Nethivoth Hashalom vehu Chamishah Chumshei Torah [The Pentateuch]. Translated and with “Bi’ur” commentary by Moses Mendelessohn.

MENDELSSOHN, MOSES.

George Friederich Starcke

Berlin

1783

Five volumes. First volume with additional engraved title-page.

Vinograd, Berlin 314.

Complete set of the first edition of Moses Mendelssohn’s monumental Bible translation. This first edition is highly uncommon to appear at auction. Titled Sepher Nethivoth Hashalom and more commonly known as the Bi’ur, Mendelssohn’s revolutionary translation of the Pentateuch appeared in German in Hebrew characters while the commentary was composed in Hebrew. The commentary aimed to explain the translation choices made by Mendelssohn and drew heavily on traditional medieval Jewish Bible commentators. The translation, written in an elegant High German, was designed to enable the Jews of Germany to acculturate all the faster and bring them closer to “general culture, from which my Nation, alas! is kept at such a distance.” One of the means of doing such was by “giving them the best translation of the Holy Book than they had ever had.”