Monday, July 06, 2009

JASTROW'S DICTIONARY of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature is under consideration for electronic publication at Logos Bible Software and I understand some initial work on the project has already been undertaken. Kent Hendricks e-mails:
Logos Bible Software recently announced a digitization project for Marcus Jastrow’s Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature. This new edition will be fully searchable, including words and phrases in any language buried deep within individual entries. It will also contain extensive linking, which readers will find especially useful when following cross-references, citations, and Hebrew Bible references. Most importantly, the electronic edition will fix some of the issues in the print versions, and use a more readable font.
The price is somewhat higher than the reprint available on Amazon, but Kent notes:
First, the recently-published print copies have been criticized for their poor quality—a difficult font for reading, blurry text, etc. Our edition will fix those issues, and add extensive linking, searching, and all of the other great features of having an electronic edition. The higher price, in our view, reflects a much higher quality book than the one currently in print.

Second, the production costs for a book of this size are very high. Other publishers have not re-typeset the original 1903 edition, which is why they can sell it for $33-$34. Since we plan on redoing the original 1903 edition from scratch (with the same content, of course), our project is significantly more expensive. Even at $49.95, we will still need a lot of orders.
So if you are interested, put in a pre-order now.