[EricW]

The Contemporary Torah:

Logos description and excerpts: http://www.logos.com/product/9755/the-contemporary-torah

Amazon description and excerpts: http://www.amazon.com/The-Contemporary-Torah-Gender-sensitive-Translation/dp/0827607962

Note that this is just the Torah (i.e., Genesis - Deuteronomy), not the entire Tanakh/OT.

[Elaine]

Thanks for sharing.  I appreciate their use of the Tetragammaton.

[Don]

Added to my wish list.

[EricW]

Or, rather than buy this gendered Torah, buy this book:

www.amazon.com/Biblical-Hebrew-Sherbok-Cohn/dp/0281048185/

and learn some basics of Hebrew so you can more intelligently work with an interlinear and the Hebrew text and Hebrew lexicons and decide for yourself where the text should be gendered. 

Cohn-Sherbock's book is high-priced for its size and (unless they've been corrected) has a few typos which persons who don't know Hebrew might not catch. Like many Hebrew textbooks he uses the Modern Hebrew pronunciation (versus "Classical" Hebrew); probably not a significant deal, though. There are of course more comprehensive and detailed Hebrew grammar books, but it's perhaps the friendliest, easiest, and least intimidating book I've come across for non-Hebrew readers to quickly gain familiarity with enough Biblical Hebrew to take them to the next level in their studies, enabling them to use real Hebrew grammar tools and tackle a real 1st-year Hebrew grammar without fear. Find a Hebrew-reading friend to help if you need it. 

[TL]

Very cool.  Thanks, Eric.

 

[Marg]

Thanks for sharing.  I'd like a bit more info, or excerpts.

I like how he's treated the tetragrammaton too - basically leaving it up to the reader how they want to translate it for themselves, if they wish to.

I prefer to use God's name, as opposed to "LORD" (even though I don't know exactly how it is pronounced.)  I think it's a shame God's name is not more widely known. 

David and other people in the Bible spoke and sung God's real name (e.g. Psalm 8:1).  The generic word "god" can refer to any deity; I think this is problematic in Christianity.

[EricW]

Other than the confusion with "Elohim" and its related words, I think after having thought a lot about it - I.e., how and if to say "Yahweh" or Iahu or whatever - that I've settled for "God" as perhaps the best English translation of YHWH, because that is what most people think the Deity's name is - and the whole point of calling the Deity "YHWH" instead of "the LORD" is to use God's name, rather than a formal title, because one knows God and feels free to talk to God. R. Aryeh Kaplan in his The Living Torah chose to translate יהוה as " God," saying that "the LORD" - derived from the LXX - has an un-Jewish flavor.

[Don]

I just got this and I like it already.   It totally smashes some of the masculinity myths propagated by CBMW, showing that they yet again do not know of what they speak.  I will give some tomorrow.

They render the tetragrammaton in Hebrew letters, so one can vocalize it as one wishes.

[TL]

Thanks, Don.  I look forward to reading what you find in it. 

[EricW]

This may be due to the JPS TANAKH on which they based this translation, but I find some inconsistentencies from viewing the sample pages at logos.com. E.g., at Genesis 2:7 they make a point of relating "Human" to "soil's humus" but elsewhere they translate adamah as "ground" (2:9) or "earth" (2:19). A non-Hebrew reader wouldn't know that these are three instances of the same word, not three different words, all within just 13 verses and in which there is no apparent semantic or syntactical difference between how the word is used to warrant changing its translation. I have a translation of Genesis that translates adam as "groundling" and as best as I recall translates all instances of adamah as "ground."

[TL]

It is unfortunate that translators make such decisions without notes to inform the readers why they are making that choice.

[EricW]

It is unfortunate that translators make such decisions without notes to inform the readers why they are making that choice.

Take a couple hours to learn how to read and pronounce Hebrew (and Greek) and then use an interlinear or diglot until you in fact learn the basics of the language(s) somewhat.

[TL]

I'm afraid Greek is all I can barely manage.  I have tried briefly to see if I could grasp the Hebrew, but frankly the letters are too complex and would take much more time for me to recognize than I feel I have right now.     Sad, too because I have the books.  Perhaps, some day.   

If there were a course I could take in person on this side of the island, I'd jump at it.  But alas, I do live on an island. 

[EricW]

I'm afraid Greek is all I can barely manage.  I have tried briefly to see if I could grasp the Hebrew, but frankly the letters are too complex and would take much more time for me to recognize than I feel I have right now.     Sad, too because I have the books.  Perhaps, some day.   

If there were a course I could take in person on this side of the island, I'd jump at it.  But alas, I do live on an island.

Is there no synagogue near or within 50 miles of where you live? If so, I'm sure they offer a beginning Hebrew class on occasion.

[TL]

I don't believe there is an actual Synagogue building.  There are Jews who meet somewhere, including some Messianic Jews.  But of the Messianic Jews I know, they don't even speak or read Hebrew.

Many many moons ago, I approached a Synagogue in Palm Springs, Calif. and asked to become a Jew and learn Hebrew ... probably in the 60's.  No matter how much I begged, they turned me away, because to my knowledge at the time I had no Hebrew blood in me.  Since then I've written off that approach. 

.... but I might think about giving it a looksee again.  One never knows!