The Hebrew Bible. David M. Carr
language. In some cases, past English translators had used male‐specific words to translate Hebrew or Greek expressions that were gender neutral. The recent revision of the NIV translation, Today’s New International Version (TNIV), aims to correct such mistranslations to what is termed “gender‐accurate” English expressions. For example, where the King James Version and some other versions render the first part of Gen 1:26 as “Let us make man in our image,” versions like the TNIV more accurately reflect the gender neutrality of the Hebrew word for “humanity” that is used here, e.g. “let us make human beings in our image.”
Some other translations go yet further, revising other references to human beings toward gender‐neutral English terms, even in cases where the original biblical languages use masculine nouns. Examples of such translations include the NRSV, NJB, and the Contemporary Torah, a “gender‐sensitive” revision of the NJPS. I generally follow that policy in this Introduction, using “God” rather than “he” or “him” and preferring gender‐neutral references to human beings. Nevertheless, the Bible was formed in a culture that privileged masculinity and conceived its God in largely masculine terms, and this is reflected at points in the translations included in this textbook.
Finally, readers should recognize that all these translations are published in different editions, each with its own perspective and added resources. For example, the New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha and the HarperCollins Study Bible are not different translations, but different editions of the NRSV. Each one has a different introductory essay, introductions to the biblical books, and brief commentary on the biblical text written by biblical scholars commissioned by the publisher. Indeed, whenever you use a given translation, it usually includes many other elements that were added by the publisher of that particular edition: headings for different sections of the biblical text, marginal references to other biblical passages, maps, and other additions. These can be helpful resources. Nevertheless, users of such editions should be aware of how these additional elements – none of which is actually part of the Bible per se – can subtly influence how one reads a given biblical passage. They should be used critically.
In the end, there is no one contemporary translation that scholars agree is decisively best. Arguments can be made for a variety of the contemporary translations that are listed in Appendix 2 of this chapter. Also, if your work focuses on a particular passage, you can get a good sense of particular translation issues in it by comparing multiple up‐to‐date translations with each other. Some like to use online resources for this, such as Bible Study Tools (www.biblestudytools.com\compare‐translations) or the Bible Gateway (www.biblegateway.com). It should be noted, however, that these resources contain a number of out‐of‐date translations and neglect Jewish translations (e.g. the NJPS). If you use these sites, be sure to select up‐to‐date translations on the Christian comparison sites (e.g. NRSV, NIV) and compare those with the Jewish NJPS translation which can be purchased in book form or accessed online at www.sefaria.org. Alternatively, you can greatly benefit from using a Bible software tool (such as Accordance) and purchasing multiple recent Christian (e.g. NRSV, NJV) and Jewish (e.g. NJPS) translations for it that you then can compare with each other. Such comparison can reveal major differences between translations, and the more one finds such differences, the more one wonders how to decide between the alternatives. This is ideally solved by learning biblical languages! Many students, however, lack time and/or interest in going that far with biblical studies. For those lacking knowledge of biblical languages it is important to know where a given translation is only one possible rendering in English of a phrase in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek that could also be rendered, perhaps better, in another way. Comparison of Bible translations shows this.
Bible Abbreviations, Chapters, and Verses
When books and articles cite biblical passages by chapter and verse, they usually follow this order: abbreviation for the biblical book, followed by the chapter number, followed by the verse. An example is Isa 44:28 (chapter 44, verse 28). If more than one verse is cited, dashes and commas can be used: Isa 44:20, 28 or Isa 44:10–13, 28. When scholars want to refer to the bulk of a passage without detailing specific verses left out, they will add an asterisk to indicate that some verses are not meant to be included in the reference, e.g. Genesis 28*. Occasionally, you will also see scholars refer to half‐verses, e.g. 2:4a or 2:4b, following accent divisions found in their Hebrew Bibles. Such notations will be sparingly used in this book only to label citations that begin or end in a half‐verse.
Here are some standard abbreviations for biblical books shared by Jewish and Christian Bibles (given in the order followed by most Christian Bibles). Sometimes these are further shortened through just giving the first two letters (e.g. Ex instead of Exod) or removing a vowel (e.g. Jdg for Judges):
Gen = Genesis
Exod = Exodus
Lev = Leviticus
Num = Numbers
Deut = Deuteronomy
Josh = Joshua
Judg = Judges
Ruth = Ruth
Sam = Samuel
Kgs = Kings
Chr = Chronicles
Ezra = Ezra
Neh = Nehemiah
Esth = Esther
Job = Job
Ps or Pss (for plural) = Psalms
Prov = Proverbs
Eccl (or Qoh) = Ecclesiastes (Hebrew Qohelet)
Song (or Cant) = Song of Songs (Canticles)
Isa = Isaiah
Jer = Jeremiah
Lam = Lamentations
Ezek = Ezekiel
Dan = Daniel
Hos = Hosea
Joel = Joel
Amos = Amos
Ob = Obadiah
Jon = Jonah
Mic = Micah
Nah = Nahum
Hab = Habakkuk
Zeph = Zephaniah
Hag = Haggai
Zech = Zechariah
The Origins of Chapters and Verses
The earliest Hebrew and Greek manuscripts of the Bible lack any chapter or verse numberings (see Figure 0.2). The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament was divided into sections for reading in the synagogue, and the Greek New Testament was divided into sections as well, but there were no numbers in these early manuscripts.
Verse divisions were first added into the Hebrew Bible (without numbers) by the Masoretes, a group of Jewish scholars who worked in the seventh to tenth centuries ce and produced the standard edition of the Hebrew Bible now used in Judaism. The chapter divisions we now have were developed in 1205 by Stephen Langton, a professor in Paris and eventually an archbishop of the Church of England. He introduced them into his edition of the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible, and these divisions were later adopted by Jewish scholars as they became popular means to refer to biblical passages.
The first Old Testament and New Testament Bible with numbered verses was produced in 1555 by a Parisian book seller, Robert