A History of German Jewish Bible Translation
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Between 1780 and 1937, Jews in Germany produced numerous new translations of the Hebrew Bible into German. Intended for Jews who were trilingual, reading Yiddish, Hebrew, and German, they were meant less for religious use than to promote educational and cultural goals. Not only did translations give Jews vernacular access to their scripture without Christian intervention, but they also helped showcase the Hebrew Bible as a work of literature and the foundational text of modern Jewish identity.
This book is the first in English to offer a close analysis of German Jewish translations as part of a larger cultural project. Looking at four distinct waves of translations, Abigail Gillman juxtaposes translations within each that sought to achieve similar goals through differing means. As she details the history of successive translations, we gain new insight into the opportunities and problems the Bible posed for different generations and gain a new perspective on modern German Jewish history.
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- Offers a close analysis of German Jewish translations as part of a larger cultural project
- Explores four distinct waves of translations
- 1. The First Wave: Jewish Enlightenment Bibles in Yiddish and German
- 2. The Second Wave: Emergence of a Bible Industry
- 3. The Third Wave: The Bible as Gesamtkunstwerk
- 4. The Fourth Wave: Reimagining the German Jewish Bible
In this fascinating book Gillman provides the first comprehensive overview of this phenomenon in English, tracing the development of the translations in the context of the Haskalah, Science of Judaism, modern Jewish denominations, and modernist aesthetics. . . . The book can be highly recommended to anyone interested in the reception of the Bible and in German Jewish history and culture.
—Journal of Modern Jewish Studies
A History of German Jewish Bible Translation is important because the subject of Bible translations is a key to the mentalité of German Jewry since Moses Mendelssohn. With a novel handle on a complex body of literature, Professor Gillman has crafted an original conceptual grid to overcome the atomized character of eleven distinct translations that, until now, have defied treatment by a single scholar. Gillman’s goal is not to discuss all translations, but rather to highlight the endless effort by German Jews to cultivate their religious identity in a Christian body politic deeply ambivalent about their integration.
—Ismar Schorsch, Jewish Theological Seminary
- Title: A History of German Jewish Bible Translation
- Author: Abigail E. Gillman
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press
- Print Publication Date: 2018
- Pages: 320
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
- Resource ID: LLS:HSTGRMNBTRNSLTN
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-05-22T20:26:38Z