Berlin and Brettler, “The Jewish Study Bible (Second Edition)” (reviewed by Bryan Buchanan)

Review
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Title: The Jewish Study Bible (Second Edition)
Editors: Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Genre: Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Biblical Studies
Year Published: 2014
Number of Pages: 2309 + maps
Binding: hardcover
ISBN10: 0199978468
ISBN13: 978-0199978465
Price: $45.00

Reviewed by Bryan Buchanan for the Association for Mormon Letters

I have always felt that anyone who thinks they can understand the Bible by simply reading it has clearly not read the Bible enough.  At a distance of thousands of years—not to mention the cultural gap—one must have assistance to unpack this rich and often enigmatic text.  A good study Bible is an excellent tool in this endeavor.  “The Jewish Study Bible”—recently published in a revised second edition—is a fantastic example of just such a tool.  Under the same co-editorship of Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (who—I found this interesting—do not appear on either front cover or spine), this well-received annotated Bible has received a very effective remodeling.

While the editors maintain the same structure, the product itself has been substantially updated. Several new essays appear (as with the first edition, located at the end of the book): “The Jewish Bible in America,” “Jewish Customs,”  “Jewish Translations of the Bible,” “The History of Israel in the Biblical Period,” “Geography of Biblical Land of Israel” (the previous two expanded from one essay), “Archaeology and the Hebrew Bible,” “On the Bible and the Ancient Near East,” “Gender in the Bible,” “Reading Biblical Narrative,” and “Reading Biblical Law.” Most striking is a new section “Biblical Ideas and Institutions” that includes six new essays. Various other essays have been rewritten by fresh authors or tweaked by the editors. As noted in the preface, the editors “commissioned entirely new essays” for the section “Backgrounds for Reading the Bible” rather than using revised essays from “The New Oxford Annotated Bible.” (xiii)

After comparing the annotation in three random two-page sections, I found that the first section was virtually the same, the second included one smaller note and one substantive addition while the third section incorporated extensive additions.  In several cases, the person responsible for a book has changed and, thus, the annotation will be radically different (as one would expect).

Visually, a new font (slightly smaller) was used—personally, I found the font in the first edition more pleasing and elegant. Also, the first edition had a dust jacket and linen boards while the second edition is a simple image-wrap hardcover. Thus (in my opinion), a slight step backward in quality of materials. However, the updated content offsets this to some degree.

The book features the highly-regarded JPS translation, first published in 1985. Since this translation will likely be new to Mormon readers, a few points about it (from the helpful overview at the beginning):
–“the…translation would reproduce the Hebrew idiomatically and reflect contemporary scholarship, thus laying emphasis upon intelligibility and correctness”
–“the translators avoided obsolete words and phrases and, whenever possible, rendered Hebrew idioms by means of their normal English equivalents”
–“for the second person singular, the modern ‘you’ was used instead of the archaic ‘thou,’ even when referring to the Deity”
–in “The Prophets,” the translators “resorted to emending the Hebrew text” in cases of uncertain meaning (some come from ancient translations, some are their own work)

Each book of scripture begins with an introduction discussing authorship, context and structure of the book. The layout of a page features the biblical text (chapter number in larger font, verse number in small, superscript font) with notes in a smaller size font in the margin. [1] Occasional notes in italic font at the bottom of the page comment on translation and textual concerns. To give a sense of the annotations, I have selected notes that touch on several scriptural passages that are particularly important to Mormons:

*Gen 1:26-27*
“The plural construction (*let us…*) most likely reflects a setting in the divine council…God the King announces the proposed course of action to His cabinet of subordinate deities, though He alone retains the power of decision.” (12)

*Isa 2:2-4*
“*The Mount of the LORD’s House* is the Temple Mount…The term *Zion* in the Bible refers to the Temple Mount (and, by extension, more broadly to the whole city of Jerusalem), but never to the hill currently called by that name…The Temple will become the headquarters of a divine Security Council with a membership of One and unsurpassed ability to ensure compliance…ch 11 suggests that the Davidic king of the ideal future, who is also a prophet, may deliver the oracle to the nations who come to Zion for compulsory arbitration.” (770-771)

*Isa 53*
“One of the most difficult and contested passages in the Bible, these fifteen verses [including the last verses of ch. 52] have attracted an enormous amount of attention from ancient, medieval, and modern scholars. In particular the identity of the servant is vigorously debated. Although the servant is spoken of as an individual, the reference may well be to the collective nation (or the remnant). Thus, many argue that the servant symbolizes the entire Jewish people…Targum and various midrashim identify the servant as the Messiah, but this suggestion is unlikely, since nowhere else does Deutero-Isaiah refer to the Messiah, and the absence of a belief in an individual Messiah is one of the hallmarks of Deutero-Isaiah’s outlook (in contrast to that of First Isaiah)…Christians have argued that this passage in fact predicts the coming of Jesus. Medieval rabbinic commentaries devoted considerable attention to refuting this interpretation.” (872)

*Mal 4:5-6 (Mal 3:23-24 in the Hebrew versification system)*
“Since Elijah did not die, but ascended to heaven…, he can return. There is a long tradition of interpretation of this v. expanding on the role of Elijah, the herald of the messianic era…The connection between intergenerational reconciliation and Elijah is enigmatic.” (1261)

While there are numerous study Bibles available, this particular work should be singled out as a particularly well-crafted example. The translation is a fine choice, the annotation is fairly brief (to be expected given the format) but very informative and the essays are perhaps the jewel of the compilation. The editors have drafted outstanding scholars such as Emanuel Tov, Michael Fox, Peter Machinist, Jack Sasson and Ziony Zevit to provide annotation and write the essays—truly an all-star cast. The scholarship is current and detailed without being overly technical.

Mormon readers will be rewarded by reading *any* modern translation—using an excellent study Bible such as this will yield far greater results. The deservedly well-received first edition of “The Jewish Study Bible” was a laudable publication—this revised edition is now even more valuable to any interested reader of the Hebrew Bible.

[1] One element of this study Bible (not unique to it, though) that will prove challenging to Mormon readers is the fact that the organization of the books of the Bible follows the Hebrew tradition—thus, 2 Chronicles, and not Malachi, is the final book.