England in 1851.[7]
Isaac Leeser translation
Isaac Leeser
The first American Jewish English translation of the Bible was the 19th century effort by Isaac Leeser. Leeser began with a five-volume, bilingual Hebrew–English edition of the Torah and haftarot, The Law of God (Philadelphia, 1845). The complete translation of the entire Bible was published as The Twenty-four books of the Holy Scriptures in 1853 (commonly called The Leeser Bible). In 1857 he re-issued it in a second (folio-size) edition, with abridged notes.
Until the 1917 Jewish Publication Society translation, the Leeser translation was the most important Jewish English translation. It was widely-used in North American synagogues and reprinted in England.[8]
A modern writer notes that despite its longevity, Leeser's translation was "wooden" and "devoid of literary distinction". He concludes that "it is perhaps the existence of Leeser's work rather than its merits that marks it as a noteworthy achievement".[9]
Michael Friedländer translation
Michael Friedländer edited a Jewish Family Bible in English and Hebrew. It was published in England in 1881.[8] The Friedlander edition is similar in style to the King James Version but diverges primarily in places where the King James translation reflects a Christian interpretation that is at odds with the traditional Jewish understanding. While it never gained wide popularity, it influenced the editors of the first JPS edition (see below). This translation is currently available in a facsimile edition from Sinai Publishers.
Jewish Publication Society translations
The translations of the Jewish Publication Society of America (JPS) have become the most popular English translations of the Hebrew Bible[citation needed]. JPS has published two such translations.
Old JPS (1917)
The first JPS translation was completed in 1917 by a committee led by Max Margolis and was based on the scholarship of its day. Its literary form was consciously based on that of the King James Version; Margolis, a non-native speaker of English, felt that was the proper standard of language that Jews should adopt for their translation. The Old JPS translation was used in a number of Jewish works published before the 1980s, such as the Pentateuch and Haftaroth edited by J. H. Hertz and the Soncino Books of the Bible series. The translation committee included Cyrus Adler, Solomon Schechter, Kaufmann Kohler, Samuel Schulman, and David Philipson.[10] However, Schechter and Jacobs died before the translation was completed.[11]
Some of the copies had been printed with a serious printing error. A typesetter dropped a tray of type for first chapter of Isaiah and had incorrectly reset the type.[12]
New JPS
The bilingual Hebrew–English edition of the New JPS translation.
The 1917 translation was felt to be outdated by the 1950s, and a new effort developed that involved cooperation between numerous Jewish scholars from a variety of denominations. The translation of the Torah was started in 1955 and completed in 1962. Nevi'im was published in 1978 and Ketuvim in 1984.
The entire Tanakh was revised and published in one volume in 1985, and a bilingual Hebrew–English version appeared in 1999 (also in one volume). The translation is usually referred to as the "New JPS version", abbreviated NJPS (it has also been called the "New Jewish Version" or NJV).
The translators of the New JPS version were experts in both traditional Jewish exegesis of the Bible and modern biblical scholarship. The translation attempts in all cases to present the original meaning of the text in a highly aesthetic form.
The New JPS version is adapted for gender-neutral language in The Torah: A Modern Commentary, revised edition (2005, Union for Reform Judaism, ISBN 0-8074-0833-2), the official Torah commentary of Reform Judaism, where it appears together with the work of translator Chaim Stern. NJPS is also used in Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary (2001, Jewish Publication Society, ISBN 0-8276-0712-1), the official Torah commentary of Conservative Judaism. It is the base translation for The Jewish Study Bible (2004, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-529751-2). And NJPS is the basis for The Contemporary Torah: A Gender-Sensitive Adaptation of the JPS Translation (2006, JPS, ISBN 0-8276-0796-2), also known as CJPS.
There are many more translations by Jews for Jews.
Sorry to have to burst your little bubble but the Septuagint is a Greek translation by 72 Hebrew scholars from the Hebrew. The Hebrew people used the Septuagint extensively. So actually, they do use translations.
Are you aware that we Jews have 7 fast days a year, and one of those fast days commemorates the writing of the septuagint? The writing of that book is considered one of the great tradgedies that have befallen the Jewish people in our history. And BTW, the 72 Jewish scholars were forced to do the translations at the penalty of death. Not exactly an environment condusive to good translations.
There's only one Jewish bible, and it's the Torah. The Torah is the source material, and the only way one can reliably know what is in the Jewish bible, is to learn lashen hakodesh (Hebrew) and study it as a Jew. Anything else is suspect for mistranslations and hidden agendas.
Quote:
Also, they suppliment it with a HUGE dose of reading the Talmud--which is the greatest error in their approach to God.
So you Chrstians know where we Jews err? G-d gave us the Oral Torah (later written as the Talmud), and a Chrsitian is able to declare that it's a mistake for a Jew to read it? Um, ok...
Are you aware that we Jews have 7 fast days a year, and one of those fast days commemorates the writing of the septuagint? The writing of that book is considered one of the great tradgedies that have befallen the Jewish people in our history. And BTW, the 72 Jewish scholars were forced to do the translations at the penalty of death. Not exactly an environment condusive to good translations.
