New Mishnah Translation Reads Best Aloud
Saldarim, Anthony J.
New Mishnah Translation Reads Best Aloud The Mishnah: A New Translation by Jacob Neusner Yale University Press, 1987 1200 pp, $55 00 Reviewed by Anthony J. Saldarim The Mishnah is written so...
...He is the author of Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society (Michael Glazier, 1988...
...The Babylonian Talmud, 18 vols., (Soncino Press, 1935-1952...
...Scholars have long complained that the translations and notes in other editions contain numerous errors and dubious interpretations...
...The text is broken into sense lines that are numbered and lettered, so that the reader can see the relationships among all aspects of the discussion...
...What would Neusner have us do...
...He dispenses, however, with the brief and often unsatisfactory notes found in other translations...
...It begins its deliberations in medios res...
...Press, 1933...
...scholarly commentaries, books and essays, which have sometimes aroused bitter opposition...
...The Mishnah assumes a detailed knowledge of biblical law, Jewish tradition, other mishnaic laws and the realities of life in antiquity...
...Anthony J Saldarini is professor of theology at Boston College...
...I. Epstein (ed...
...Neusner stresses the structure and form of the Mishnah's discourse as the key to understanding its larger meaning...
...Sustained work by many scholars must continue if the Mishnah is to be explained clearly and fully in its historical context...
...A change in form means a change in subject...
...P. Black-man, Mishnayolh, 6 vols., (Judaica Press, 19641965...
...He has stressed the Mishnah's own integrity and independence...
...His Mishnah commentary of more than 40 volumes may be consulted by determined students...
...It is a self-referential legal discussion open only to those already familiar with it...
...Moreover, rather than deal with one tractate or one halachictprob!em, he has asked what the work means as a whole and how it fits together in the broadest possible terms...
...And so have Neusner's own * Such translations include H Danby, The Muknah (Oxford Univ...
...Read it aloud, I think...
...language patterns communicate much of the author's worldvie w. It is for this reason that Neusner's translation would best be read aloud...
...The elucidation of the Mishnah as an independent document in its historical context is still in the early stages and Neusner's work has advanced that task...
...Neusner's translation is welcome precisely because the Mishnah is so difficult to read and understand...
...Like other translators, Neusner also inserts bracketed words and phrases to make the elliptical Hebrew comprehensible to an uninitiated reader...
...How then to begin...
...Multiple translations are needed to crystallize varying interpretations and highlight stubborn problems...
...Neusner has broken with the traditional consensus that the Mishnah should be read only with the Talmud and its commentaries...
...Pity the poor uninitiated Jew or Christian who picks up this book for private study, in the Western way...
...Still, the text is opaque without years of study...
...The classic answer is to memorize a few Hebrew mishnayot (paragraphs of the Mishnah) each day with a teacher who explains them...
...it must be studied...
...The notes and brief commentary in Chanuch Albeck's Hebrew edition also have been criticized...
...In his new translation he has rendered the text much more literally than the other translations, thereby preserving the disciplined balance and complex dialectic of mishnaic discussion...
...And how should a translator proceed...
...New Mishnah Translation Reads Best Aloud The Mishnah: A New Translation by Jacob Neusner Yale University Press, 1987 1200 pp, $55 00 Reviewed by Anthony J. Saldarim The Mishnah is written so densely and elliptically that it cannot be read...
...Neusner does provide some other aids to the reader—a 50-page introduction, a glossary of technical terms, and indices of biblical citations, major topics and sages...
...Previous English translations have tried to render the concise phrases of the Mishnah into coherent English sentences.* They have surrounded the text with notes and commentary that invite us to study the text, consult the Bible and, in the Soncino edition, to read the Babylonian Talmud as well...
Vol. 14 • January 1989 • No. 1
