The New Israel Bible: Progress, Paraphrase or Propaganda

C Mc

The Israel Bible: New Project Reveals God's Prophecies Coming True in Modern Miracles on Israel's 70th | CBN News

http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2018/april/the-israel-bible-new-project-reveals-gods-prophecies-coming-true-in-modern-miracles-on-israels-70th

A new Hebrew-English Bible has been published just in time to celebrate Israel's 70th anniversary.

After years of his own personal Bible studies and research, American Rabbi Tuly Weisz and a team of biblical scholars in Israel have published a 22,000 page Bible called The Israel Bible.

"Every morning when I would read my Bible I just kept noticing all the references to Israel," Weisz told CBN News. "They jumped out at me from nearly every page. So I began to underline, highlight and flag them all and started collecting the lessons in chronological order."

But Weisz said it was one specific verse that stuck out to him that inspired him to change his whole life.

That verse was Deuteronomy 11:12 which reads: "It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end."

That's what led Weisz to pack up his family and move to Israel seven years ago in what he calls "returning home."

Shortly after planting new roots, Weisz started his organization "Israel365," which is a daily newsletter that teaches Christians about the biblical significance of the land of Israel and the Jewish people's connection to the land.

Now, he hopes his unique Bible will continue to highlight those connections for Christians and Jews.

"It's a very massive volume," Weisz told CBN News. "It's awe-inspiring, even the cover. It's got an image of the ancient temple in Jerusalem and the Western Wall, and it's just very vivid."

He continued, "We tried very hard to illustrate the modern state of Israel and connect them to the miracles of the Bible."...

"For 2,000 years, the Bible was the number one source of division between Jews and Christians," Weisz said referring to the differences in beliefs between the Old Testament and New Testament. "My hope is that our Bible will become a source of unity and that Christians can connect the Jewish roots of their faith," he said.

In February, Weisz and his organization co-sponsored a Bible study between Jews and Christians for the first time in what many were calling the fulfillment of scripture...."We are in a golden era of Jewish-Christian relations," Weisz said. "Christians who care so much about what's happening in Israel. We're living in such fortunate times, we're putting aside centuries of animosity to achieve this unity."

He continued, "I hope The Israel Bible plays a small part in bringing about the understanding and appreciation of the people of Israel, the land of Israel and the God of Israel..." The Israel Bible can also be almost entirely read online for** free at TheIsraelBible.com** where it's also being sold.
God is everywhere—even in the news...

CD Users, have you done or know of any serious or scholarly review of "The Israel Bible?" Without bias, what do you think of it? CM

Dave_L

I cannot find any objective view on this yet. All I can say is that if the Jews knew what the bible said, they would not be Jews.

[Deleted User]

This (part-)Bible obviously is simply an OT, with the books seemingly arranged according to the Hebrew OT rather than the division and order found in Bibles used by Christians.

So then, what - aside from what I just mentioned - is supposedly SOOOOO special about this particular OT version as compared to reading from a different OT version? How is this OT version supposedly bringing about a "unity of Jews and Christians"?

Mitchell

Hello CM,

(1) The English translation used by "The Israel Bible" is not a paraphrase.

(2) The English translation used by "The Israel Bible" is not a new translation. It is the Jewish Publication Societies Tanakh (The New JPS Translation) first published in 1917, but later heavely revised and released as a full volume in 1985.

(2b) Bruce Metzger reviewed theNew JPS translation in his, "The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions" (link)

(3) The Hebrew text used in "The Israel Bible" is the standard Masoretic text. Although published by an arm of Koren publishers called Maggid/Menorah it does not use the famous Koren font/typeface and it is not be found on Koren Publisher's main website (link) rather it is found here (link).

(4) The 'new' part of this Bible is in notes by Rabbi Tuly Weisz that focuses very specifically on "Israel".

(5a) The edition celebrating the 70th anniversary of the foundation on the modern state of Israel is a one-volume edition (link) and (link).

(5b) **However **the normal edition is actually a 20 volume edition (link)

(5c) A PDF of a sample page can be found here:
https://www.korenpub.com/media/productattachments/files/l/i/lib.pdf_-_adobe_acrobat_pro.pdf

(6a) The head writer/editor of the project Rabbi Tuly Weisz comes from a modern Orthodox Jewish background rather than a Hasidic or Haredi Jewish background.

(6b) Rabbi Tuly Weisz is not a Messianic Jew, Christian Jew, nor Hebrew Christian. He is however interested in dialogue and in teaching Christians about Judaism.

(6c) A very short statement of beliefs about this project can be found on his website: https://theisraelbible.com/statement-of-beliefs/

(7) Rabbi Tuly Weisz has written numerous articles for the Jerusalem Post (see his JP page with a link to his articles here) and one article for aish.com (link)