Marc Zvi Brettler Research Articles

The Jewish Study Bible (review)

Reviewed by: The Jewish Study Bible Judith A. Kates (bio) Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors Michael Fishbane, Consulting Editor The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 2181 pages. This admirable contribution to the growing library of Jewishly informed aids to Bible study designed for a general audience occupies a newly opened place on the shelf. It offers a completely annotated Tanakh, using the 1985 Jewish Publication Society translation. This is supplemented by introductions to each individual book and by numerous essays exploring Jewish interpretation of the Bible, period by period; the Bible in Jewish life and thought; backgrounds for reading the Bible; and questions of language and textual transmission. Also included are a glossary, tables and charts, chronologies, maps, and a variety of other aids to study. In short, this is an enormous undertaking, a full study Bible produced for the first time from specifically Jewish academic scholarship. The editors' stated goals are twofold: (1) to convey the best of modern academic scholarship on the Bible, based on the conviction that "this approach does not undermine Judaism . . . but can add significant depth to Jewish belief and values"; and (2) to reflect as broadly as possible "the range of Jewish engagement with Bible over the past two and a half millennia." The contributors make use of a variety of approaches, but all attempt to combine in some way the most up-to-date academic scholarship with awareness of and sensitivity to traditional Jewish interpretation and to the role of the Bible and of specific biblical texts in Jewish life. Since the editors present this volume as a product of "state-of-the-art scholarship," feminist readers naturally hope to find that its contributors incorporate the wealth of feminist Bible scholarship, whether in the extensive annotations [End Page 253] that accompany the text or in the essay materials. In a fine essay entitled "Jewish Women's Scholarly Writings on the Bible," Adele Reinhartz asserts at the outset that "recent biblical scholarship has been witness to the growing visibility of women scholars and the profound impact of feminist criticism." The Jewish Study Bible does exemplify the first aspect of this claim in a serious way. Women scholars are significantly represented as authors of essays, annotators of individual biblical books, and, of course, as one of two general editors. But it would be an exaggeration to say that feminist criticism, or to put it more neutrally, feminist questions and arguments, have had a "profound impact" on the contemporary Bible scholarship represented in this volume. With the exception of the essay specifically devoted to Jewish women's scholarship, the extensive section of essays offers few places where we hear about issues or see topics chosen that derive from attention to feminist questions or concerns. Essays on the various periods of Jewish interpretation reflect the absence of women's voices, without any mention of that fact; the one marginal exception is the mention (in a paragraph devoted to vernacular commentaries in late medieval Eastern Europe, in the essay on medieval Jewish interpretation) of the Tzene-rene and the unlearned Yiddish-speaking women who formed part of its audience. No one could expect such essays to talk about interpretive texts that do not exist, but a scholarship that has absorbed feminist concerns would take note of the exclusively male roster. The essay on the Bible in the synagogue describes in detail not only what is read, but also the customs and laws associated with public reading, yet it ignores the issue of women, even though that issue is discussed in the Talmud. The essay by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson on the Bible in the Jewish philosophical tradition, which, like all the others, tries to summarize responsibly a very large body of material, offers a more satisfactory way of dealing with the problems of women's absence from traditional Jewish discourse. In a paragraph devoted to Judith Plaskow as "the one contemporary Jewish theologian who has succeeded in influencing how some American Jews approach the Bible," Tirosh-Samuelson notes the feminist argument that "tradition . . . ignored, silenced, and marginalized women." She goes on to mention the ongoing "insightful feminist...

Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors. THE JEWISH STUDY BIBLE: JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY TANAKH TRANSLATION. Michael Fishbane, Consulting Editor. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Reviewed by: The Jewish Study Bible Judith A. Kates (bio) Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors Michael Fishbane, Consulting Editor The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation Oxford–New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 2181 pages. This admirable contribution to the growing library of Jewishly informed aids to Bible study designed for a general audience occupies a newly opened place on the shelf. It offers a completely annotated Tanakh, using the 1985 Jewish Publication Society translation. This is supplemented by introductions to each individual book and by numerous essays exploring Jewish interpretation of the Bible, period by period; the Bible in Jewish life and thought; backgrounds for reading the Bible; and questions of language and textual transmission. Also included are a glossary, tables and charts, chronologies, maps, and a variety of other aids to study. In short, this is an enormous undertaking, a full study Bible produced for the first time from specifically Jewish academic scholarship. The editors' stated goals are twofold: (1) to convey the best of modern academic scholarship on the Bible, based on the conviction that "this approach does not undermine Judaism . . . but can add significant depth to Jewish belief and values"; and (2) to reflect as broadly as possible "the range of Jewish engagement with Bible over the past two and a half millennia." The contributors make use of a variety of approaches, but all attempt to combine in some way the most up-to-date academic scholarship with awareness of and sensitivity to traditional Jewish interpretation and to the role of the Bible and of specific biblical texts in Jewish life. Since the editors present this volume as a product of "state-of-the-art scholarship," feminist readers naturally hope to find that its contributors incorporate the wealth of feminist Bible scholarship, whether in the extensive annotations [End Page 253] that accompany the text or in the essay materials. In a fine essay entitled "Jewish Women's Scholarly Writings on the Bible," Adele Reinhartz asserts at the outset that "recent biblical scholarship has been witness to the growing visibility of women scholars and the profound impact of feminist criticism." The Jewish Study Bible does exemplify the first aspect of this claim in a serious way. Women scholars are significantly represented as authors of essays, annotators of individual biblical books, and, of course, as one of two general editors. But it would be an exaggeration to say that feminist criticism, or to put it more neutrally, feminist questions and arguments, have had a "profound impact" on the contemporary Bible scholarship represented in this volume. With the exception of the essay specifically devoted to Jewish women's scholarship, the extensive section of essays offers few places where we hear about issues or see topics chosen that derive from attention to feminist questions or concerns. Essays on the various periods of Jewish interpretation reflect the absence of women's voices, without any mention of that fact; the one marginal exception is the mention (in a paragraph devoted to vernacular commentaries in late medieval Eastern Europe, in the essay on medieval Jewish interpretation) of the Tzene-rene and the unlearned Yiddish-speaking women who formed part of its audience. No one could expect such essays to talk about interpretive texts that do not exist, but a scholarship that has absorbed feminist concerns would take note of the exclusively male roster. The essay on the Bible in the synagogue describes in detail not only what is read, but also the customs and laws associated with public reading, yet it ignores the issue of women, even though that issue is discussed in the Talmud. The essay by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson on the Bible in the Jewish philosophical tradition, which, like all the others, tries to summarize responsibly a very large body of material, offers a more satisfactory way of dealing with the problems of women's absence from traditional Jewish discourse. In a paragraph devoted to Judith Plaskow as "the one contemporary Jewish theologian who has succeeded in influencing how some American Jews approach the Bible," Tirosh-Samuelson notes the feminist argument that "tradition . . . ignored, silenced, and marginalized women." She goes on to mention the ongoing "insightful feminist...

