The Need for a Revision of the New JPS Translation

The time has come for the Jewish Publication Society to consider undertaking a revision of the new JPS translation. Work on the NJPSV began in 1955 and came to a conclusion with the publication of the entire Tanakh 30 years later, in 1985. Those who contributed most to the translation were among the finest Hebraists of their era: Harry M. Orlinsky (1908-1992); Ephraim Avigdor Speiser (1902-1965); Harold Louis Ginsberg (1903-1990); Moshe Greenberg (1928-); Jonas C. Greenfield (1926-1995), and Nahum N. Sarna (1923-2005). Since 1985, NJPSV has become the pre-eminent translation of the Tanakh among English-speaking Jews, and is found on the shelf of every student of the Bible, irrespective of religious background, who has had a first-class introduction to the field of academic biblical studies.

The number of people who read the Hebrew Bible without the aid of a translation or dictionary is small. The soft bigotry of low expectations reflected in the mediocre level of proficiency in ancient Hebrew required of students of Hebrew Bible at even the most demanding graduate institutions suggests that that will not change any time soon. That being the case, the need for an accurate translation of the Hebrew Bible in the “language of the empire” is greater than ever. A particular need is a rendering of the Masoretic text that

·         is made in full awareness of traditional Jewish interpretation thereof, though not on that account bound to reproduce in translation any of the alternative construals tradition offers;

·       aims for sense-for-sense translation rather than word-for-word translation; in particular, translation that conforms to the stylistic register of the parent texts;

·        is committed to clarity of expression in translation on a par with the degree of clarity the source texts presumably had at the time of composition and/or incorporation into a larger textual matrix.

These points are a nuanced restatement of the goals that guided the NJPSV translation committee from the start, as summarized in the NJPSV 1985 preface.  

The magnificent set of commentaries in the JPS Torah and Bible Commentary Series include a number of notes in which the sense assigned to a particular passage is at odds with that conveyed by NJPSV. In a revision of NJPSV such that it expresses the sense of the Hebrew with the greatest possible accuracy based on the results-to-date of philological and linguistic studies, notes of this kind would be evaluated by a committee of scholars and modifications adopted in consequence. As is true in the case of any existing translation, it is not hard to think of judicious revisions here and there that might be made. By way of illustration, I offer an example below.

Numbers 11:14-15

לֹא־אוּכַל אָנֹכִי לְבַדִּי

לָשֵׂאת אֶת־כָּל־הָעָם הַזֶּה

כִּי כָבֵד מִמֶּנִּי׃

וְאִם־כָּכָה אַתְּ־עֹשֶׂה לִּי

הָרְגֵנִי נָא הָרֹג

אִם־מָצָאתִי חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ

וְאַל־אֶרְאֶה בְּרָעָתִי׃

I cannot carry all this people by myself,
for it is too much for me.
If You would deal thus with me,
kill me rather,
I beg You,
and let me see no more of my wretchedness.

Improvements to this translation come readily to mind, improvements in harmony with the sense-for-sense translation technique NJPSV practices, and in harmony with the translation's goals of accuracy and clarity. Substitutions are italicized:

I cannot carry all these people on my own;
the weight is too much for me.
If You are going to deal thus with me,
by all means kill me!
If I have gained Your favor,
let me see no more of my wretchedness.

The chief drawback of NPSV Num 11:14-15 is its unusually free translation of a delightful Hebraism: find favor in the eyes of a superior. “I beg You” is a far cry from the language and register of ‘If I have found favor in Your eyes.’ Sporadically, NJPSV translates the particulars of this idiom with greater exactness, for example, “gain my Lord’s favor” in Gen 33:8; “gain Your favor” in Ex 33:16. “If I have gained Your favor” in this passage would mark a significant improvement over “I beg You” without re-introducing the Hebraism in the form it takes in KJV, NRSV, and ESV: “If I have found favor in your sight.” In addition, the protasis-apodosis syntax of the last two clauses of the passage is unnecessarily avoided in NPSV. The following three texts exhibit identical syntax:

Gen 13:9

אִם־הַשְּׂמֹאל

וְאֵימִנָה

וְאִם־הַיָּמִין

וְאַשְׂמְאִילָה

If north,
I will go south;
if south,
I will go north.

