The Pentateuch of Moses

IN MODERN RUSSIAN TRANSLATION

Preface

The Institute for Bible Translation in Zaoksky has retranslated the first five books of the Bible, called the Torah in Hebrew, which means "Instruction" or, in the common translation, "The Law." At the end of this work, I, as the initiator of the project and the editor-in-chief of the newly created text, faced the question of a preface to its upcoming edition.

For me, it was precisely a question: what should it be, this preface? It is likely that an enlightened reader would be grateful to me for a simple academic reference on the oldest copies of the Bible in the original language, which formed the basis of the proposed translation. However, it seems that an enlightened reader could do without it, since he himself is able to join the achievements of modern textual criticism of the Old Testament, which in the past relied on ancient manuscripts of invaluable importance, and in the middle of the last century was enriched by biblical fragments that lay for about two thousand years in the caves of Qumran. However, I would like to add the following to what any serious reader can find in publicly available publications on his own. It is known that over the course of many centuries, in addition to the ancient and authoritative tradition that associated the writing of this book with the name of Moses and, naturally, with his era, a variety of theories of the origin of the Torah appeared in biblical studies. Many of them retain one or another of their significance today. But, without entering into a comparative assessment of these diverse versions, the staff of the Institute always insisted that they, at different times and to different degrees preserving their dignity, were born and died, while the Holy Scriptures remained unshakable in their living truth. It has brought, and continues to bless, mankind because it is the Word of the eternal God.

Be that as it may, for all the importance of the possible textual justifications of our project and the characteristics of the various theories of the origin of the Torah, for me, who have recently again experienced the irresistible influence of the sacred words of this book, cherish, first of all, the living feeling that I have acquired again, but again for the first time, together with my colleagues in the course of our joint work on its new translation.

Immersed in Divine revelation, I again stood on the edge of the greatest abyss and listened with all my heart to the words: yehi or vayehi or ("let there be light, and there was light"). The work of an interpreter gave me the happy opportunity to ascend Sinai with Moses, and there, shuddering at the flash of lightning and peals of thunder, I heard the words of the Ten Commandments in a new way, as if for the first time. And our entire translation team, imbued with the letter and spirit of the original, tried to understand and even to some extent identify themselves with the former slaves of Egypt who walked through the desert to the Promised Land. And on that path, figuratively speaking, receiving together with them not only the "manna" from above, but also the most important lessons of life with God, we both aloud and silently exclaimed: "Lord, may not be lost in our work the great power of sacred words and experiences, which Thou hast allowed us to hear and experience!"

In our desire to make the translation as accurate as possible and faithfully convey the meaning of each phrase of the original source, we considered it our duty more than once to double-check the correctness of our understanding of the meaning of this or that biblical expression. Each such contact with the sacred text struck us with the depth of the thoughts of the Divine Author. And then, behind the extremely clear, firm, and sometimes very strict words of warning, it was impossible not to see a long-suffering and merciful God (hannun erech appaim), a God who only in the most extreme cases and with a painful feeling for Him decided to destroy those whose stubborn unwillingness to break with life in darkness and sin threatened the destruction of all mankind.

We must admit that it was not easy for us to find texts with a detailed description of a carefully thought-out and built system of sacrifices, a great number of rituals and ceremonial institutions, the enumeration of which often turns into an almost unbearable burden for an inexperienced reader. On the other hand, what a reward was the undying desire of the Almighty to instill in us, people who have lost sight of the real causes of their misfortunes, an abhorrence of any sin and to show us the way to salvation from imminent destruction; and most importantly, to revive the unity of all mortals with Himself, God the Creator.

What else can be said in the inevitably brief preface to the Great Book, a storehouse of all wisdom, after all that has been experienced in the course of a long work on it? However, is it necessary? Will this not be an attempt to embrace the immensity?..

Understanding the great need of Russian society to familiarize itself with this ancient sacred text and the blessings that this text carries, the Institute for Bible Translation in Zaoksky, established in 1993, considered it possible and even necessary to make another attempt to make its own translation of the Torah into modern Russian. Many years of thoughtful reading of the Scriptures and mastering the ancient languages in which they were written, as well as the real experience gained in the work on the translation of the New Testament and the Psalter into modern Russian, all this prompted the staff of our Institute to overcome their legitimate fears and apprehensions and decide first to carry out their plans, and now to submit their next test to the public. a new translation of the Pentateuch. Our translation is based on the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Vierte verbesserte, Auflage, 1990), which is recognized as a standard scholarly edition. In some cases (extremely rare), where the Hebrew text was unclear to us, we, having stipulated this in footnotes, transmitted individual words or phrases, referring to ancient translations or the most reliable and justified reconstructions developed by modern textual criticism of the Old Testament.

At the same time, we have never allowed ourselves to forget that the creators of the well-known English translation of the King James Bible (KJV) formulated it centuries ago as follows: "What we translate is the Word of God." In our work, therefore, we have obliged ourselves to be as faithful as possible to the original (as far as possible, of course), but of course we have tried to adhere to this line not with a slavish attachment to the letter, but with an unfailing concern for the fullest and most accurate rendering of the living meaning of the sacred narrative. At the same time, we tried to make our translation not only understandable and clear, free from foreign words that have not yet been ugly and not yet established, or even just fleeting, vocabulary, but also tried to preserve in it artistic merits and reflect more or less adequately the lively mood and unique color of individual fragments of the original text. In order to help the reader see the deep, sometimes hidden meaning of some words and expressions, the special situational nuances of their meanings, we have accompanied our translation with the necessary notes, which are given in the footnotes.

On the whole, however, the most reliable and, one might say, even imperative criterion in this matter has always been a long-ago and divinely given criterion for us: "Add nothing to Divine revelation, nor take away anything" (Deuteronomy 4:2). How much we coped with this, of course, is for the reader to judge.