ground-breaking new anthology, Outside the Bible: The Rediscovered Library of Ancient Israel
We're getting very close to having the final manuscript ready for production, but we need your help
to take it to this final step. This work, projected at 2000 pages (1.5 million words), is the recipient of two National Endowment for
the Humanities grants. But $200,000 is still needed to complete JPS's most ambitious book project in
30 years. Your contribution, no matter what its size, will help us keep this vital project going, right through
to publication. Let me tell you a little about this project and why it's so important to us - and to Judaism.
The vast and varied body of Jewish writings from the Second Temple periodexceeds that of the Hebrew Bible itself, and in some respects is of nearly
comparable importance, since it constitutes nothing less than the intellectual,
theological, and ideological mix from which Rabbinic Judaism, the precursor of
modern Judaism, evolved.
But ironically, these important writings have never been published together in a
Jewish context. JPS's Dr. Ellen Frankel and Dead Sea Scrolls scholar Dr. Lawrence Schiffman thought it was about time
they were. And so they, along with Louis Feldman, an expert on Hellenistic Judaism, and Bible scholar
James Kugel began the Lost Bible project. They invited an international team of 75 distinguished scholars to contribute commentaries, annotations
and introductory essays on over 130 of these Second Temple texts, in a style that is very accessible to
scholars and general readers alike. The result is that the key texts from the Apocrypha, the Dead Sea
Scrolls, and the historical writings of Josephus, Philo, and many others will be brought together for the
first time, providing new insights into the history, literature, and creativity of ancient Judaism and also
early Christianity. Please show your support for this important project with a gift now. Thank you very much, Michael Pomante
Development Officer