Nahum M. Sarna
Encyclopedia
Nahum Mattathias Sarna (Hebrew: נחום סרנה) was a modern Biblical scholar who is best known for the study of Genesis and Exodus represented in his Understanding Genesis (1966) and in his contributions to the first two volumes of the JPS Torah Commentary (1989/91). He was also part of the translation team for the Kethuvim section of the Jewish Publication Society's translation of the Bible, known as Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures
(The New JPS Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text).
in 1923 to Jacob J. Sarna and Milly (Horonzick) Sarna, and received his M.A. from the University of London
in 1946, and a degree from Jews College in 1947. He married Helen Horowitz on March 23, 1947, and was a Lecturer at University College
, University of London from 1946 to 1949. Sarna then emigrated to the United States
in 1951, and received his Ph.D. from Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning in 1955. He studied at various times under Cyrus Gordon, Isidore Epstein
and Arthur Marmorstein, and was strongly influenced by the work of Yehezkel Kaufmann
(as can be seen, for example, in his discussion of apostolic prophecy on p.xxviii of Understanding Genesis.)
He was a lecturer at Gratz College
in Philadelphia from 1951 to 1957, a librarian and then associate professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary
, respectively, from 1957 to 1963, and from 1963 to 1965. He then moved to Newton, MA to be associate professor at Brandeis University
from 1965 to 1967, Dora Golding Professor of Biblical Studies from 1967 on, and chair of department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from 1969 on. He was also a visiting professor at Columbia University
, Andover Newton Theological School
, and Dropsie College at various times throughout the 1960s. He left Brandeis in 1985 to teach at Florida Atlantic and live in Boca Raton, where he died after a long illness in 2005. He is buried in the Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries
, West Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Sarna's son, Jonathan Sarna
is a historian of the American Jewish community.
presents a particular account in a particular fashion is to be answered by considering the purpose which the narrative is set to achieve. Thus, for Sarna, the prospect of judging the "scientific" merits of the account of Creation is misguided, and literalism especially is to be utterly rejected if an honest interaction with the texts is to be achieved . With reference to his Understanding Genesis, he writes:
Further, Sarna strenuously argues that the opening chapters of Genesis must not be interpreted as a treatise on science
. Approaching the Biblical narrative in this fashion only results in "tortuous reconciliations" that sacrifice both intellectual honesty and the true meaning of the Biblical passages. Thus, the "scientific" interpretation of Genesis is seen by Sarna as the worst of two worlds :
of neighboring nations. Among these key principles that Sarna identifies are the following:
While Sarna sees a debt for some or all of the principles of the Israelite faith to the beliefs prevailing in surrounding cultures, he claims that these ideas come together and are transformed in the Israelite religion into something genuinely new and profound, even as Shakespeare transformed and re-envisioned the work of prior storytellers.
, while still recognizing some serious shortcomings in the Graf
-Wellhausen school. However, Sarna does not regard the multiple authorship of the Torah as diminishing its divinity (Understanding Genesis, xxiv): "But is it not to circumscribe the power of God in a most extraordinary manner to assume that the Divine can only work effectively through the medium of a single document, but not through four?" Moreover, Sarna does not see the aim of Biblical study as that of doing "source differentiation." He writes,
While identifying the original sources that comprise the Pentateuch is important in Sarna's opinion, it is more important to understand the work as a whole, as a structure which is more than the sum of its parts. This is Sarna's view as well on the Israelite religion as a whole. While it drew from other cultural resources in the ancient Near East, the radical monotheism that emerged from this brew was something completely new and novel, "a revolution in religion."
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...
(The New JPS Translation according to the Traditional Hebrew Text).
Biography
Nahum Sarna was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1923 to Jacob J. Sarna and Milly (Horonzick) Sarna, and received his M.A. from the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
in 1946, and a degree from Jews College in 1947. He married Helen Horowitz on March 23, 1947, and was a Lecturer at University College
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
, University of London from 1946 to 1949. Sarna then emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1951, and received his Ph.D. from Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning in 1955. He studied at various times under Cyrus Gordon, Isidore Epstein
Isidore Epstein
This article is about the distinguished rabbinical scholar. For the noted astronomer of a similar name see: Isadore Epstein Rabbi Dr. Isidore Epstein , was an Orthodox rabbi and rabbinical scholar in England, who served as the longtime principal of Jews' College, London. Ezekiel Isidore Epstein...
and Arthur Marmorstein, and was strongly influenced by the work of Yehezkel Kaufmann
Yehezkel Kaufmann
Yehezkel Kaufmann was an Israeli philosopher and Biblical scholar associated with Hebrew University.- Biography :...
(as can be seen, for example, in his discussion of apostolic prophecy on p.xxviii of Understanding Genesis.)
He was a lecturer at Gratz College
Gratz College
Gratz College is a general college of Jewish studies founded in 1895 offering a broad array of credentials and programs in virtually every area of higher Judaic learning to aspiring Jewish educators, communal professionals, lay people and others seeking to become more knowledgeable of...
in Philadelphia from 1951 to 1957, a librarian and then associate professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary
Jewish Theological Seminary of America
The Jewish Theological Seminary of America is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism, and a major center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies.JTS operates five schools: Albert A...
