In terms of standard English Bibles I prefer the Revised Standard Version (RSV) over the NRSV. The problem is that it is hard to get these days since the NRSV has taken over with most publishers.  You can still get the RSV Oxford Annotated edition with the Apocrypha, still in print, and I would suggest it as a basic resource for the “entire” Bible with notes (plus wonderful Oxford maps)–but be careful here not to confuse it with the newer one that is the NRSV. This is the correct one on Amazon here.
The Revised Standard Version represents many advances over the King James and American Standard Version tradition. The problem with it is that in many places it incorporates conjectural readings, emendations, and alternative textual traditions like the Septuagint. These are indicated in the footnotes, but one just has to be aware one is not always dealing with just the standard Masoretic text.

The English Standard Version (ESV) attempts to keep all the virtues of the RSV in terms of scholarship and academic integrity, while removing this objection and relying wholly and solely on the Masoretic traditional Hebrew text. It has swept the evangelical Christian market and also attracted the attention of many scholars, on its way to replacing the popular New International Version (NIV) that had once held that market. It comes in many editions but the standard textual edition is reasonable in price and you can get it with the apocrypha on Amazon here.

I would recommend either one or both of these as a basic translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Apocrypha, and the New Testament for general reading and reference, and whether one has much interest in the N.T. or not, it is clearly an important part of our culture and from an academic and historical point of view both the N.T. and the Apocrypha are needed for general Biblical studies.

The problem with both the RSV and the ESV is that they still are not as literal and careful with the Hebrew as I would want but on the whole the ESV makes a fair attempt.

In terms of English Bibles though I still favor heavily the 1901 American Standard Version (not to be confused with the New American Standard Version that also can be good), both for its accuracy and literalness as well as its unprecedented use of the Divine Name Jehovah, which few standard translations have ever done. It is basically “out of print” but you can find editions if you want a hard copy. It is easily available in electronic formats, both free on the web and for various devices.  I have the ASV on my iPad and computer and often use it as an English parallel to the Hebrew. I find it to be quite accurate, and an advance over the KJV.

In terms of Jewish translations of the Tanakh the choices are much more limited. There are four main ones I would note:

1. The 1985 Jewish Publication Society Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures. This one is the most widely available and would be somewhat equivalent to the RSV in terms of its academic approach to the text. However, it does, for the most part, stay with the original Masoretic Hebrew rather than bringing in alternative readings. Its drawback is that it can be very loose with the text and put meanings into the English that are clearly more interpretations, thus closing off to the average reader the more literal or original meaning.

2. The older 1917 Jewish Publication Society Tanakh is now, alas, out of print but it was heavily modeled on the ASV but without, of course, using the Divine Name, but choosing “LORD” for YHVH as most English translations have done. This is the Bible that David Horowitz used all his life and Ralph Buntyn has David’s personal leather bound copy. I have one of my own that I bought years ago, back in the 1970s. If you check the used bookstores you can find a copy. You can also get an e-book version for $.99 on Amazon here that will download to the Kindle app on any device! There are also numerous web sites that have this 1917 JPS Tanakh on-line. I do recommend it and if I had a parallel version of the Hebrew Bible with this 1917 translation I would consider it the best of all worlds in terms of the Hebrew Bible.

3. The Koren “Jerusalem Bible,” produced in Israel with the traditional Hebrew text and a fairly literal English translation by Harold Fish on facing pages. You can get it at many bookstores but most easily via Amazon here.  Two disadvantages are the print is small and the binding is not of the highest quality. I have used and worn out about three of these but over the years switched to a Hebrew Bible with no English.

4. The 1996 Stone Edition of the Tanakh. Even though this one is quite popular I find the translation far far from accurate and literal and just as the Christian translations of the Bible have a strong theological slant in many places this translation of the Tanakh has a decidedly Jewish slant that gets in the way of the literal/accurate meaning of the text itself.

