Hello and shalom! Thanks for stopping by and joining me on my journey to translate the Torah. So why am I doing this?

I love mythology, and as somebody with a Judeo-Christian background, I’m especially interested in Hebrew mythology. Central to this is the Torah, a complicated collection of books that has been at the core of the religious understanding of many, many people for many, many years. Trying to immerse oneself in its ancient worldview without any modern baggage can be a challenge, as biblical language and concepts are a part of our inherited identity in the Western world. I want to offer a perspective on the Torah different than what most of us in the West are accustomed to. In some cases, the stories told by the Hebrews themselves differ significantly from the stories as understood and retold in synagogues and churches, and I want to present them with language that doesn’t tempt the audience to read modern Jewish or Christian theology back into them. My goal, then, is to translate these stories as truthfully as possible regarding the original intentions and beliefs of the people who first told them (as best as I’m able to).

As such, I’m translating this with an agenda – I want the Torah to feel different than what I’m used to, and I want to capture a point of view that’s buried under millennia of theological development. This is ultimately meant to be an artistic expression, not an academic project. I am very much an amateur in this field.

It’s been a while since my college Biblical Hebrew courses. There’s a lot I don’t remember, and a lot that I’ll be relearning as I go. I’ll do my best to explain my translation choices as I make them. I won’t go into detail over every single choice, so if something doesn’t make sense, please ask.

If you’re completely new to Hebrew, I’d recommend reading some through some of the other pages located in the top menu. This isn’t meant to be a course in Hebrew, but it will help familiarize you with some of the very basic terminology and concepts.

I’m using the Westminster-Leningrad Codex as my source text, Strong’s Concordance for all my vocabulary-related needs, and Seow’s A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew as my point of reference for making sense of all these words.

If you have any questions, criticisms, or suggestions, please feel free to leave me comments or send me a message at andrew@translatethetorah.com.