REVIEW: David L. Lieber, Jules Harlow, Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. <strong>TEACHING TORAH IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY:</strong> THREE JEWISH BIBLE COMMENTARIES: <em>ETZ HAYIM: TORAH AND COMMENTARY. </em> Richard Elliott Friedman.<em>Commentary on the Torah.</em> Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, Michael Fishbane. <em>THE JEWISH STUDY BIBLE.</em>

Teaching Torah in the Twenty-First Century:Three Jewish Bible Commentaries Elsie R. Stern Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary. David L. Lieber, senior editor; Jules Harlow, literary editor; sponsored by the Rabbinical Assembly and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2001, xxiii + 1559 pp. Richard Elliott Friedman . Commentary on the Torah. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001, xvii + 681 pp. The Jewish Study Bible. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, editors; Michael Fishbane, consulting editor. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004, xxiii + 2181 pp. In recent years, there has been a boom in adult Jewish learning in general and text study in particular. Many Jewish adults, from a range of backgrounds and with a wide range of prior knowledge, are joining Torah study groups and Bible classes or are reading the Bible independently. Two recent commentaries, Etz Hayim:Torah and Commentary, which was produced by the Conservative movement, and Richard Elliott Friedman's Commentary on the Torah, are both geared toward this newly expanded audience of readers who are largely well educated but are often unfamiliar with the Torah text and its scholarly and traditional interpretations. A third commentary, The Jewish Study Bible, edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, is designed both for this audience and for use in academic classroom [End Page 376] settings. In very different ways, each of these volumes participates in a common project: the integration of academic biblical scholarship and Jewish interpretive traditions into the study of the biblical text. Each is an attempt to articulate biblical scholarship in a Jewish key. The Etz Hayim Torah commentary is a valuable and crucially important book. The commentary, which is the product of many years of labor by a large group of scholars and rabbis associated with the Conservative movement, is designed to be both a synagogue commentary and a commentary for private use. As a synagogue commentary, it will replace the Hertz Pentateuch, which has served as the standard synagogue commentary in most Conservative synagogues for nearly seventy years. The Hertz commentary was published by Joseph Herman Hertz, the chief rabbi of Great Britain and a graduate of the Jewish Theological Seminary, in 1936. When it was first issued, the Hertz commentary was an important innovation. It was the first Torah commentary written in English by Jews for Jewish laypeople. The goals of the commentary were explicitly pedagogical, homiletical, and devotional. Hertz wanted the commentary to "embody everything of lasting appeal in Rashi and the Jewish commentators, as well as to utilise modern scholarship, fully to bring out the moral and spiritual teaching of the text."1 The goal of the commentary was also apologetic. Hertz was concerned that the combined forces of biblical scholarship and liberal Judaism were contributing to the erosion of Judaism and the disaffection of modern Jews from their tradition. He hoped that his commentary would justify and vindicate Judaism and its spiritual authenticity.2 At its time of publication, the Hertz commentary made centuries of traditional Jewish commentary, as well as some of the new advances of critical biblical scholarship, accessible to English-speaking Jewish laypeople. However, in the decades since its initial publication, the Hertz commentary has become quite dated; its blatantly apologetic stance and its reliance on century-old scholarship have become increasingly problematic for the Conservative movement as a whole and for individual lay readers. A new Conservative Torah commentary was long overdue, and Etz Hayim is a vast improvement over the Hertz Pentateuch. The volume consists of: (1) the [End Page 377] Hebrew text of the Torah, accompanied by the JPS translation and a commentary, which is divided into three sections: peshat, derash, and halakhah lemaʿaseh; (2) the Hebrew text of the haftarot accompanied by the JPS translation, introductory comments, and a brief running commentary; and (3) a collection of forty essays, which are divided into four categories: Biblical Life and Perspectives; Biblical Religion and Law; Worship, Ritual, and Halakhah; and Text and Context. The peshat commentary was adapted by Chaim Potok from the five-volume JPS Torah commentary, and the commentary on the haftarot is an abridged version of Michael Fishbane's larger commentary on the haftarot. The derash and halakhah...

Review of Marc Zvi Brettler, The Book of Judges

Review of Marc Zvi Brettler, The Book of Judges

The Creation of History in Ancient Israel. Marc Zvi Brettler.

<i>The Creation of History in Ancient Israel</i>. Marc Zvi Brettler.

The Creation of History in Ancient Israel: Marc Zvi Brettler

The Creation of History in Ancient Israel: Marc Zvi Brettler