Rabbinical Bible (Zunz)

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The Rabbinical Bible (תורה נביאים כתובים The Four and Twenty Books of the Holy Scriptures. According to the Masoretic Texts ) is a Jewish translation of the Tanach . It was created by four translators; the editor was Leopold Zunz . The first edition appeared in 1838. The translation principle was to " faithfully, clearly and appropriately reproduce the correct meaning in German " with strict adherence to Masora and Accentsystem. "By 1889, twelve editions had appeared. Thus, Zunz's translation of the Bible had become the authoritative translation of German-speaking Judaism - the only one among the translations that appeared in the 18th and 19th centuries. “The Zunz Bible is the only German Bible that can be found in a Jewish bookstore in Brookline , Massachusetts today. It is an edition that has put the Hebrew text back next to the German translation. It was printed in Israel in 1997 as a joint venture between Israeli and German publishers. "

Translation staff

The translation of the Bible published by Zunz goes back to an initiative of the publishers Moritz Veit (Berlin) and H. Prausnitz (Glogau). Prausnitz contacted Michael Sachs and Heymann Arnheim ; Sachs was already known through his translation of the Psalms, Arnheim, an autodidact, had attracted attention in 1836 through his commentary on Job. At the beginning of 1836, Veit won Zunz as editor of the planned translation of the Bible, and he brought in Julius Fürst as a specialist in Aramaic.

Arnhem translated a large part (19 biblical books) of the Rabbinical Bible. Other extensive parts of the work (15 biblical books) come from the hand of Michael Sachs , a rabbi in Prague at the time. Sachs, who was a specialist in the translation of poetic Hebrew texts, had found many linguistically original solutions in the Psalms that were not included in the print edition by Zunz. The orientalist Julius Fürst contributed to the translation of the Aramaic books Daniel and Esra; Leopold Zunz took on the translation of the chronicle and the main editing of the entire work. The translators gave each other advice on their work. Zunz looked through the incoming manuscripts and adjusted them linguistically in order to "establish uniformity and unity of tone throughout the work".

content

In addition to a brief foreword and a list of synagogue readings on festivals and special Sabbath days, the first edition also contained a "Timeline of the entire Holy Scriptures" drawn up by Zunz; this begins in the year 3988 before the general (Christian) calendar: “ Adam and Chawa (Eva), the first human couple. Kajin ( Cain ) and Hebel ( Abel ), the first pair of brothers. Kajin kills his brother Hebel. "

תורה

The Pentateuch is the five books of Moses

נביאים ראשונים

The first prophets

נביאים אחרונים

The last prophets

כתובים

The hagiograph

  • בראשית Genesis (Arnhem)
  • שמות Exodus (Arnhem)
  • ויקרא Leviticus (Arnhem)
  • במדבר Numeri (Arnhem)
  • הדברים Deuteronomy (Sachs)
  • יהושע Joshua (Sachs)
  • שופטים judge (Sachs)
  • שמואל א׳ ב׳ Samuel 1. 2. (Sachs)
  • מלכים א׳ ב׳ Kings 1. 2. (Arnhem)

  • ישעיה Isaiah (Sachs)
  • ירמיה Jeremiah (Arnhem and Sachs)
  • יחזקאל Ezekiel (Arnhem)

תרי עשר The twelve (minor) prophets

  • הושע Hosea (Arnhem)
  • יואל Joel (Sachs)
  • עמוס Amos (Sachs)
  • עובדיה Obadia (Arnhem)
  • יונה Jonah (Arnhem)
  • מיכה Micha (Arnhem)
  • נחום Nahum (Arnhem)
  • חבקוק Habakuk (Sachs)
  • צפניה Zefania (Sachs)
  • חגי Haggai (Sachs)
  • זכריה Zacharia (Arnhem)
  • מלאכי Malachi (Sachs)

  • תהלים Psalms (Sachs)
  • משלי Proverbs (Arnhem)
  • איוב Job (Arnhem)
  • שיר השירים Song of Songs (Sachs)
  • רות Ruth (Arnhem)
  • איכה Lamentations (Sachs)
  • קהלת preacher (Arnhem)
  • אסתר Esther (Arnhem)
  • דניאל Daniel (prince)
  • עזרה Ezra (prince)
  • נהמיה Nehemiah (Arnhem)
  • דברי הימים Chronicle (Zunz)

Characteristics of the translation

As a publisher, Veit worked to ensure that the translation was appealing to a large readership. That is why the Hebrew text was not printed, and a learned apparatus was completely dispensed with. Sachs and Arnheim had to make some concessions with regard to readability. So Arnhem came up with the idea, the first word in the Bible, Hebrew בְּרֵאשִׁית ready to translate German 'at the beginning, from the beginning, first' , with 'earlier ...'. Zunz found this apt but rejected it because it was feared that a strange first sentence would upset the reader against the novelty of the translation. This is how the rabbinical Bible begins quite classically: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth."

