Reading the Story of Judah and Tamar: In Hebrew and in English

Aya Katz and I recently did a bilingual reading of the story of Judah and Tamar from Chapter 38 of the book of Genesis. Aya and I explored this story from a non-religious, historical, and literary perspective, and we discussed the meaning behind the Hebrew names, and I noted how some of the meaning of the text seems to be lost with the English translations.

The version of the Bible I read from was the New King James Version, and Aya read from a Bible in the Hebrew language. Aya is a native Hebrew speaker and a linguist, so please feel free to ask her questions about the story of Judah and Tamar here in the comments. Aya also wrote a book Vacuum County, which makes references to the Old Testament. This book is available on Amazon:

https://amzn.to/42uCZtq

The takeaway that I got from this story was exploring how all Canaanite people have similar roots, which is of interest to me because I am part Syrian-Lebanese, and I have always had an interest in this part of the world.

The beautiful oil painting of Judah and a veiled Tamar featured in this video was created by Horace Vernet in 1840 and is now in the public domain:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emile_Jean_Horace_Vernet_001.jpg

#Genesis38 #HebrewandEnglish #JudahandTamar