Jewish Bibles in English

Welcome to the first post of "Bible Translation Theory in Practice." Yes the split title in the blog heading is deliberate so it can be read as one title and/or two.

I'm starting with just a nice easy list of English versions of "Jewish Bibles" (i.e. what Jews call the "Tanakh" [T.N.K.] which, besides the order and numbering of books, is what Christians call the "Old Testament" and some call "the Older Testament" and some call the "Hebrew Bible" which makes less sense when talking about the English "Hebrew Bible" - perhaps the "Hebrew-English Bible"? but as some chapters are Aramaic it would then have to be the "Hebrew-and-Aramaic-to-English Bible"!). 

I remember a few years ago someone who was planning to compare how English Bible versions have translated certain Hebrew verbs and I pointed out that their list of comparisons lacked any Jewish versions. The reply was "you mean JPS." Unfortunately I then struggled to think of any others on the spot (besides Robert Alter's translation).

One reason why Christians are largely ignorant of Jewish versions in English is because the number of such versions is relatively small. The main ones are:

1. (1917) The "old" JPS (Jewish Publication Society);
2. (1985) The "new" JPS;
3. (1981) Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan: The Living Torah;
4. (1996) Rabbi Nosson Scherman: The ArtScroll English Tanach;
5. (1990s) various biblical portions by David Rosenberg (Psalms; Song of Solomon; Lamentations; Maccabees; Job; Ecclesiastes; Isaiah; Jeremiah; Zechariah; Jonah; Ruth; Esther; Judith; Daniel; Ezra/Nehemiah; portions of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and Samuel)
6. (1996-2013-) Robert Alter: (ongoing project, 60% of Hebrew Bible completed).
7. (1995-) Everett Fox's, Torah (1995), Samuel (1999) and Early Prophets, forthcoming (2014),

The latter two (Alter, Fox) are the most recent and most interesting and I hope to discuss them in later posts.

Others include:
8. Samson Raphael Hirsch: (d.1888), The Pentateuch - with Translation and Commentary (published 1962). Reissued in a new translation by Daniel Haberman as The Hirsch Chumash (2009)
9. Isaac Leeser: (1853 / 1854) The Twenty-four books of the Holy Scriptures (second edition 1857)

Other more experimental online versions also exist, for example:
10. The Jewish English Torah; and
11. His Name Tanakh.