Proper names

Proper names were transcribed by the translators in their Hebrew form, not in the form they had assumed in German on the way through the Vulgate and Luther Bible : Lever (instead of Abel), Noach (instead of Noah), Jizchak (instead of Isaac ). The Buber / Rosenzweig translation followed this principle, which, however, did not prevail in the 19th century: Jewish authors mostly used the usual German spelling of biblical names in scientific and educational works. Franz Rosenzweig classified the use of Hebrew names in a trend that preferred the Greek over the Latin form of names even in editions by authors of classical antiquity; as a result, the name in question is "moved from the sphere of use into the sphere of education", and with reference to the Tanach: "It puts the Bible in the bookcase after Luther put it on the bedside table."

syntax

The Rabbinical Bible was innovative in that it did not follow the classic German syntax, but retained the Hebrew word order; an example: “And he lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, three men standing by him; When he saw them, he ran to meet them from the door of the tent, and bowed to the ground, And said: Lord, if I have found grace in your eyes, do not go past your servant. "( Gen 18: 2–) 3  EU )

Text example: God's revelation on the burning bush

“When the Eternal saw that he was approaching to look, God called out to him from the thorn bush and said: Moscheh! Moscheh! and he said: Here I am! And he said, Do not come near here! Take your shoes off your feet, for the place you stand on is sacred ground. […] And Moscheh said to God, Behold, I came to the children of Jisraël and said to them, The God of your fathers sent me to you, and they said to me, What is his name? What can I tell them? Then God said to Moscheh: I will be who I am. And said: So say to the children of Jisraël: Ehejeh sends me to you. ”( Ex 3, 4–5, 13–14  EU )

reception

Philipp Ehrenberg, one of the first reviewers, positively emphasized the “correctness and literality” of the newly published Torah translation, he found its oriental coloring appropriate, but the literality should not be carried so far that a comical effect arises. In this respect, for example, the formulation in Gen 2.7  EU seemed unsuccessful to him : "And man became a life-breathing one".

In the opinion of W. Gunter Plaut , it was precisely the bulkiness of the Zunz'schen Bible that made it popular because it met an attitude towards life: one did not feel completely at home in the German environment, which was also repeatedly reflected back by non-Jewish people. and the Rabbinical Bible constantly reminded the reader that it was a translation from Hebrew.

Work editions

  • תורה נביאים כתובים The twenty four books of the scriptures. According to the masoretic texts. Under the editing of Dr. Zunz translated by H. Arnheim, Dr. Julius Fürst, Dr. M. Sachs. 1st edition Berlin 1838 ( online )
  • תורה נביאים כתובים The twenty four books of the scriptures. According to the masoretic texts. Under the editing of Dr. Zunz translated by H. Arnheim, Dr. Julius Fürst, Dr. M. Sachs. 3rd edition Berlin 1848. ( online )
  • The twenty-four books of scripture . The edition is based on the translation by Arnheim, Sachs, Fürst and Zunz, which is strictly based on the Masoretic text; with time table in the appendix. Goldschmidt, Basel 1995. ISBN 978-3857050022 .
  • The twenty-four books of scripture. According to the masoretic text. Translated by Leopold Zunz, published by Sinai Verlag Tel-Aviv in collaboration with DORONIA Verlag Stuttgart ((C) 1997). ISBN 3-929895-11-0

literature

  • Abigail Gillman: A History of German Jewish Bible Translation . The University of Chicago Press, Chicago / London 2018. ISBN 978-0-226-47769-5 .
  • Dafnia Mach: Jewish background and contemporary reception of the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible. Contributions from the International Symposium of the Heidelberg University for Jewish Studies and the Martin Buber Society Heidelberg 2012. In: Daniel Kroiellnik et al. (Ed.): 50 years of the Martin Buber Bible (= Old Testament and Modernism . Volume 24). LIT Verlag, Berlin 2014. pp. 65–86. ISBN 978-3643121509 .

Individual evidence

  1. Jump up ↑ The Twenty Four Books of Scripture . Berlin 1838, p. iii-iv .
  2. ^ Abigail Gillman: A History of German Jewish Bible Translation . S. 124 .
  3. ^ Abigail Gillman: A History of German Jewish Bible Translation . S. 126 .
  4. Dafnia Mach: Jewish background and contemporary reception of the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible . S. 71-72 .
  5. ^ Abigail Gillman: A History of German Jewish Bible Translation . S. 115-116 .
  6. Dafnia Mach: Jewish background and contemporary reception of the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible . S. 72 .
  7. Jump up ↑ The Twenty Four Books of Scripture . Berlin 1838, p. iv .
  8. Jump up ↑ The Twenty Four Books of Scripture . Berlin 1938, p. 1 .
  9. ^ Franz D. Lucas, Heike Frank: Michael Sachs: the conservative middle way . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1992, p. 45-46 .
  10. ^ Abigail Gillman: A History of German Jewish Bible Translation . S. 116 .
  11. ^ Abigail Gillman: A History of German Jewish Bible Translation . S. 120 .
  12. Dafnia Mach: Jewish background and contemporary reception of the Buber-Rosenzweig Bible . S. 66 .
  13. ^ Abigail Gillman: A History of German Jewish Bible Translation . S. 122 .
  14. ^ Abigail Gillman: A History of German Jewish Bible Translation . S. 125 .