The Sacred Books of Judaism: Religious Collection: Scripture, History & Philosophy of Jewish Faith
The sacred task of translating the Word of God, as revealed to Israel through
lawgiver, prophet, psalmist, and sage, began at an early date. According to an
ancient rabbinic interpretation, Joshua had the Torah engraved upon the stones
of the altar (Joshua viii. 32) not in the original Hebrew alone, but in all the
languages of mankind, which were held to be seventy, in order that all men
might become acquainted with the words of the Scriptures. This statement, with
its universalistic tendency, is, of course, a reflex of later times, when the
Hebrew Scriptures had become a subject of curiosity and perhaps also of
anxiety to the pagan or semi-pagan world.
While this tradition contains an element of truth, it is certain that the
primary object of translating the Bible was to minister to a need nearer home.
Upon the establishment of the Second Commonwealth under Ezra and
Nehemiah, it became imperative to make the Torah of God 'distinct and giving
sense' through the means of interpretation (Nehemiah viii. 8 and xiii. 24),
that the Word of God might be understood by all the people. The Rabbis
perceived in this activity of the first generation of the Sopherim the origin of the
Aramaic translation known as the Targum, first made orally and afterwards
committed to writing, which was necessitated by the fact that Israel had
forgotten the sacred language, and spoke the idiom current in a large part of
western Asia. All this, however, is veiled in obscurity, as is the whole inner
history of the Jews during the Persian rule.
The historic necessity for translation was repeated with all the great changes
in Israel's career. It is enough to point to the Septuagint, or the Greek translation
of the Scriptures, the product of Israel's contact with the Hellenistic civilization
dominating the world at that time; to the Arabic translation by the Gaon Saadya,
when the great majority of the Jewish people came under the sceptre of
Mohammedan rulers; and to the German translation by Mendelssohn and his
school, at the dawn of a new epoch, which brought the Jews in Europe, most of
whom spoke a German dialect, into closer contact with their neighbours. These
translations are all historical products intimately connected with Israel's
wanderings among the nations and with the great events of mankind in general.
Ancient and continuous as this task of translation was, it would be a mistake
to think that there were no misgivings about it. At least it is certain that opinions
were divided as to the desirability of such undertakings. While Philo and his
Alexandrian coreligionists looked upon the translation of the Seventy as a work
of inspired men, the Palestinian Rabbis subsequently considered the day on
which the Septuagint was completed as one of the most unfortunate in Israel's
history, seeing that the Torah could never be adequately translated. And there
are indications enough that the consequences of such translations were not all of
a desirable nature. However, in view of the eagerness with which they were
undertaken almost in every land and in every great epoch of the world's history,
it is evident that the people at large approved of such translations, thinking them
to be a heave-offering to the Lord of each newly acquired vernacular adopted in
the course of the ever-changing conditions of history, and in particular a tribute
to the beauty of Japheth dwelling in the spiritual tents of Israel.
The greatest change in the life of Israel during the last two generations was
his renewed acquaintance with English-speaking civilization. Out of a handful
of immigrants from Central Europe and the East who saw the shores of the New
World, or even of England and her colonies, we have grown under Providence
both in numbers and in importance, so that we constitute now the greatest
section of Israel living in a single country outside of Russia. We are only
following in the footsteps of our great predecessors when, with the growth of
our numbers, we have applied ourselves to the sacred task of preparing a new
translation of the Bible into the English language, which, unless all signs fail, is
to become the current speech of the majority of the children of Israel.
The need of such a translation was felt long ago. Mention may here be made
of the work of Isaac Leeser in America, which was both preceded and followed
by two translations produced in England: the one by Dr. A. Benisch, the other
by Dr. Michael Friedländer. The most popular, however, among these
translations was that of Leeser, which was not only the accepted version in all
the synagogues of the United States, but was also reproduced in England. Its
great merit consisted in the fact that it incorporated all the improvements
proposed by the Mendelssohn School and their successors, whose combined
efforts were included and further developed in the so-called Zunz Bible, which
enjoyed a certain authority among German Jews for several generations. With
the advance of time and the progress made in almost all departments of Bible
study, it was found that Leeser's translation would bear improvement and
recasting.
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