The Intertextual Tanakh

This first volume of the Sadka-Rabinowicz Tanakh includes the first 150,000 of Tanakh's 300,000 words—the Torah and the Early Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings)—with a new and updated translation, and an extensive and original commentary. The full Hebrew text is provided, with the vowel points and the traditional cantillation marks. The text is typeset to reveal the structure of each passage. The translation is line-matched across the page to enable a reader with rudimentary Hebrew to quickly skip between the original and the translation. The overriding goal of the translation is to stay as true as possible to the original, echoing the motifs of the Hebrew where feasible. Where there is uncertainty regarding the meaning of words this is revealed to the reader. The commentary attempts to reveal the tools that the text uses to get across its message on the local level—structural devices, linguistic echos, wordplays and more—while exposing the intertextual nature of the text on the holistic level. To this end over 500 different authorities are cited, allowing the commentary to build on the great body of scholarship that has accrued over 2,000 years. More critically, over 10,000 contextualized cross-references are built into the commentary, and the commentary largely functions by comparing and contrasting multiple texts within Tanakh. Hence the subtitle, 'The Intertextual Tanakh'. This book is designed to function as a 'Chumash', so the Haftarot from the Latter Prophets (which will comprise Volume II) are included as an appendix. In addition, an extended set of introductions to all the books of Tanakh is provided as well as an Ashkenazi Siddur.