Translation Talk with Michael Carasik

A conversation with Professor Michael Carasik about his 17 year project translating the five-volume Commentators' Bible.

I was Michael Carasik’s student at the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught Biblical Hebrew for many years before retiring this year to move to Jerusalem. His courses were the best part of my undergraduate education. You can still learn Biblical Hebrew with him through his Biblical Hebrew class from The Great Courses.

He also blogs about the Hebrew Bible and records a podcast on the weekly Torah portion at https://mcarasik.wordpress.com (don’t miss his new series of posts on Samuel and the Translator’s Task or the previous series on what he learned when translating the Commentators’ Bible).

But the main topic of our conversation is his 17 year project of translating the Commentators’ Bible, a compendium of medieval Jewish commentaries on the Pentateuch. The finished set is available from the Jewish Publication Society.

For technical reasons I cannot explain or understand, my video does not come through, but please don’t let the strangeness of my disembodied voice dissuade you from learning from Dr. Carasik.