10 02, 2021

An excellent new extensive Bible commentary

By |2021-02-19T10:07:20-07:00February 10th, 2021|Book Reviews, Thoughts|

  Koren Publishers Jerusalem has launch a huge project that will benefit many Jews and non-Jews. While most books containing commentaries on the bible either focus on all five books of the Torah or just one of the five books, and then gives only the commentaries of about a dozen commentators as well as that [...]

28 01, 2021

The best English commentary on the Torah

By |2021-02-19T10:09:55-07:00January 28th, 2021|Book Reviews, Thoughts|

While most books containing commentaries on the bible either focus on all five books of the Torah or just one of the five books, and then gives only the commentaries of about a dozen commentators as well as that of the author of the volume, Koren Press Mikraot Hadorot offers much more. It is part [...]

13 01, 2020

The Best Bible Commentary in English

By |2020-02-02T07:42:31-07:00January 13th, 2020|Book Reviews, Thoughts|

“The Koren Tanakh of the Land of Israel” is without doubt the best Bible commentary in English. I say this after using over a hundred such books while writing my own books on the Bible, such as my many volumes on the differences between the Hebrew Bible and its Aramaic translation called Onkelos. I feel [...]

12 12, 2018

A very good Bible commentary

By |2018-12-12T05:24:50-07:00December 12th, 2018|Book Reviews, Thoughts|

Koren Publishers’ “The Steinsaltz Humash: Humash Translation and Commentary” by Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz is excellent. The word “Humash” means “five” and refers to the Five Books of Moses which is in this volume in clear Hebrew text in the beautiful Koren font, with a completely new modern English translation that is faithful to the [...]

7 03, 2018

This is how one should understand the Bible

By |2018-03-07T05:12:16-07:00March 7th, 2018|Book Reviews, Thoughts|

Rabbi Hayyim Angel, author of “Keys to the Palace: Exploring the religious Value of reading Tanakh,” is one of my favorite authors who write on the Bible. He is very popular with other readers and scholars as well. This book contains twenty essays and virtually all were accepted by and published previously by well-respected magazines. [...]

30 10, 2014

An unusual introduction to Esther

By |2014-10-30T10:57:19-07:00October 30th, 2014|Thoughts|

I have begun to work on my book tentatively called "Unusual Bible Interpretations: Ruth, Esther, and Judith." Here is the draft of my introduction to Esther. I will continue with chapter one in a few days, with subsequent chapters every week.                                                                                    Introduction                                                           Esther is not as simple as people think [...]

12 07, 2012

What really happened to Cain?

By |2012-07-12T13:39:05-07:00July 12th, 2012|Thoughts|

By Israel Drazin   People think that biblical narratives are clear and easily understandable, and that the explanations of the stories offered in clerical sermons or written in ancient documents such as the Talmud, Midrashim (imaginative elaborations of the Bible), and medieval commentaries are true. Actually neither idea is true. Good literature contains ambiguities and [...]

4 03, 2011

A new, eye-opening, and interesting way to understand biblical narratives

By |2011-03-15T10:11:56-07:00March 4th, 2011|Book Reviews, Jewish Books|

Subversive Sequels in the Bible How Biblical Stories Mine and Undermine Each Other By Judy Klitsner Maggid Books, 2011, 204 pages     Reviewed by Israel Drazin              Judy Klitsner introduces readers to a new, eye-opening, and interesting way of understanding biblical narratives in her book, which won the National Jewish Book Award. She reads the [...]

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