About Books

Biblical Reflections

David Ben-Gurion

Am Oved, Tel Aviv pp. 252, 1969 This volume of Reflections on the Bible is a collection of addresses and articles by the first Prime Minister and founder of the State of Israel in the midst of a busy and eventful active life, not in the comparative calm of retirement. They reflect a pre-occupation with certain ideas which have dominated Ben Gurion’s thought for decades and have had no little influence on his actions, especially in going to the desert and personally helping to turn it into gardenland, in accordance with biblical prophecy. The work, published by Am Oved in conjunction with the Israel Society for Biblical Research, contains 17 subjects. The first, on The Unique Destiny of the Jewish People, is from an address on army education to the High Command of the Israeli Defence Forces in 1950. The second, The Bible Shines by its Own Light, is a letter addressed to Isaac Daniel Shweiger following an article by the latter in Davar in September 1953. The third, The Antiquity oflsrael in its Land, is an address given to the Bible Study Circle in Jerusalem in April 1959. The fourth, A Double Messianic Vision which is One, is a message of welcome to the Third World Congress on Research on Judaism in Jerusalem in July 1961. The fifth, The Father of the Hebrew People, was an address to a Bible Conference, undated. The sixth, The Antiquity of the Ivrim in Canaan, is a talk with the lateProfessorKaufmaninJerusalemin June 1962. The seventh, Eilath, was delivered at the Conference on Archaeology in the Land of Israel in Eilath in October 1962. The eighth, Southwards, was written in Sdeh Boker in September 1956, and expresses the author’s conviction that one of the most important tasks of the new Israel is the conquest and settlement of the desert. The ninth, On Joshua chapters 23 and 24, was an address at the house of the President in February 1963. The tenth, The Antiquity of the Ivrim, returns to the dispute with the late Professo: Kaufmann already referred to. The eleventh, on the Book of Deuteronomy, was an address at the Thirteenth Bible Congress in Aprill965. The twelfth, on San! and David, retnrns to a subject dealt with in the second article, David’s faults as well as his greatness, because the Bible is unsparing in its honesty. The thirteenth, on King Cyrus, was an address delivered at the Ninth Bible Congress in Aprill951. The fourteenth, on The Return to Zion, emphasises that both in

the time of the Maccabees and in our own day independence was achieved through the force and might of our Defence Army. The fifteenth, on The Bible and the Jewish People is dated July 1964, Nahalal. The sixteenth, on Royalty and Prophecy, was an address at the Bible Circle in the Midrashia at Sdeh Boker in October 1968. And the last, on The Exodus from Egypt, was an address to the Journalist s’ Association in May 1960. Ben Gurion ’s views on the Bible, the Jewish people, and the Land of Israel are well known and are here forcefully expressed, and the publishers have performed a real service in preserving these valuable - and controversial thoughts and ideas for posterity. They might consider enlarging the circle of its readers by a translation into English. A guiding thought with Ben Gurion has been the double aspect of the Messianic vision of the Prophets of Israel - the ingathering of the Exiles and world peace. THE PEOPLE’S BIBLE (TANAKH LA’AM) in Hebrew, presented and annotated by Dr. MosHE A. ANAT. THE PENTATEUCH, Am Oved, Tel-Aviv, 1970, pp. 1036; THE FORMER PROPHETS, 1971, pp. 906. The words in a Sefer Torah are written without vowel signs or musical notes and are not marked off in verses. On the other hand the Bible text used for study today, though marked off in verses, is complicated with cantillation notes in addition to vowel signs. Yet there are no other punctuation marks, nor are passages divided into paragraphs, except in accordance with the traditional “open” and “closed” signs. The Magill Chumash in England over a generation ago attempted to overcome some of these difficulties by printing the text with an interlinear translation which was a boon to some teachers and enterpr ising pupils. Dr. Anat, the author of The People’s Bible, spent 27 years in devoted study to devise a means of presenting the ordinary reader with a text which could be read easily and understood at a glance, and this without, as he proud ly and rightly adds, altering even a single letter of the traditional massoretic text. The novelty is in the arrangement, with verses split up into shorter and longer lines, according to the sense, complete with quotation and exclamation marks, commas, semi-colons, and full stops, but without the musical notes. The 777 pages of text are followed by over 250 pages of short notes, mainly to explain biblica phrases in modern Hebrew terms. The first volume, the Pentateuch, was ant instant success. It bas been remarked that it could probab ly happen only in Israel that shop stewards and local l abour councils ordered thousands of