Scripture & Translation

Scripture and Translation is the first English translation of an essential work on translation theory and the modern literary study of the Bible. First published in Germany in 1936 as Die Schrift und ihre Verdeutschung, the book grew out of Buber and Rosenzweig's work on an innovative and still controversial German translation of the Hebrew Bible. Rather than provide an idiomatic rendering, the Buber-Rosenzweig translation recasts the German language on the model of biblical Hebrew by attempting to reproduce the spoken quality, structure, and ordering of poetic devices found in the original texts. These essays articulate the rationale for the translation, both in theoretical terms and through close readings of specific texts. This edition also includes the first publication in any language of Martin Buber's essay "The How and Why of Our Biblical Translation".