So the upshot of this note, depending on your own preferences would be to get:

1. A copy of either the Oxford RSV and ESV with the Apocrypha just so you have a standard full English Bible. Which you chose might depend on whether you want the notes, maps, etc. of the Oxford or just the straight text of the ESV.

2. A copy of the 1917 Jewish Publication Society Tanakh if you can find one through a used book dealer. Otherwise, if you use electronic devices, it is easy to obtain, or, alternatively get a copy of the ASV, which is very similar and has the added bonus of using the Divine Name.

A final personal note…

I had to suspend most of my work on the Transparent English Bible (Original Bible Project) when I became chair of the Department of Religious Studies here at UNC Charlotte in 2005, taking on a 40 hour+ per week job, 12 months a year. This left me almost no “extra” time for the translation and what time I have had for research I have given to writing the four books (The Jesus Dynasty, Restoring Abrahamic Faith, The Jesus Discovery, and Jesus and Paul) and related research, filming, and archaeology projects. I have the intention of returning to the TEB work when I retire from the chair job in May, 2013 and we have plans to publish portions of the translation in e-book format as early as 2012. If you are not familiar with this “best of all translations,” you can download a sample of Genesis 1-12 at the Web site.

I think we all realize that about the easiest way to really stir the hornets nest among various groups of Torah-oriented independent Bible Believers, from B’nai Noach to the so-called Messianics is to make some comment on the Sacred Name YHVH.  A tidal wave of passionate response will soon follow. The views and opinions on the Sacred Name, YHVH, from whether to pronounce, how to pronounce, and does it matter, are about as varied and divisive as anything I can think of–other than perhaps the “Calendar” disputes!

What I like about Keith’s book is it simple relates his own journey, and what he found along the way, mainly guided by his teacher Nehemia Gordon, who is a well qualified scholar of Hebrew with degrees from Hebrew University. It has an academic underpinning, so that whatever position one might take on the use of, or pronunciation of the name YHVH, the vital importance of the Name comes out.  I can guarantee you, whatever level of study you have done on this, that you will learn lots new from this book. Also, no matter what one thinks of the controversial issues I think we can all agree that if millions of Christians who call both God and Jesus “Lord,” understood the Name, there would be much less confusion in a lot of areas.

I highly recommend the book and this new Blog, see link here bookmark and enjoy all that is to come from Keith on this subject:

http://hishallowedname.com/blog/

Wishing Keith Chazak! Chazak!

James Tabor

P.S. Keith will be with us on our Oct/Nov Israel tour and also our April, 2011 UIWU meeting here in Charlotte–details soon to come.

Oldest Portrait of Paul in Catacombs

I “went underground” from about June 17 through August 17 writing almost nonstop to complete  my new book on Paul, with trips to Rome and Jerusalem included. As some of you know, Paul has been in the news of late, with stories about his tomb in Rome being validated, as well as the newly uncovered portrait of Paul in the catacomb of St. Tekla. I have been working on the Paul book since late 2008 when I signed a contract with Simon & Schuster. There was a time when I expected it might be out by Spring, 2010 but as I got deeper into my work I began to develop my ideas in directions I had not originally anticipated, so I have ended up taking most of 2010 to complete the manuscript. The book has been listed on Amazon now for over a year with the fetching title: Paul Untitled and still no cover image. I know many of my readers have pre-ordered it, and I appreciate your patience. The pre-orders do count, and when the book is released they can give it a great send-off, so if any of you are willing to “stand in that Amazon line,” I thank you for it. My editors and I are still talking about a final decision on a title, as well as the cover art, and I hope it will appear soon. I will let everyone know.

