A beautiful copy of the first English translation of the entire Hebrew Bible by a Jew.
Having published a five-volume Pentateuch-cum-haftarot (lections from the Prophets) translation in 1845-1846, as well as a complete, vocalized and accentuated Hebrew Bible in 1848 (the first such edition published in America), Isaac Leeser (see previous lot) proceeded, from April 1852 to September 1853, to extend his translation efforts to the entire Hebrew Bible. Relying heavily on ancient Jewish Aramaic translations (the Onkelos, Jonathan ben Uzziel, and Jerusalem Targums) and medieval rabbinic commentaries (Rasag, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Radak, Ralbag, and especially Rashi), he also consulted previous (Christian) English versions and the modern German renditions of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), Leopold Zunz (1794-1886), and Ludwig Philippson (1811-1889).
The result was his Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures, the first translation of all of Tanakh into English by a Jew, complete with short explanatory notes. Leeser explained in the preface to his magnum opus that he undertook the project in order to provide Anglophone Jewry with a vernacular version of the Bible “which has not been made by the authority of churches in which they can have no confidence” (p. vi). The book went through multiple editions and quickly achieved wide acceptance among English-speaking Jews (and even some Gentiles), especially (but not exclusively) in America, until the appearance in 1917 of the Jewish Publication Society Hebrew Bible translation.
The Leeser Bible was first produced in sextodecimo format in 1856 in an effort “to render it more accessible to all classes than an expensive and heavy quarto could expect to be” (p. viii) and then reissued thirteen years later, following Leeser’s passing in 1868, by the executors of his estate. The present lot is a beautifully bound copy of this second sextodecimo edition of the Leeser Bible that includes two leaves from the London edition of the work published in 1865. The book’s earliest known owner, Mrs. P. Goldsmith, may be identified with a woman of the same name who served on the Board of Managers of the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society of Philadelphia, “the oldest, Jewish charitable organization in continuous existence in the United States” down to the present day.
ProvenanceMrs P. Goldsmith Philadelphia Pa 1865 (front flyleaf)
Physical Descriptionxii, [iv], 1243 = 1259 pages (5 7/8 x 3 5/8 in.; 149 x 90 mm) on paper; English text with Hebrew book names and parashah titles, as well as selected words appearing in footnotes; headers throughout; printed with two columns per page. Slight spotting; minor foxing, creasing, and dog-earing; weak impression on p. 967. Contemporary, elaborately gilt-tooled calf, worn along edges and spine; spine in six compartments with raised bands; title (“Holy Scriptures”) lettered in gilt in second compartment; turn-ins elaborately gilt; all edges gilt, though with a few nicks and slight wear; contemporary white silk flyleaves and pastedowns, also with minor wear.
LiteratureIsrael Abrahams, “Isaac Leeser’s Bible,” By-Paths in Hebraic Bookland (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1920), 254-259.
Anon., “The Female Hebrew Benevolent Society of Philadelphia,” The Occident, and American Jewish Advocate 24,9 (December 1866): 424-426, at p. 425.
Yosef Goldman with Ari Kinsberg, Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography, vol. 1 (Brooklyn: Yosef Goldman, 2006), 14-15 (no. 13).
Jonathan D. Sarna and Nahum M. Sarna, “Jewish Bible Scholarship and Translations in the United States,” in Ernest S. Frerichs (ed.), The Bible and Bibles in America (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 83-116, at pp. 84-92.
Robert Singerman, Judaica Americana: A Bibliography of Publications to 1900, vol. 1 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990), 378 (no. 2116).
Lance J. Sussman, “Another Look at Isaac Leeser and the First Jewish Translation of the Bible in the United States,” Modern Judaism 5,2 (1985): 159-190.
Lance J. Sussman, Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995), 150-151, 185-193.
A beautiful copy of the first English translation of the entire Hebrew Bible by a Jew.
Having published a five-volume Pentateuch-cum-haftarot (lections from the Prophets) translation in 1845-1846, as well as a complete, vocalized and accentuated Hebrew Bible in 1848 (the first such edition published in America), Isaac Leeser (see previous lot) proceeded, from April 1852 to September 1853, to extend his translation efforts to the entire Hebrew Bible. Relying heavily on ancient Jewish Aramaic translations (the Onkelos, Jonathan ben Uzziel, and Jerusalem Targums) and medieval rabbinic commentaries (Rasag, Rashbam, Ibn Ezra, Radak, Ralbag, and especially Rashi), he also consulted previous (Christian) English versions and the modern German renditions of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), Leopold Zunz (1794-1886), and Ludwig Philippson (1811-1889).
The result was his Twenty-Four Books of the Holy Scriptures, the first translation of all of Tanakh into English by a Jew, complete with short explanatory notes. Leeser explained in the preface to his magnum opus that he undertook the project in order to provide Anglophone Jewry with a vernacular version of the Bible “which has not been made by the authority of churches in which they can have no confidence” (p. vi). The book went through multiple editions and quickly achieved wide acceptance among English-speaking Jews (and even some Gentiles), especially (but not exclusively) in America, until the appearance in 1917 of the Jewish Publication Society Hebrew Bible translation.
The Leeser Bible was first produced in sextodecimo format in 1856 in an effort “to render it more accessible to all classes than an expensive and heavy quarto could expect to be” (p. viii) and then reissued thirteen years later, following Leeser’s passing in 1868, by the executors of his estate. The present lot is a beautifully bound copy of this second sextodecimo edition of the Leeser Bible that includes two leaves from the London edition of the work published in 1865. The book’s earliest known owner, Mrs. P. Goldsmith, may be identified with a woman of the same name who served on the Board of Managers of the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society of Philadelphia, “the oldest, Jewish charitable organization in continuous existence in the United States” down to the present day.
ProvenanceMrs P. Goldsmith Philadelphia Pa 1865 (front flyleaf)
Physical Descriptionxii, [iv], 1243 = 1259 pages (5 7/8 x 3 5/8 in.; 149 x 90 mm) on paper; English text with Hebrew book names and parashah titles, as well as selected words appearing in footnotes; headers throughout; printed with two columns per page. Slight spotting; minor foxing, creasing, and dog-earing; weak impression on p. 967. Contemporary, elaborately gilt-tooled calf, worn along edges and spine; spine in six compartments with raised bands; title (“Holy Scriptures”) lettered in gilt in second compartment; turn-ins elaborately gilt; all edges gilt, though with a few nicks and slight wear; contemporary white silk flyleaves and pastedowns, also with minor wear.
LiteratureIsrael Abrahams, “Isaac Leeser’s Bible,” By-Paths in Hebraic Bookland (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1920), 254-259.
Anon., “The Female Hebrew Benevolent Society of Philadelphia,” The Occident, and American Jewish Advocate 24,9 (December 1866): 424-426, at p. 425.
Yosef Goldman with Ari Kinsberg, Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography, vol. 1 (Brooklyn: Yosef Goldman, 2006), 14-15 (no. 13).
Jonathan D. Sarna and Nahum M. Sarna, “Jewish Bible Scholarship and Translations in the United States,” in Ernest S. Frerichs (ed.), The Bible and Bibles in America (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 83-116, at pp. 84-92.
Robert Singerman, Judaica Americana: A Bibliography of Publications to 1900, vol. 1 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990), 378 (no. 2116).
Lance J. Sussman, “Another Look at Isaac Leeser and the First Jewish Translation of the Bible in the United States,” Modern Judaism 5,2 (1985): 159-190.
Lance J. Sussman, Isaac Leeser and the Making of American Judaism (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995), 150-151, 185-193.
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