The Prophets (Nevi'im): A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text [Hardcover]

O. T. Bible (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1978

This is a translation based on the Hebrew Masoretic text, as well as insights drawn from ancient and modern translations and commentaries, including the Septuagint, Targum, and medieval and modern sources. It offers extensive scholarly footnotes, a glossary, and a table of scriptural readings. Includes Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings; the three major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel; and the twelve minor prophets. An English-only edition.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Hebrew (translation)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 898 pages
• Publisher: Jewish Publication Society of America (March 1978)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0827600968
• ISBN-13: 978-0827600966
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #710,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Respectable Translation, June 14, 2000

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This review is from: The Prophets (Nevi'im): A New Translation of the Holy Scriptures According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Hardcover)

For years, translations of the collection of writings known as the Old Testament have been problematic. Some are made from the Masoretic text, others from the Septuagint, still others from combinations of the two. Recently, some have even been produced using only various English translations which were simply sifted together. Most often, the reader never knows what was used or where a text differed from another.

This problem was somewhat rectified in the production of the Tanakh, an English translation made entirely from the Masoretic text. In it, the three distinct sections of the "Old Testament" were broken down into their respective groupings: the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), the Prophets, or Nevi'Im, being the writings of the Prophets (Isaiah, Ezekiel, etc.), and the Writings, or Ketuvim, being the literary works (Ecclesiastes, Job, and so forth). The Tanakh was sold both in a unified copy and in three volumes; this is the second of the three volumes.

Being entirely composed of the Masoretic text translated into English, there are still problems with the base text itself, as the Masoretic text was composed in the ninth century B.C.E. by a group of scholars seeking textual unity. However, at least this is known to the reader at the outset. The question of which base text was used being satisfied, the reader is free to ponder the text presented on a higher level.

The word choices made by the translators is quite 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. The language is alive, and while it does not match the stylistic subtlety of Mr. Lattimore's New Testament translation, it is certainly an improvement over most of the pseudo-epic style of previous translators.

The text of Isaiah alone makes this volume worthy of merit. Strong and forceful, red in the face and fist shaking in the air, there is an urgency to the language; an urgency often lost in other translations. Here are the words of a man convinced of the sins of his people and acting accordingly. While the levels of Isaiah are somewhat obscured (many scholars now think Isaiah was actually written by three different authors, one adding onto the next) the effect is nonetheless very powerful.

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. 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.

Truth be told, translated literature always loses some meaning and a great deal of nuance when compared to the original. The only way to get the full force of any text is to be able to read it in the original, and even then there is still the mountain of cultural and historical separation left to climb. In reality, few among us (very few outside the Jewish faith) have the ability to read classical Hebrew; thus we must make due with translations. As these go, there are few that address this particular text better than the one at hand (or the Tanakh as a whole). Overall, this would be a fine book for all who have an interest in the texts that comprise the "Old Testament."