Avigdor Shinan – författare

The ancient Israelites believed things that the writers of the Bible wanted them to forget: myths and legends from a pre-biblical world that the new monotheist order needed to bury, hide, or reinterpret. Ancient Israel was rich in such literary traditions before the Bible reached the final form that we have today. These traditions were not lost but continued, passed down through the ages. Many managed to reach us in post-biblical sources: rabbinic literature, Jewish Hellenistic writings, the writings of the Dead Sea sect, the Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and other ancient translations of the Bible, and even outside the ancient Jewish world in Christian and Islamic texts. The Bible itself sometimes alludes to these traditions, often in surprising contexts. Written in clear and accessible language, this volume presents thirty such traditions. It voyages behind the veil of the written Bible to reconstruct what was told and retold among the ancient Israelites, even if it is "not what the Bible tells us."

During his life, Michael Klein played a key role in helping establish the foundation for the modern study of the Targums. He was known for his thorough studies of targumic translation techniques and for his editions of the Fragment Targums and the Cairo Geniza fragments of Palestinian Targums. This collection of his essays brings together some of his writings on translation technique and studies on the Cairo Geniza material on Targums Onqelos and Jonathan, as well as the Writings. Essays on the Palestinian Targums feature as well, with studies of Targum Neofiti and Geniza discoveries that occurred after his edition. It begins with a Foreward by Avigdor Shinan and Rimon Kasher and ends with a personal tribute by Stefan Reif.