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rhuAs I had hoped, here's a followup on my earlier review of the Koren/Steinsaltz Talmud Bavli now that I've been learning from it for a few weeks.
Mostly, it delivers as promised. If I'm in a rush, I can read down the Hebrew/Aramaic column and glance over to the English column if I get lost. If I'm in a tearing rush, I can read down the English column. When I have time, I can linger over the translation, and appreciate its plainspoken accuracy. I can pull in the marginalia quickly and effectively. (I love the language notes, in particular.) What can I say; the typography really works, and this is a project where the typography isn't just about the aesthetics, it's a necessary component of making the translation functional.
I finally noticed that the width of the Hebrew/Aramaic column is different from page to page, which lets the marginalia fit as needed. Nice touch.
And I want to emphasize something I just mentioned in passing: the translation feels very honest to me. It's not wrapped in euphemism nor does it dodge awkward passages by trying to explain them homiletically (like someone else I could name). There have been a few places where I still feel a little confused after reading a passage, but for the most part this translation lets me feel engaged with the daf.
When we learn Daf Yomi in shul, it's been very interesting comparing the Steinsaltz/Koren explanations and the Artscrolls. I'm glad we have both --- but I'm more glad to be learning from the Steinsaltz. One other review that I read pointed out that Artscroll's edition tries to capture the experience of learning from a Rav, while Steinsaltz tries to translate the experience of learning from the page. I think that's an accurate statement, and identifies the different audiences for the translations.
A few gripes:
First, there are errors in the boldface text. (By convention, many translations -- not just this one -- use bold to indicate when the English is literally translating the source material, and normal weight text to indicate editorial interpolations.) Sometimes individual words are or are not bolded appropriately. In today's daf, an entire sentence was missing from the English. I know that the good people at Koren are working under a tight deadline, but now that volume one of Shabbat has gone to press, maybe they can slow down a little and take a bit more time in the proofreading stage. It's disheartening to see something so excellent marred by avoidable errors.
Second, there's a quotation style that I get seriously confused by. For biblical quotations, they use standard open- and close-quotes, but for references within the Talmud, or from the notes to the talmud, they use a style where a colon serves as the opening quote mark and there is no indication of where the quote ends. Perhaps this is a standard elsewhere, but I've never seen it before and it makes it very hard for me to parse the text sometimes.
But I've already ordered the next two volumes. (They are offering a discount if you subscribe through the Koren site, but it's still cheaper from Amazon.)
Mostly, it delivers as promised. If I'm in a rush, I can read down the Hebrew/Aramaic column and glance over to the English column if I get lost. If I'm in a tearing rush, I can read down the English column. When I have time, I can linger over the translation, and appreciate its plainspoken accuracy. I can pull in the marginalia quickly and effectively. (I love the language notes, in particular.) What can I say; the typography really works, and this is a project where the typography isn't just about the aesthetics, it's a necessary component of making the translation functional.
I finally noticed that the width of the Hebrew/Aramaic column is different from page to page, which lets the marginalia fit as needed. Nice touch.
And I want to emphasize something I just mentioned in passing: the translation feels very honest to me. It's not wrapped in euphemism nor does it dodge awkward passages by trying to explain them homiletically (like someone else I could name). There have been a few places where I still feel a little confused after reading a passage, but for the most part this translation lets me feel engaged with the daf.
When we learn Daf Yomi in shul, it's been very interesting comparing the Steinsaltz/Koren explanations and the Artscrolls. I'm glad we have both --- but I'm more glad to be learning from the Steinsaltz. One other review that I read pointed out that Artscroll's edition tries to capture the experience of learning from a Rav, while Steinsaltz tries to translate the experience of learning from the page. I think that's an accurate statement, and identifies the different audiences for the translations.
A few gripes:
First, there are errors in the boldface text. (By convention, many translations -- not just this one -- use bold to indicate when the English is literally translating the source material, and normal weight text to indicate editorial interpolations.) Sometimes individual words are or are not bolded appropriately. In today's daf, an entire sentence was missing from the English. I know that the good people at Koren are working under a tight deadline, but now that volume one of Shabbat has gone to press, maybe they can slow down a little and take a bit more time in the proofreading stage. It's disheartening to see something so excellent marred by avoidable errors.
Second, there's a quotation style that I get seriously confused by. For biblical quotations, they use standard open- and close-quotes, but for references within the Talmud, or from the notes to the talmud, they use a style where a colon serves as the opening quote mark and there is no indication of where the quote ends. Perhaps this is a standard elsewhere, but I've never seen it before and it makes it very hard for me to parse the text sometimes.
But I've already ordered the next two volumes. (They are offering a discount if you subscribe through the Koren site, but it's still cheaper from Amazon.)