Customer Reviews
A handy volume - By: lexo1941, 24 Sep 2008 
Maybe I'm just lucky to have good eyesight, but I find this conveniently-sized volume far more wieldy than the hefty hardback version. It's obviously one of the essential books if, like me, you're studying Biblical Hebrew, & the translation is excellent - although I do wish they were a bit more literal & a bit less keen to respect English idiomatic usage. "When God began to create heaven & earth" is clear English, but it doesn't totally capture the strangeness of the Hebrew. Probably only an interlinear translation could do that. In the meantime, the pocket Tanakh is inexpensive, portable & essential. Nice fonts, too.
Relatively small print - By: Charles Soper, 11 Apr 2007 
Please read Kurt's review below for detail, but whilst the Tenach is a great treasure, I was a little disappointed by the small size of the Hebrew font (just over 1mm) for the size of the book (4.5 cm thick,x c.10 x 15 cm), which for a novice is quite hard going, esp for vowels. It looks roughly font size 10 for a Hebrew font on Word - too small for comfortable prolonged reading, especially to begin with.
In the beginning... - By: Kurt Messick, 01 Dec 2004 The Tanakh, an edition of the Holy Scriptures of Judaism, put out by the Jewish Publication Society (JPS), now has a dual-language edition (Hebrew & English), which is incredibly useful for scripture study.
The word Tanakh consists of the first letters of the words denoting the three sections of the text: the Torah (the Law), consisting of the first five books; the Nevi'im (the Prophets), which includes major & minor prophets, as well as some of the history books; & the Kethuvim (the Writings), which consists of poetry, wisdom literature, stories & eschatological literature, & some further history books.
The Tanakh is not simply a new translation of the Christian Old Testament. Indeed, most Christian readers would be surprised at the differences inherentin the Tanakh. For one thing, the ordering of the booksin the Tanakh is different from the orderin the Christian Old Testament. The intent behind the differing order demonstrates one of the key differencesin focus of Judaism & Christianity. The ordering of the Old Testament, with the minor prophets, & their call to repentance & future deliverance of the people of Israel by God, is anticipatory of the Messianic age, & hence provide a `run-up' to the New Testament. Obviously, Judaism does not have the same focus toward Jesus. Thus, the conclusion of the Tanakh leads to the return from exile, the restoration of the people of Israel to the land of promise, & the return of the worship of God to the appointed place, the Temple.
Also, the chapter/verse division is somewhat different. This can be seenin side-by-side comparison with other English Bible translations, but also becomes apparentin comparison with other Jewish editions.
The editors state that English translations usually list thirty-nine books of the Bible. Meanwhile, Hebrew Bibles classically have presented twenty-four books -- counting the following groups as one book each: the two part of Samuel; the two parts of Kings; the Twelve ('Minor') Prophets; Ezra & Nehemiah; & the two parts of Chronicles. Some aspects of our book design presume the thirty-nine-book division: the tables, book openings, & chapter numbers. But we ended only the conventional twenty-four books with a closing prayer & with the sum total of verses.
The Tanakh was originally translated & publishedin three sections, corresponding to the three divisions of the text. Begunin 1955, The Torah was completedin 1962; then there was a wait until The Nevi'im was releasedin 1978, & The Kethuvimin 1982. This edition of the Tanakh is the compilation of these efforts by JPS, with revisions, especially of the 1962 Torah translation.
This edition, while incorporating the Hebrew text, is not meant for ritual practice. The intended readership of this volume is the scholar or the general reader; it is not set up for liturgical use -- as the preface states: 'It meets only the traditional rabbinic standards (halakhah) for formatting a study Bible, which are less stringent than those for ritual texts.'
The introduction is quite frank about the difficulties that arisein working with ancient manuscripts. In a section entitled The Unbroken Chain of Uncertainty, the editors address the problem of which documentation & corrective (the masorah, which gives rise to the name masoretic text, meaning, authoritative & 'marked') is used, given the variances that arisein ancient manuscripts with fairly equal claim of authority. Drawing on the MCW (Michigan-Claremont-Westminster) electronic BHS (Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia), JPS has a text nearly identical with the Leningrad Codex (a 1000-year old volume of the text, the oldest nearly complete volume known). In using this documentation, JPS editors have also done the followingin making the text accessible & authoritative:
- added chapter & verse numbers, all of which were added much later
- redivided the Psalms to 150 (the Codex has divisions into 149)
- inserted markings to show codex paragraphing as well as possible scribal errors
- fillingin cross-references
The editors point out some of the omissions - Like the medieval scribes, we culled most of our nearly six hundred notes from the larger body of masoretic lore (roughly two hundred thousand notes!); we do not pretend to have been exhaustive.
These notes deal with textual anomalies, & are writtenin such a manner than a glossary helps decipher them.
This is a rewarding volume for anyone who seeks to tap into the power of the original language side-by-side with a unique & powerful translation of the Hebrew scriptures.
