The Jewish Bible - A Material History

Drawing on the most recent scholarship on the history of the book, Stern shows how the Bible has been not only a medium for transmitting its text―the word of God―but a physical object with a meaning of its own. That meaning has changed, as the material shape of the Bible has changed, from scroll to codex, and from manuscript to printed book. By tracing the material form of the Torah, Stern demonstrates how the process of these transformations echo the cultural, political, intellectual, religious, and geographic changes of the Jewish community. With tremendous historical range and breadth, this book offers a fresh approach to understanding the Bible's place and significance in Jewish culture.

David H Stern born in Los Angeles in 1935, is the great-grandson of two of the city's first twenty Jews. He earned a Ph.D. in economics at Princeton University and was a professor at UCLA. He then received a Master of Divinity degree at Fuller Theological Seminary, did graduate work at the University of Judaism, and was active in the Messianic Jewish movement. Dr. Stern authored the highly acclaimed English translations, the Jewish New Testament, the Jewish New Testament Commentary, and the Complete Jewish Bible.