Harry Orlinsky was a scholar and translator of the Hebrew Bible

Hebrew Bible

The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...

. He was born in Owen Sound, Ontario.

He graduated from the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

 and then later earned a Ph.D. from Dropsie College in Philadelphia. He eventually was named the Effie Wise Ochs Professor of Biblical Literature at Hebrew Union College

Hebrew Union College

The Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis, cantors, educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism.HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.The Jerusalem...

-Jewish Institute of Religion where he taught nearly 50 years.

He served on the translation teams of the Revised Standard Version

Revised Standard Version

The Revised Standard Version is an English translation of the Bible published in the mid-20th century. It traces its history to William Tyndale's New Testament translation of 1525. The RSV is an authorized revision of the American Standard Version of 1901...

 (RSV) of the Bible (1952), New Jewish Publication Society of America Version

New Jewish Publication Society of America Version

The JPS TANAKH, published in 1985, is a modern Jewish translation of Hebrew Scripture into English.This translation emerged from the collaborative efforts of an interdenominational team of Jewish scholars and rabbis working together over a thirty-year period...

 (NJPS) (1985), and the New Revised Standard Version

New Revised Standard Version

The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible is an English translation of the Bible released in 1989 in the USA. It is a thorough revision of the Revised Standard Version .There are three editions of the NRSV:...

(NRSV) (1989).

Writings by Orlinsky

• Ancient Israel. 1954. Cornell University.
• Studies on the Second Part of the book of Isaiah: The So-Called “Servant of the Lord” and “Suffering Servant” in Second Isaiah. 1967, (enlarged edition 1977). Leiden: Brill.
• Understanding the Bible Through History and Archaeology. 1969. Ktav Publishing House.
• Essays in Biblical and Jewish Culture and Bible Translation. 1973. Ktav.

External links

• http://www.americanjewisharchives.org/aja/FindingAids/harryorlinsky.htm