Explore the vast range of titles available.

Nahum Sarna's distinctive and original scholarship has taken in a wide range of subject areas from work on Genesis and the Psalms to his Jewish Bible commentary and the English translation of the Ketuvim. At first Assistant Professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in the 1950s, he was Dora Golding Professor of Bible at Brandeis University from 1965 to his retirement. This collection of 22 essays reflects Professor Sarna's breadth of interests, with contributions from the late Gershon Cohen on the Hebrew Crusade Chronicle and the Ashkenazic tradition; Judah Goldin on Reuben; Moshe Greenberg and Jonas Greenfield on the work of the Jewish Publication Society's Ketuvim translators; and Shemaryahu Talmon on fragments of a Psalms scroll from Masada.

Nahum Sarna's distinctive and original scholarship has taken in a wide range of subject areas from work on Genesis and the Psalms to his Jewish Bible commentary and the English translation of the Ketuvim. At first Assistant Professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in the 1950s, he was Dora Golding Professor of Bible at Brandeis University from 1965 to his retirement. This collection of 22 essays reflects Professor Sarna's breadth of interests, with contributions from the late Gershon Cohen on the Hebrew Crusade Chronicle and the Ashkenazic tradition; Judah Goldin on Reuben; Moshe Greenberg and Jonas Greenfield on the work of the Jewish Publication Society's Ketuvim translators; and Shemaryahu Talmon on fragments of a Psalms scroll from Masada.

\"He was extremely learned and witty,\" said [Jehuda Reinharz], who once took a class that Dr. [Nahum M. Sarna] taught. \"He was always well prepared and his lectures were very clear and precise.\" Dr. Sarna was born in England and never lost his pronounced accent. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of London. He received his rabbinical ordination at Jews' College in London and earned a doctorate in biblical studies and Semitic languages at Dropsie College in Philadelphia. An expert on Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, and Job, Dr. Sarna was long associated with the Jewish Publication Society, the oldest publisher of Jewish books in the English language. He was the editor and translator of its version of the Bible, first published in 1985.

Psalm 82 imagines Elohim before a Jewishly sui generis \"assembly of God\" (also Elohim), a body traced to pre-Israelite (notably Ugaritic) texts. But why does the psalmist employ the same word for God as for an assembly of divine beings? [Nahum M. Sarna] suggests that the widespread ancient notion of a convocation of gods has here been transformed into a celestial council, as the \"heavenly host\" (I Kings 22:19) or in the Book of Job. Another crux: are the culprits members of the divine assembly or malfeasant human judges? The former reifies a link to a myth about \"fallen angels\" such as in Genesis 6, whereas in the latter instance, references to \"divine beings\" would be sarcastic. Ranging magisterially through historical, mythological and biblical material, Sarna explores the implications of both alternatives, leaving a choice to the reader. \"Whichever interpretation is favored,\" he asserts, \"it is clear from verse 5 that the speaker, be he God or the psalmist, has despaired of the ability of the judicial authorities, celestial or terrestrial, to reform themselves.\"

Prof. Nahum M. Of Boca Raton, FL. formerly of Newton, MA. on Thursday, June 23, 2005. Husband of Helen (Horowitz) Sarna. Father of David E.Y. and Rachel Sarna of Teaneck, NJ and Jonathan D.

Patrick D. Miller Jr reviews \"Genesis,\" by Nahum M. Sarna, and \"Leviticus,\" by Baruch A. Levine.

According to Agnon, in his prefatory statement on \"the argument of the work,\" for those who wish to be informed about Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and the Days Between, he had assembled \"some sayings from the Torah and from the Prophets and from the Writings, from the Talmud Babylonian and Palestinian, from the halakhic Midrash and aggadic Midrash, and from the Zohar and from other books written by our Early Rabbis and Latter Rabbis, of blessed memory; and I have arranged all these sayings in three books, according to the order of each of the periods, each period and its matter.\" He admits that to make the book \"palatable to all,\" he has abridged long passages, at times altered the style and has provided the necessary connective passages to make the selections work as a unified whole. What we have, as scholar Judah Goldin writes in his introduction, is a collection of \"homilies, comments, laws, reflections, letters, recollections, conversations, critical observations, word-of-mouth reports -- whatever refracted something of the authentic light of the Yomim Noraim\" (or Days of Awe). As for [Nahum M. Sarna]'s book, it was truly the granddaddy of the more recent crop of high-profile \"Genesis\" books, appearing long before Bill Moyers' TV series was even a twinkle in the broadcaster's eye. I am not certain if anyone even mentioned Sarna or referred to the book in the long hours of taping that was done for the Moyers' series, but they should have.

Furthermore, those biblical examples occurred in an age of socially and religiously recognized polygamy, contrary to present Jewish and Christian law.

Daniel J. Harrington reviews \"Exploring Exodus,\" by Nahum M. Sarna.

Robert Alter reviews a newly-published commentary on the Pentateuch from the Jewish Publication Society of America (JPS), \"The JPS Torah Commentary,\" with commentaries by Nahum M. Sarna, Baruch A. Levine and Jacob Milgrom.