Steven D. Fraade is the Mark Taper Professor Emeritus of the History of Judaism in the Department of Religious Studies and the Program in Judaic Studies at Yale University. His scholarship has been recognized through many academic honors, including fellowships and funding from The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, among others.  He is the author of four books including From Tradition to Commentary: Torah and Its Interpretation in the Midrash Sifre to Deuteronomy (1991), which won the National Jewish Book Award for Scholarship.

• 1. Introduction: multilingualism in the neighborhood; 2. Before Babel; 3. Seventy languages (and translations) for seventy nations; 4. Ezra the scribe and the origins of Targum; 5. Out of the fire and into the wall; 6. 'Reading leads to translation' whether public or private; 7. Be careful what you wish for; 8. Afterword.