The translation, which appeared in 1917, is heavily indebted to the
Revised Version and
American Standard Version. It differs from them in many passages where Jewish and Christian interpretations differ, notably in
Isaiah 7:14, where it has "young woman" as opposed to the word "virgin" which is used in most Christian Bibles. The translation was initiated in 1892 by the
Central Conference of American Rabbis, the organization of
Reform rabbis, and the original intention was to assign different books of the Bible to individual rabbis and scholars. A committee of editors would ensure quality and consistency. It became clear after several years that this method was hard to implement, and after more than a decade only the
Book of Psalms had been sent to press. In 1908 the Jewish Publication Society agreed to take over the project. The Jewish Publication Society's plan called for a committee of seven editors who would be responsible for the entire translation. They included
Solomon Schechter,
Cyrus Adler and
Joseph Jacobs, from the Society, and
Kaufmann Kohler,
David Philipson, and
Samuel Schulman, from the Central Conference of American Rabbis. They were led by Editor-in-Chief
Max Margolis. The editorial committee comprised an equal number of faculty from
Hebrew Union College in
Cincinnati,
Jewish Theological Seminary in
New York City, and
Dropsie College for Hebrew in
Philadelphia. The work was completed in November 1915 and published two years later. The translation is based on the
Hebrew Masoretic Text. It follows the edition of
Seligman Baer except for the books of
Exodus to
Deuteronomy, which never appeared in Baer's edition. For those books,
C. D. Ginsburg's Hebrew text was used. ==Book order==