The Life Story of Adam and Havah : A New Targum of Genesis 1:26-5:5 Hardcover - 1997

The story of Adam and Havah (Eve), the first man and woman as told in the Bible, has greatly influenced our ideas about relations between the sexes, reward and punishment, and free will versus predestination. An imaginative approach to this well-known yet enigmatic myth, The Life Story of Adam and Havah offers a complete summary of the traditional, rabbinic view of the characters and their implications, as well as a refreshing new reading of the text. Targum is a Hebrew word that literally means "translation", but implies much more. In the act of translating from the original Hebrew text, the way in which certain words are rendered is in itself a form of interpretation. Because many Hebrew words have an ambiguous meaning, and often more than one meaning, the opinion of the interpreter as to how the word appears in the secondary language colors the understanding of the translation's reader. It is common practice for scholars to use biblical translations as a form of commentary and interpretive resource on the text. In this targum, Shira Halevi follows tradition by doing much more than simply translating the biblical text into English; she offers the full-range of possible translations from the Hebrew, clearly aligning the alternate meanings so that the English reader can comprehend the inherent complexity of many Hebrew words. In this way, she introduces the English reader to the richness of the Hebrew original. In addition, she offers a complete explication of the text in the form of a dialogue between a rabbi/teacher, a female student (Talmidah) intent on exploring new interpretive possibilities in the ancient story, and a male student (Mitnagged, literally "opponent"), who represents a traditional point of view. The exchanges between these characters illuminate the rabbinic approach to the story, in addition to presenting the modern interpretation of Halevi through the voice of her Talmidah. This dialogue model also recreates for the reader the atmosphere of the traditional beit midrash (house of learning), where teachers and students exchange ideas and explore all possible meanings of a text by using the traditional works of rabbinic literature, such as midrash and aggadah (talmudic stories), to support or refute their own interpretations.