What I think I can safely say is that the book will be worth the wait! I don’t know of another book on Paul by a scholar in the field that is like this one, either in ideas, approach, or style. I did my Ph.D. dissertation on Paul at the University of Chicago (1982), directed by the incomparable Jonathan Z. Smith. It was published as a monograph in the Brown University Judaic Studies series in 1985 titled Things Unutterable. It has long ago gone out of print though an unbound facsimile edition is available on Amazon. For the past 30 years, teaching at three universities (Notre Dame, William & Mary, UNC Charlotte) I have continued to think deeply about Paul, covering him in my courses at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

So far as books on Paul go, I think they must outnumber the books on Jesus, but almost without exception the academic study of Paul is pretty much an “in-house” enterprise with most of the scholars who specialize and write about Paul producing endless books primarily intended for their colleagues.  Most of the writings on Paul are highly technical, very theological in orientation, and full of jargon particular to the field. “Pauline Studies,” is such a vast field right now it is impossible for all but the most devoted, who rarely work on anything else, to keep up. I am not one of those people and though I have published and written about Paul along the way.  My concentration has been much broader–namely trying to analyze the many ways of understanding “salvation” in ancient Mediterranean religions, particularly in late 2nd Temple Judaism and earliest Christianity–with apocalypticism as my main focus. Such a general description certainly pulls in Paul, but in a broader way that most Pauline scholars deal with him.

What I hope I have produced is a readable and accessible book on Paul, but one that offers an analysis of his mission and message that I have not seen anywhere else. Mine is neither a Paul-bashing nor a Paul-applauding book. I guess you might call it “Paul in His Own Words,” in that I try as best I can to let Paul speak for himself, based on the seven “authentic” letters we have from his hand. And speak he does! I think I have succeeded, at least on an introductory level, to offer readers a clear, refreshing, and provocative look at the Apostle.

I thought I would paste the Table of Contents in here, just to whet a few appetites, and I plan to begin a series of blog posts over the next few weeks that will explore various aspects of Paul and his thinking at my TaborBlog, if any of you are interested. You can find it at http://jamestabor/blog and subscribe there to a mailing list as well.

Some of that material I want to also post here at the United Israel blog as well, because when all things are factored in, no one in human history, including Jesus of Nazareth, has had such an influence on the history of Israel–and for that matter the world–as the apostle Paul. The consequences have been dire and incalculable. Understanding his contribution, however one evaluates it, is critical to charting our course for the future.

Here is the Table of Contents for my book:

Preface: Discovering Paul

Introduction: Paul and Jesus

The Quest for the Historical Paul                                                           

Chapter 1: After the Cross

Chapter 2: Reading the New Testament Backwards

Chapter 3: A Forgotten Brother, A Lost Christianity

Chapter 4: A Cosmic Family and a Heavenly Kingdom

Chapter 5: A Mystical Union with Christ

Chapter 6: Already but Not Yet

Chapter 7: The Torah of Christ

Chapter 8: The Battle of the Apostles

Conclusion: Does God Care for Oxen?



Restoring Abrahamic Faith,

http://genesis2000.org/endorsements-links/

Become a Fan of Restoring Abrahamic Faith on Facebook, join discussions, post comments and hear from other readers:

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I just subscribed to the e-mail newsletter called “Kind Words” and I have also just ordered the book, A Daily Dose of Kindness. I have written and talked a lot about YHVH’s self-proclaimed “character description” in Exodus 34:5-7 (see my full discussion in Restoring Abrahamic Faith, pp. 23-26). In that formulaic statement, subsequently repeated in the Torah, Prophets, and Writings, YHVH is described as both Rav-Chesed and Notzer Chesed–full of loving-kindness and “keeping” kindness. In my studies of the word Chesed I have come to the view that we have no precise English equivalent. Our English world “love” is unfortunately used in so many ways that it can hardly serve to carry much specific meaning. “Kindness” works quite well I think, but perhaps the notion of loyal-kindness should be included–thus “keeping” kindness, or even “guarding” kindness. It is not feeling alone, but something that involves work, commitment, and action.

http://charlotteblogs.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/thursday-july-23-2009-deconstructing-the-lords-prayer/