Num 11:15:

אִם־מָצָאתִי חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ

וְאַל־אֶרְאֶה בְּרָעָתִי׃

If I have found favor in your eyes,
spare me the scene of my own demise.

2 Sam 12:8:

וְאִם־מְעָט

וְאֹסִפָה לְּךָ כָּהֵנָּה וְכָהֵנָּה

And if that is too little,
I will give you twice as much.

To be sure, this understanding of the syntax of Num 11:15 goes against the division thereof implied by the Masoretic accents. A translation of MT ought to footnote every instance in which such a departure is made. Of course, it would be nice to have a translation of MT which faithfully reproduces its construal of the text it preserves, even when that construal seems unlikely to be in line with the sense the text had before it was “traditioned” with the passing of time. A translation of MT in this sense does not exist in any language.

I note in passing that the ghost of KJV haunts NJPSV Num 11:15 still. NJPSV “let me see no more of my wretchedness” amounts to a minor revision of KJV “and let me not see my wretchedness.”  ‘Wretchedness’ is a fine if unusual dynamic equivalent of רעה in context, preserved by ESV, not only NJPSV - but not NRSV, which has ‘misery’ instead. ‘Misery’ is also the translation of NJB and NLT.

None of these translations succeeds in capturing the word-play in the original: ראה with רעה, found also in Obad 13. That would only be possible by means of a broad paraphrase, such as, “spare me the scene of my obscene predicament.”

An off-subject note on the Hebrew: אַתְּ־עֹ֣שֶׂה לִּ֗י in Num 11:15 undoubtedly captures the phonetics of the traditional pronunciation with accuracy, but in terms of grammar, the vocalization is to be understood as equivalent to אָֽתָּ־עֹ֣שֶׂה לִּ֗י. Similarly: Deut 5:24 וְאַ֥תְּ ׀ תְּדַבֵּר = וְאָ֥תָּ ׀ תְּדַבֵּר. A destressed final atnach and an unstressed final shewa are almost indistinguishable from a phonetic point of view.

Comments

[Simon Holloway]

Very nice. Nonetheless, while I do agree with your stipulated guidelines and while I do think that the JPS is a far cry from being an accurate translation, I also think that a truly accurate translation is impossible and I suspect that you think so too. Indeed, it would seem to me that the general rigour of your methodology belies your faith in its possible efficacy. To convey (even if through footnotes) the precise semantic nuance of every collocation, the arbitration of the Masoretic scholars, the phonological relationship between individual words, and a certain consistency of usage: all of this necessitates reading the text in Hebrew, which (if you ask me) is what people should be doing anyway.

[JohnFH]

Hi Simon,

You understand the drift on my argument. As soon as one is moderately proficient in ancient Hebrew (ancient Greek, Latin, you name it), even the best translation of a text from that language will appear reductive, misleading, or both.

On the other hand, most people experience the Tanakh in translation. This is the case also of those who know only enough Hebrew to read the text with the constant aid of a dictionary. They are reading the text through dictionary glosses, without an internalized sense of the semantic relations of the language expressed through its vocabulary and fixed expressions.

That being so, the task of producing a responsible (not perfect) translation of the traditional text of the Hebrew Bible is an urgent one.

[Jill]

What happened to your series on ISBL, John? I was looking forward to reading about the sessions you went to in Rome.

[JohnFH]

Hi Jill,

I hope to get to that still. Thanks for the encouragement.

[Hebrew Student]

"The number of people who read the Hebrew Bible without the aid of a translation or dictionary is small." This statement is no doubt true, but it is sad that students of theology or Bible courses leave colleges without being able to read the Hebrew Bible in this way, and even the majority of Jews outside Israel would struggle to read the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew.

[Bob MacDonald]

I have always liked the play of the corporate unity versus the plurality of individuals in - 'all this people - which to me is very suggestive of political and social weight.

What is the אָנֹכִי - is it ever thought of as emphatic? the sense of bear = lift up always brings the crucifixion to mind for me.

probably הַזֶּה is not interrogative - but it feels disjointed from the rest of the sentence.

If I were brave I would translate is like this: I cannot, I alone, bear all this people, is this not too heavy for me?