Rabbi Translates The New Testament

Rabbi Brichto was brought up in Philadelphia and the family was very poor. His father became a Schochet, a ritual slaughterer, who killed chickens in the manner required by Jewish Law. Due to a hernia (successfully operated on when he was 15) Rabbi Brichto was unable to take a full part in sports etc, and he described himself as a "puny" child. However, this did not put him at a disadvantage vis à vis school bullies. When he told them his father was a ritual slaughterer they thought it wiser to leave him alone! He had what he described as "a dysfunctional" childhood, and he read out a number of extracts from the first volume of his autobiography which explained, with much humour, various aspects of his formative years. The book is entitled "Ritual Slaughter: Growing Up Jewish In America". The first volume covers his life up to the time when he "escaped" Orthodox Judaism, left America and came to England. (The second volume is in preparation).

Without Judaism Christianity and Islam Would Not exist
With so many translations of the Bible already in existence the question arises "How is it that a rabbi translates the Bible - not only the Old Testament but the New Testament? In his family the New Testament was never mentioned. The name of Jesus was almost a profanity because the Jews had suffered so much under Christian persecution. Both parents were very upset when he would talk about Jesus. However, he was conscious of the relationship between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Without Judaism the other two would not exist. He loved the New Testament and read it surreptitiously. He loved the parables in the same way that he loved Rabbinic literature. He saw many parallels between the parables of Jesus and the rabbis.

The Bible: the Least-Read Bestseller
Rabbi Brichto realised that although the Bible was a bestseller, it was the least-read book; the reason being that most of it is unreadable. It is very hard to read it as literature. For example, people start reading a story in Genesis - a wonderful epic, and then suddenly they come to 3 chapters of "begets". When they get to the "begets" they say "Oh this is heavy going - I'll read it some other time", and they put it down and never pick it up again. Rabbi Brichto's translation is literal, but he puts all the unimportant genealogy in the Appendix - he does the "skipping" for the reader. By putting the unimportant genealogy at the back it says to the reader "If you want to read it you can do so, but you don't have to", and thus the reader doesn't feel guilty by omitting it. He has also added sentences in a bold font to give a continuity to the story. Sometimes the text doesn't make sense and needs something extra - an interpretation to make it comprehensible, otherwise it is very discouraging for the reader. Obviously this means that Rabbi Brichto is offering his own interpretation, but as the additions are in a different font people can accept or reject them as they think fit.

Six Books Published
Six of Rabbi Brichto's books on the Bible have already been published, and two more are due for publication in June or July 2002. These 2 new books cover the 4 books of Moses - Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (Genesis has already been published). Nobody has read these 4 books in one fell swoop! As such it would be an impossible read because the texts are interspersed with Laws. For example, one can be reading a text of what happened going out of Egypt and suddenly be confronted with 4 chapters on how to build the Sanctuary. These instructions, with various technical terms, are even difficult for an architect to understand. This is followed by some more narrative, and then the text reverts to the Sanctuary to tell you how it was done. There is no continuity so it can't be read as literature, but if you can't read it as literature why should you read it at all? The only point in reading it is to "get something out of it", and there is nothing for the most part to get out of these four books of Moses except for a few choice passages - so what Rabbi Brichto has done is to divide the 4 books into 2 sections; one section in each of the 2 volumes which are still to be published. The first volume is called "The Exodus: Moses, Man of God" and the second volume is all the Laws of Moses put together - indexed and cross-referenced so that the reader knows exactly where everything is found.

Sex & Spice
When Rabbi Brichto published his first 4 biblical volumes he kept the titles for the most part (Genesis, Samuel, Song of Songs, St. Luke and the Apostles). However, he realised that if the books of the Bible are to be read by the general public it is necessary to persuade booksellers to stock the books under "Classics" rather than "Religion", to use sub-titles, to have a "sexy" picture on the front cover, and some "spicy" review notes on the back cover. For example, he has given Joshua and Judges the sub-title "Conquest of Canaan. On the back cover there is a quote by Janet Suzman "Wonderfully crude, full of energy, nothing but mayhem and misogyny" Julia Neuberger is quoted as saying "In Joshua and Judges Sidney Brichto has given us a sense of the liveliness of the Hebrew original - struggle, gore, humour, face-saving device and a fair bit of violence make up this rollicking history/fiction". The point is that by reading these books one experiences the excitement and learns the origin of so many stories which have formed the basis of later literature and art. It is important to remember that when these books were written they were not considered holy - they were only made holy much later by incorporation into the Canon of Scripture.

The Genius of Paul
Rabbi Brichto's translation of the Pauline corpus is published under the title "The Genius of Paul". In translating Paul, Rabbi Brichto found that Paul was in no way anti-Semitic or a misogynist. Paul was the first Christian and the one with a mission to the Gentiles. He also realised that Paul persecuted the Christians, i.e. the Messianics, because he was a Roman citizen, and Jesus was crucified because he was the Messiah, and the Messiah was a rebel against Rome. Over his cross was "King of the Jews" and that was what the Messiah was - the anointed King of the Jews. Paul was a diaspora Jew and a Roman citizen. He didn't want any insurrection against the Roman empire - and therefore he persecuted the Christians. His vision on the road at to Damascus was that Jesus had not come to save the Jews; Jesus had not come to re-establish the kingdom of David; Jesus had come to save the world. Jesus had come to establish the kingdom of God.

A Fantastic Message - For Everyone
Jesus had come to give immortality to every individual who believed in him. Jesus had come to make every individual a god. It was a fantastic message. It was extremely persuasive, and in the age when the Roman empire and their gods were losing their credibility, and the mystery religions were coming in, and people were looking for meaning in life, Paul felt that this was a message that could win over the world. In one of his letters Paul thanks God for the fact that the Jews did not accept Christ because, had they done so, the Christians would not have missioned.

In summing up Rabbi Brichto said that reading the New Testament had given him an appreciation of the power of Christianity. He sees a great mysticism and spirituality in Paul's message, and he considers that just as Christians should read the Old Testament, Jews should read the New Testament.

- Bernard Tiley