JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

tury. They include one of Judges (Mantua, 1564); one of Genesis
(Venice, 1551); Moses Stendal’s edition of Psalms (Cracow,
before 1586); a 17th-century version of Psalms (the Teitsch-Hallel),
whose author copied the verse form of contemporary German
church hymnology; and Mizmor le-Todah (Amsterdam,
1644) rhymed translations of stories from the Pentateuch and
the Megillot by David b. Menahem ha-Kohen. Rhymed paraphrases
of various biblical books were still popular in the 16th
and 17th centuries, the outstanding example being the Shemuel
Bukh (see above), of which there were at least seven editions
during the years 1543–1612. Another work of this type was a
version of the Pentateuch, Joshua, and Judges, written by Jacob
b. Isaac ha-Levi of Roethelsee (Kehillat Ya’akov, 1692).
Later, Yiddish prose paraphrases of the Bible were much
in favor. Some notable examples were the so-called Lang Megile
on Esther (Cracow, 1589); the Teutsch-Khumesh by *Isaac b.
Samson ha-Kohen of Prague (Basle, 1590), a paraphrase of the
Pentateuch with Midrashim; the Ze’enah u-Re’enah (Tsenerene;
cf. Song 3:11) by Jacob b. Isaac Ashkenazi (Lublin, 1616), a reworking
of the Pentateuch filled with edifying and instructive
material drawn from the Talmud, the Midrash, and folklore;
and the Sefer ha-Maggid by the same author (Lublin, 1623),
an adaptation of the Prophets and Hagiographa with Rashi’s
commentary.
The most famous of these was Ẓe’enah u-Re’enah, which
ran to many editions and continued to serve as a second Bible
among East European Jewry during the 19th century. An extract
was translated into Latin by Johann Saubert in 1661, and
the whole work into French by A. Kraehhaus in 1846. A German
version (with an introduction by A. Marmorstein) was
serialized in 1911.
With the decline of Yiddish among German Jewry, from
the early 19th century onward, these Bible translations and
paraphrases were read only by the Jews of Eastern Europe
and the U.S. Mendel *Lefin (of Satanow), an early 19th-century
Polish apostle of the Enlightenment, produced an excellent
Yiddish version of Proverbs (Tarnopol, 1817). Bible translations
of outstanding linguistic and artistic merit were later
written by two leading Yiddish poets of the 20th century – I.L.
*Peretz (the Five Scrolls, 1925) and *Yehoash (pen name of S.
Bloomgarden; Yiddish Bible, 1910ff.). The latter, in particular,
was considered a great masterpiece of the Yiddish language.
It became a standard work for Yiddish-speaking homes
throughout the world. In 1929 Yehuda Leib (Zlotnick) *Avida
translated Ecclesiastes into Yiddish. N. Gross published fluid
versions of the Five Scrolls (1936) and the Torah (1948). See
also *Yiddish Literature.
English
EARLIEST VERSIONS. The Latin Bible, in an essentially Italian
form, first reached England in the sixth or seventh century;
however, it should be understood that until the late Middle
Ages, the “Bible” of the West comprised, for practical purposes,
only the Gospels, Catholic (i.e., canonical) Epistles,
bible
and Psalms. Codices of the complete Latin Bible were almost
unknown before approximately 800 C.E. From the Latin, the
Venerable Bede (d. 735) translated the Gospel according to
John into Anglo-Saxon, and Aelfric of Eynsham made abridgments
of the Old Testament from Genesis to Judges and of
some other books. Caedmon wrote an Anglo-Saxon verse
paraphrase of Genesis and other portions of the Bible (c. 670)
and Alfred the Great attached an Anglo-Saxon version of the
Ten Commandments and parts of the Pentateuch to his legal
code. The earliest attempts, however, took the form of continuous
interlinear glosses to the Latin, e.g., as in the Lindisfarne
Gospels (ca. 700; British Museum, coll. Cotton, Ms. Nero D.
IV). Psalters with interlinear glosses seem to have been used,
particularly in women’s convents (coll. Cotton, Ms. Vespasian
A.I. from the ninth century, perhaps being the earliest
surviving work). Eadwine’s Canterbury Psalter (Trinity College,
Cambridge, Ms. R. 17. 1) dates from the middle of the 12th
century. The Psalter of Richard Rolle of Hampole (c. 1300–49)
enjoyed wide popularity and ecclesiastical approbation up to
the Reformation.
THE LOLLARD BIBLE. The first comprehensive English translation
was produced late in the 14th century; it is connected
with the Wycliffite movement, whose adherents were nicknamed
Lollards and were treated by the Church as heretics.
John Wycliffe (c. 1328–1384) was himself responsible, though
not necessarily as a translator, for the earlier version made
from the Latin. In his insistence that the Bible, not the Church,
was the source of faith, he anticipated the Reformation. The
Old Testament part of the translation was done, at least in
part, by Nicholas of Hereford, whose translation is characterized
by a slavish adherence to the Latin. John Purvey is assumed
to have been mainly responsible for the later version
(c. 1388), the preface to which acknowledges the use made of
*Nicholas de Lyra’s commentary on the Old Testament. This
version is consequently the first point at which the English
Bible was subjected, albeit at one remove, to the influence of
Jewish exegesis. Numerous manuscripts of the Lollard Bible
are extant, and it was disseminated in part by word of mouth
because of ecclesiastical hostility. A measure of the opposition
to Wycliffe’s work is the fact that in 1425, some four decades after
his death, he was denounced at the Council of Constance;
three years later, his remains were exhumed and burned.
The Lollard Bible received limited circulation due to its
predating the invention of movable type; there was no printed
English Bible before the Reformation.
THE 16th–17th CENTURIES. Several interacting factors afford
the background to the “classical” period of English translations,
which may be dated from W. Tyndale (New Testament,
1526) to the King James (“Authorized”) Version of 1611. A new
theology was to lead, in Protestant churches, to the Authorized
Version (1611). The revival of learning meant the provision
of chairs for teaching Greek and Hebrew at Oxford and
Cambridge, as well as the dawning of a critical approach to
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 611