Credit Where Credit is Due
Jamie has taken the entire "Era of COVID" and then some to study the Torah, mostly through the eyes of Dennis Prager who has completed a commentary on Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy. Numbers can be pre-ordered now. Prager wrote, "The Old Testament is often dismissed as outdated, irrelevant, and even immoral. None of that is true." Jamie would encourage you to get and read these books, Prager's "Rational Bible" series, but that is totally optional for any talk or course of study.
General References
Unless specifically noted otherwise, you may generally assume most of what I'm sharing came as a result of reading or listening to one or more of the following materials:
Books:
- Alter, Robert, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary, a review.
- Ashley, Book of Numbers: New International Commentary
- Benner, The Ancient Hebrew Lexicon of the Bible
- Craige, Book of Deuteronomy: New International Commentary
- Crossway, Hebrew Old Testament: Reader's Edition
- DailyWire.com, Exodus, ~32-hour seminar/workshop videos (paywall)
- Davidson, Gregg and Kenneth Turner, The Manifold Beauty of Genesis One: A Multi-Layered Approach
- Dreisbach, Daniel, L., Reading the Bible with the Founding Fathers
- Feiler, Bruce, Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land through the Five Books of Moses
- Fox, The Five Books of Moses (The Schocken Bible, Volume 1)
- Frankl, Victor E., Man's Search for Meaning
- Friedman, David, James the Just: Presents Applications of the Torah
- Hamilton, The Book of Genesis 1-17
- Hamilton, Adam, Words of Life: Jesus and the Ten Commandments...
- Hertz, The Pentateuch and Haftorahs: Hebrew Text English Translation and Commentary
- Hunerwadel, Torah: Hebrew Transliteration Translation
- Jacobs, Louis, We Have Reason to Believe
- Jewish Publication Society, The JPS Torah Commentary Series, 5-volume set
- Kass, Leon R., The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis
- Kushner, Lawrence and Mamet, David, Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy
- Leibowitz, New Studies in Shemot Exodus
- Milgrom, Leviticus
- Milgrom, The Anchor Bible: Leviticus (3 volumes)
- Plaut, The Torah: A Modern Commentary
- Prager and Telushkin, The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism
- Prager, Dennis, The Rational Bible: Exodus
- Prager, Dennis, The Rational Bible: Genesis
- Prager, Dennis, The Rational Bible: Deuteronomy
- Prager, Dennis, The Rational Passover Haggadah (Passover Seder)
- Prager, Dennis, Why the Jews
- Prothero, Stephen, God is not One
- Renn, Expository Dictionary of Bible Words
- Strong, The New Strong's Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible
- Telushkin, Biblical Literacy
- Van Pelt and Pratico, Basics of Biblical Hebrew (grammar, workbook, and vocabulary guide)
- Wigram, The Englishman's Hebrew Concordance of the Old Testament
- Wondrium, Biblical Hebrew: Learning a Sacred Language
- Woudstra, Book of Joshua: New International Commentary
Helpful Online
- Bible Hub's Interlinear Bible, shows three lines in parallel word/phrase by word/phrase: transliteration (how the Hebrew sounds), the Hebrew, and the English. Here's another helpful online translation: Chabad.org.
- Jackson, Justin, Genesis, online videos, Hillsdale College.
- Jackson, Justin, Exodus, online videos, Hillsdale College.
- Laan, Ray Vander, RVL Discipleship the Study, online, fee-based videos. See also That the World May Know
- Pragertopia.com, audio lectures including 241 hours on the Torah verse-by-verse (fee-based)
- PragerU.com, The Ten Commandments
- Sefaria.org, free access to Jewish texts, translations, and commentaries
Best Literal Translation
I'm often asked what's the best Bible translation for this kind of study. Well, since we're digging into the ancient Hebrew texts, Dennis Prager (and I) think that as close to literal is best. We want to know what it actually says. For that, he recommends the King James Version (KJV) or the translation by Everett Fox listed above. Prager has also mentioned the NIV and ESV as good. None are perfect, but these are the closest. Even the KJV made mistakes that have led to issues, like translating the Commandment "Thou shalt not murder" (correct) as "Thou shalt not kill" (incorrect). Also understand that thought-for-thought and paraphrased translations can be useful in some situations.