There's only one Jewish bible, and it's the Torah. The Torah is the source material, and the only way one can reliably know what is in the Jewish bible, is to learn lashen hakodesh (Hebrew) and study it as a Jew. Anything else is suspect for mistranslations and hidden agendas.
So you Chrstians know where we Jews err? G-d gave us the Oral Torah (later written as the Talmud), and a Chrsitian is able to declare that it's a mistake for a Jew to read it? Um, ok...
"What was perhaps most significant for the LXX, as distinct from other Greek versions, was that the LXX began to lose Jewish sanction after differences between it and contemporary Hebrew scriptures were discovered.[33] Even Greek-speaking Jews tended less to the LXX, preferring other Jewish versions in Greek, such as that of the 2nd century Aquila translation, which seemed to be more concordant with contemporary Hebrew texts" Septuagint - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"What was perhaps most significant for the LXX, as distinct from other Greek versions, was that the LXX began to lose Jewish sanction after differences between it and contemporary Hebrew scriptures were discovered.[33] Even Greek-speaking Jews tended less to the LXX, preferring other Jewish versions in Greek, such as that of the 2nd century Aquila translation, which seemed to be more concordant with contemporary Hebrew texts" Septuagint - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I don't think you get it. There is only one Jewish bible, and it's the Torah. All these others versions (the OT, the Septuagint, KJV, etc) are just that: versions. I can't believe any rational person would think a Chrstian translation of a Jewish source material (for that matter ANY translation) could replace the original version in it's original language. Shocking.
But now i do see your motivation. Since you do not read Hebrew fluently, nor do you have access to Jewish sources to help teach you the Talmud (the other half of the Torah), your whole faith falls flat on its face without a proper source. So you MUST legitimize your bastardized translations in order to even join the religious discussion.
They weren't my translations bubba, they were YOUR translations which the JEWS used. Gheesh!
If a Greek soldier kidnaps a Jewish scholar, puts a sword to his neck and tells the Jew to "translate this or else!" I would not call that a Jewish translation.
There has never been a time in all of the last 3300 years that Jews were not learning Torah directly from the Torah (in Hebrew - no translations - just the orginal words given at Mount Sinai). Greeks and Chrstians can create as many translations as they want, but the source material, the Torah itself, has not changed by more than a few vowels in the last 3300 years. So please don't try to trick anyone here at C-D into thinking that there are translations of the Torah that are equivalent to learning from the source material itself, in the source language.
B. Origin according to the commonly accepted view.
As to the Pentateuch the following view seems plausible, and is now commonly accepted in its broad lines: The Jews in the last two centuries B.C. were so numerous in Egypt, especially at Alexandria, that at a certain time they formed two-fifths of the entire population. Little by little most of them ceased to use and even forgot the Hebrew language in great part, and there was a danger of their forgetting the Law. Consequently it became customary to interpret in Greek the Law which was read in the synagogues, and it was quite natural that, after a time, some men zealous for the Law should have undertaken to compile a Greek Translation of the Pentateuch. This happened about the middle of the third century B.C. As to the other Hebrew books -- the prophetical and historical -- it was natural that the Alexandrian Jews, making use of the translated Pentateuch in their liturgical reunions, should desire to read the remaining books also and hence should gradually have translated all of them into Greek, which had become their maternal language; this would be so much the more likely as their knowledge of Hebrew was diminishing daily. It is not possible to determine accurately the precise time or the occasions on which these different translations were made; but it is certain that the Law, the Prophets, and at least part of the other books, that is, the hagiographies, existed in Greek before the year 130 B.C., as appears from the prologue of Ecclesiasticus, which does not date later than that year. It is difficult also to say where the various translations were made, the data being so scanty. Judging by the Egyptian words and expressions occurring in the version, most of the books must have been translated in Egypt and most likely in Alexandria; Esther however was translated in Jerusalem (XI, i).
Not only that but Daniel wrote his book in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the time.
The entire Talmud Bavli (which hundreds of thousands of Jews to this very day learn from daily) is written in a combo or Aramaic and Hebrew. What's your point?
At no time in Jewish history, has there not been a core of Jews using the Torah in it's original source and laguage to study it. While there may have been large populations of Jews in exile creating and learning from translations, no normative Judaism ever came from that. To this very day (and continuous for the last 2,000 years), Jews use 2 primary sources for their Jewish learning: the Torah given to Moshe Rabbeinu at Mount Sinai, and the Talmud Bavli, written by our Jewish sages in exile in Babylonia roughly 1,800 to 2,000 years ago. The fact that some Jews wrote a translation at threat of death, and then those translations were used as the basis of forming the entire Chrstian religion, you MAY NOT use that to slander the Jews by saying we approve of ANYTHING in your Septuagint. Remember, to this very day, we Jews fast at the disgust and shame of the creation of the Septuagint.
To be a Jew means you believe in the Torah, both written and oral, and that you believe the Torah we have today is the same one given at Har Sinai 3,300 years ago. You can graft whatever Chrstian stuff you want onto our religion, but don't tell a Jew your Chrstian OT is the same thing as what we read in our Torah. How can you possibly know? You can read Hebrew? You've looked inside a Torah before?
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