Hebrew Classic Might Bring Surprises for Christians

by David Klinghoffer, Religion BookLine -- Publishers Weekly, 2/22/2006

Even in the context of modern Christian philo-Semitism, a new translation of a rather specialized Hebrew classic like Onkelos, being marketed by an Israeli publisher to American Christians, is a novelty.

Yet that's just what Gefen Publishing House in Jerusalem has set out to do with the release of Onkelos on the Torah: Understanding the Bible Text: Exodus (Feb.). Onkelos was a Roman aristocrat and convert to Judaism who lived just after Jesus (circa 35-120 AD). His Aramaic translation of the Pentateuch is printed in every traditional version of the Torah. In Gefen's handsome new volume and the four to follow (completing the Torah's five books), Dr. Israel Drazin and Rabbi Stanley M. Wagner translate Onkelos into modern English and supply detailed commentary on the 10,000 or so meaningful deviations the ancient translator made from the original Scriptural text.

Speaking to RBL, Rabbi Drazin noted as a sign of the times the popularity of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, with its Aramaic dialogue. Will contemporary Christians pay $29.95 to read a translation from the language Jesus spoke? "Since 1965, there has been an absolute transformation in Christian attitudes toward Judaism," Drazin said. That year the Second Vatican Council issued Nostra Aetate which, he said, declared "that Judaism should not be considered truncated with the birth of Christianity. That launched a search for their Jewish roots on the part of many thoughtful Christians," both Catholic and Protestant.

Gefen publisher Ilan Greenfield said, "We were definitely thinking of the Christian market from the beginning, a market that is very much a Bible-studying market. We see that in the Christian pilgrims who come to Israel." Two Christian stores near Buffalo, N.Y., Kairos and Bender's, surprised Greenfield by making orders of 12 and 30 books respectively—two or three times the number he would expect from a Jewish bookstore for the same title.

Gefen, which is publishing 3,000 copies to begin with, is in negotiation with a U.S. Christian publisher, New Leaf Press, to distribute Onkelos here.

But Christians who read the book might be in for some surprises. As Rabbi Drazin explained, Onkelos casts a light on the proper translation of texts elsewhere in the Bible. Thus in rendering Exodus 2:8, the ancient translator refers to Moses' sister Miriam as an almah, which Onkelos translates as "girl." The word is significant to Christians because Isaiah 7:14 speaks of an almah who "will become pregnant and bear a son"—a verse that Christians, rendering almah as "virgin," understand as referring to the Virgin Birth.

"We would love to reach all the Christian Bible schools," said Greenfield. But in Onkelos, will they love all of what they find?