PREFACE
England, the marginal notes of the Revised Version, and the changes of the American Committee of Revisers. Due weight was given to the ancient versions as establishing a tradition of interpretation, notably the Septuagint and the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, the Targums, the Peshitta, the Vulgate, and the Arabic version of Saadya. Talmudic and midrashic allusions and all available Jewish commentators, both the great mediæval authorities, like Rashi, Kimhi, and Ibn Ezra, and the moderns S. D. Luzzatto, Malbim, and Ehrlich, as well as all the important non-Jewish commentators, were consulted. On this basis, a manuscript was prepared by the Editor-in-Chief and a copy sent to every member of the Board of Editors. Sixteen meetings, covering a period of seven years and occupying one hundred and sixty working days, were held, at which the proposals in this manuscript and many additional suggestions by the members of the Board were considered. Each point was thoroughly discussed, and the view of the majority was incorporated into the manuscript. When the Board was evenly divided, the Chairman cast the deciding vote. From time to time sub-committees were at work upon points left open, and their reports, submitted to the Board, were discussed and voted upon. The proof of the entire work was sent to each member of the Board for revision, and the new proposals which were made by one or another were in turn submitted to a vote by correspondence and to a final vote at the last meeting of the Board, held in October–November, 1915.
The present translation is the first for which a group of men representative of Jewish learning among English-speaking Jews assume joint responsibility, all previous efforts in the English language having been the work of individual translators. It has a character of its own. It aims to combine the spirit of Jewish tradition with the results of biblical scholarship, ancient, mediæval, and modern. It gives to the Jewish world a translation of the Scriptures done by men imbued with the Jewish consciousness, while the non-Jewish world, it is hoped, will welcome a translation that presents many passages from the Jewish traditional point of view.
The repeated efforts by Jews in the field of biblical translation
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