The Old Testament was written originally in Hebrew. So you might think that the millions of Hebrew-speaking youth in Israel would be able to read and understand it.
But HaGefen Publishing, a Christian publisher in Israel, has taken note of vast differences between the biblical Hebrew of the Old Testament and the modern Hebrew of today that make it very difficult for Israeli youth to understand the Bible. HaGefen is attempting to remedy the problem by publishing the first-ever translation of the Old Testament in modern Hebrew.
The new translation is part of a modern-Hebrew translation of the entire Bible called “The Testimony” (“Ha’Edut” in Hebrew). The first volume, containing the first five books of the Old Testament, was published in 2001; volume two, containing the historical books, was published in early 2004. Volume three contains the prophetic books and is scheduled for release in late 2006. The entire project began in 1994 and is slated for completion by 2010.
All volumes are translated into simple, modern Hebrew vocabulary by Shoshan Danielson and edited by Baruch Maoz. Experts in Hebrew and the Bible are among those involved in the project, along with a control group of children. The finished product will feature more than 1,000 illustrations, including diagrams of genealogies.
Maoz told Baptist Press that Israeli youth need The Testimony because biblical Hebrew is like a foreign language to those who read modern Hebrew.
“Biblical Hebrew is 2,500-4,000 years old,” Maoz said in an interview. “Who can read a text written in English even a mere 1,000 years ago? There are differences of vocabulary, syntax and the meaning of words, sometimes radically so.”
Yitzhak Laor, an Israeli novelist, emphasized the vast difference between biblical and modern Hebrew in a recent article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
“In my opinion, one of the difficulties of teaching the Bible (to Israeli youth) lies not in the clash of religion and secularism, but in the inability to recognize the fact that the Bible is written in a foreign language,” Laor writes. “The Israeli high-school graduate does not have the ability to approach a chapter that was not previously studied at school without a book of biblical commentary within easy reach, without a dictionary of biblical Hebrew.”
The Testimony is part of HaGefen’s larger mission to share the gospel with Jewish men and women. HaGefen is the Israeli branch of Christian Witness to Israel, a UK-based interdenominational evangelistic society committed to sharing the good news of Jesus with the Jewish people.