Old JPS Tanakh (1917)

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The Jewish Publication Society
Tanakh 1917 edition
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JPS TANAKH: The Holy Scriptures

Old JPS Tanakh (1917) (ENGOJPS)

Overview

The 1917 Jewish Publication Society (JPS) translation of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) was the first English Bible translation produced by a committee of Jewish scholars. [1] The project was initiated in the 1890s by the Jewish Publication Society of America, which assembled a translation committee representing three major Jewish institutions: Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and Dropsie College in Philadelphia. Max Margolis, a Lithuanian-born American philologist and leading scholar of Bible and Semitics, served as editor-in-chief. Margolis edited the contributions of 32 translators in just 12 months, after which JPS Secretary Henrietta Szold reviewed the manuscript 12 times. [1] The committee adopted the English Revised Version as its starting point, committing to remove phrasings reflecting Christian interpretive tradition and to bring the text in line with Jewish scholarship and liturgical usage. [1] Published in 1917, the translation became the Society’s best-selling volume, with nearly 40,000 copies sold in its first year, and was widely adopted in Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform prayer books and textbooks. [1] [2]

[1] THE HOLY SCRIPTURES, Tanakh 1917 edition - Jewish Publication Society. [2] Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text (1917) - Verbum.

Language and People

English (ISO 639-3: eng) is spoken by approximately 379,000,000 people. [Glottolog: stan1293]