Full product information for this item, together with my review, my ranking of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.
Picture a handsome leather-bound volume with a column of attractively-set Hebrew text on the right side of each page and a superb English translation in very readable typeset on the left side. This is what you get in the two leather-bound versions of the 1999 Hebrew-English Bible published by the Jewish Publication Society. I own the large version for reading at home and a handly but vision-challenging small version for the road. I travel a lot and it goes with me on many of those trips.
If you want a less elegantly bound paperback version, you can have that too. In terms of its size, it’s midway between the two leather-bound Bibles I’ve mentioned. Size does matter, as it is eminently more readable for most eyes than the small handbook version.
When the JPS set out to prepare this edition of the Tanakh, it assembled a cast of Jewish luminaries in biblical studies. They chose to go for pretty full disclosure with regards to the many translation difficulties that the Hebrew Bible throws at its readers. Ample footnotes draw the readers attention to these.
A well-written preface tells the story of the traditional text (‘Massoretic’ or ‘Masoretic Text’).
This reviewer is a biblical scholar, though not a Jewish one. As such, I’m well aware of the problems created by traditional and biblical literary in the Jewish community today. This version of the Tanakh should make a welcome contribution to resolution of that ailment. Meanwhile, non-Jewish readers like me will read gratefully over the shoulders of the Jewish Publication Society’s intended readership.
Canter Bridge 
Leave a comment