Bible

by Jeffrey H. Tigay - Ellis Professor of Hebrew & Semitic Languages & Literatures, Graduate Chair for Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Since the Bible is the first source of Jewish tradition and values, works about the Bible are the first component of a Jewish library. Here are some of the best.

The Jewish Publication Society's (JPS's) lucid translation Tanakh, also available in a bilingual edition, JPS Hebrew-English Tanakh. The multi-volume JPS Bible Commentary presents the Hebrew text and translation and a thorough commentary that combines the insights of traditional Jewish commentaries and modern scholarship based on ancient Near Eastern languages and literature, archaeology, and literary studies. It includes the Torah, the Haftarot, Jonah, and Esther, with the rest of the Five Megillot in the works.

Etz Hayim, the Conservative movement's commentary on the Torah and Haftarot, combines the Hebrew, the JPS translation, abridgements of the JPS commentaries, and additional material exploring the text's spiritual and ethical meaning and its embodiment in Jewish religious practice. Supplementary essays deal with topics such as God, revelation, archaeology, women and family, education, Israel, relations with Gentiles, war and peace, ritual, and methods of studying the Bible.

The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford University Press) includes, in a single volume, the JPS translation and brief commentaries on the entire Bible, with essays exploring the Dead Sea Scrolls, the synagogue, mysticism, theology, and various types of interpretation, such as halakhic, midrashic, medieval, modern, and feminist.

Lucid, penetrating studies of important Biblical themes are found in the works of two master scholar-teachers, Nahum M. Sarna and Moshe Greenberg.

Sarna's Understanding Genesis and Exploring Exodus (Schocken) explore the religious and ethical ideas of Genesis and Exodus in the light of their historical and cultural backgrounds. His On the Book of Psalms (Schocken) studies ten psalms with special attention to their ethical and spiritual dimensions. Sarna's Studies in Biblical Interpretation (JPS) explores religious polemic in the Bible, the history of Biblical interpretation, the challenge of writing a commentary, the authority and interpretation of Scripture, and Jewish Bible scholarship and translations in the United States.

Greenberg's Studies in the Bible and Jewish Thought (JPS) explores the biblical views of law, society, prayer, the nature of Jewish Bible interpretation, a Bible commentator's responsibilities, the theology of Job, the human factor in revelation, the Ten Commandments, and attitudes toward Gentiles.

Ancient Israel, edited by Hershel Shanks (Biblical Archaeology Society), covers each period of ancient Jewish history from the Bible through the destruction of the Second Temple, with special attention to archaeology as well as written sources.

Nehama Leibowitz's Studies in Bereshit/Genesis and her volumes on the rest of the Torah (World Zionist Organization) illuminate the weekly Torah portions with insight derived from traditional Jewish commentaries and other sources, followed by study questions.