, respectively, from 1957 to 1963, and from 1963 to 1965. He then moved to Newton, MA to be associate professor at Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
from 1965 to 1967, Dora Golding Professor of Biblical Studies from 1967 on, and chair of department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from 1969 on. He was also a visiting professor at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Andover Newton Theological School
Andover Newton Theological School
Andover Newton Theological School is a graduate school and seminary located in Newton, Massachusetts. It is America's oldest graduate seminary and the nation's first graduate institution of any kind...
, and Dropsie College at various times throughout the 1960s. He left Brandeis in 1985 to teach at Florida Atlantic and live in Boca Raton, where he died after a long illness in 2005. He is buried in the Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries
Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries
The Baker Street Jewish Cemeteries are a group of 42 Jewish cemeteries in use since the 1920s on Baker Street in the West Roxbury section of Boston...
, West Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Sarna's son, Jonathan Sarna
Jonathan Sarna
Jonathan D. Sarna is the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History in the department of and the director of the Hornstein Program in Jewish Professional Leadership. He is regarded as one of the most prominent historians of American Judaism...
is a historian of the American Jewish community.
Works
Among Sarna's extensive publications were a large number of works intended for a popular audience, and through these works he succeeded in introducing many laypeople to the modern study of the Bible. Some of these works are listed below:- Understanding Genesis, McGraw, 1966.
- Genesis: The Traditional Hebrew Text with New JPS Translation, Jewish Publication Society (Philadelphia, PA), 1989.
- Exodus: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation, Jewish Publication Society (Philadelphia, PA), 1991.
- On the Book of Psalms: Exploring the Prayers of Ancient Israel, Schocken Books (New York, NY), 1993.
- Exploring Exodus: The Origins of Biblical Israel, Schocken Books (New York, NY), 1996.
- Genesis: World of Myths and Patriarchs, New York University Press (New York, NY), 1996.
- Studies in Biblical Interpretation, Jewish Publication Society (Philadelphia, PA), 2000.
- Songs of the Heart: An Introduction to the Book of Psalms (1993)
On understanding Biblical narrative
Sarna's approach to study of the Bible appears to be founded on the following question: What was the purpose of the Biblical narrative for the people in whose benefit it was composed? Thus, the question of why the TorahTorah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
presents a particular account in a particular fashion is to be answered by considering the purpose which the narrative is set to achieve. Thus, for Sarna, the prospect of judging the "scientific" merits of the account of Creation is misguided, and literalism especially is to be utterly rejected if an honest interaction with the texts is to be achieved . With reference to his Understanding Genesis, he writes:
Further, Sarna strenuously argues that the opening chapters of Genesis must not be interpreted as a treatise on science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
. Approaching the Biblical narrative in this fashion only results in "tortuous reconciliations" that sacrifice both intellectual honesty and the true meaning of the Biblical passages. Thus, the "scientific" interpretation of Genesis is seen by Sarna as the worst of two worlds :
On the purpose of the Narrative
If the key to understanding the Bible according to Sarna is to ascertain the purpose of the narrative, and if the purpose of the Genesis account is not to present a "scientific" picture, then what indeed is its purpose? According to , the Genesis account is meant to present certain principles of faith that set the Israelite religion apart from the paganismPaganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
of neighboring nations. Among these key principles that Sarna identifies are the following:
- There is one God
- The entire universe is subservient to the one God
- God is outside the realm of nature
- God has no mythosMythologyThe term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
; that is, there are no stories about the life of God - There is no magic involved in the worship of God
- Man is a God-like creature who is given responsibility for the care of the world
- There is a universal moral order that governs human affairs
While Sarna sees a debt for some or all of the principles of the Israelite faith to the beliefs prevailing in surrounding cultures, he claims that these ideas come together and are transformed in the Israelite religion into something genuinely new and profound, even as Shakespeare transformed and re-envisioned the work of prior storytellers.
On the origins of the Torah
Sarna accepts the basic premise of the Documentary HypothesisDocumentary hypothesis
The documentary hypothesis , holds that the Pentateuch was derived from originally independent, parallel and complete narratives, which were subsequently combined into the current form by a series of redactors...
, while still recognizing some serious shortcomings in the Graf
Karl Heinrich Graf
Karl Heinrich Graf was a German Old Testament scholar and orientalist. He was born at Mulhausen in Alsace and died in Meissen in Saxony....
-Wellhausen school. However, Sarna does not regard the multiple authorship of the Torah as diminishing its divinity (Understanding Genesis, xxiv): "But is it not to circumscribe the power of God in a most extraordinary manner to assume that the Divine can only work effectively through the medium of a single document, but not through four?" Moreover, Sarna does not see the aim of Biblical study as that of doing "source differentiation." He writes,
While identifying the original sources that comprise the Pentateuch is important in Sarna's opinion, it is more important to understand the work as a whole, as a structure which is more than the sum of its parts. This is Sarna's view as well on the Israelite religion as a whole. While it drew from other cultural resources in the ancient Near East, the radical monotheism that emerged from this brew was something completely new and novel, "a revolution in religion."