"The Scriptures, German"

"The Scriptures, German" (Die Schrift: Zu Verdeutchen unternomen von Martin Buber gemeinsam mit Franz Rosenzweig) is a translation of the Hebrew Bible that tries to revive the biblical text as the spoken word of God. In order to facilitate reading aloud Buber and FR divide the biblical text into "breath phrases" or lines that can be spoken in one breath. Furthermore, the translation preserves as much of the Hebrew flavor as possible. Names such as Isaiah (Jeschajahu) resemble the original Hebrew pronunciation. Hebrew roots are translated so as to preserve their meaning in German (Gen 5:1 Zeugungen [procreations]). The translation tries to stay with the same German word when a wordstem is repeated in Hebrew. Also, the syntax of the German is structured to resemble the Hebrew as closely as possible. The names of the biblical books correspond with the traditional Hebrew names. For example: the Book of Genesis is called Im Anfang (In the Beginning). In place of the tetragrammaton, Buber and FR use pronouns in capital letters. God speaks as "I" (ICH), is spoken to as "YOU" (DU), and is spoken of as "HE"(ER). With this new translation of the Hebrew Bible, Buber and FR attempt to bring the reader back to the original Hebrew text.

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