The Holy Scriptures

This is the Jewish Publication Society’s 1917 English Tanakh, distributed in eBible.org’s engjps verse format. The JPS translation project began in 1892 and was completed by an editorial board under Max L. Margolis after an earlier contributor-based effort proved difficult to finish.

The committee translated from the Masoretic Text, considering earlier English versions, ancient translations and Jewish commentators. Its literary English reflects the early twentieth century, while its selection and organization belong to Jewish scripture. The reader contains 23,212 mapped passages from the Hebrew Bible only. It is the 1917 version, not the Society’s later New Jewish Publication Society translation.

At a glance

Books: 39
Chapters: 929
Stored passages: 23,212

Edition type: Translation
Edition language and script: English · Latin script
Tradition: Jewish
Translator: Jewish Publication Society
Credits: The Jewish Publication Society of America · translator — Editor-in-chief Max Margolis, with a committee of Jewish scholars.
Edition date: 1917
Translated from: The Hebrew Masoretic text: 'The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, a new translation'.
Verse numbering: jps

Sources for this guide

Sites and rights

Text source — Zip exactly as downloaded, kept in the archive. The text is its member engjps_vpl.txt (SHA-256 69b30d85abc624db443665212f536d53204160147377bf15ebdc3ce6fc863d16), whose snapshot is kept in the repository. Retrieved 2026-09-28.
Rights evidence — eBible.org details page for this translation, which marks it public domain. Retrieved 2026-09-28.
Page scans — Page images of a printing of this translation, for checking the transcription.

Public domain in the US.

Published in the United States in 1917; US works published before 1931 are now in the public domain, and eBible.org distributes it as public domain. The JPS's 1985 translation (NJPS) is a different, copyrighted work and is not this edition.

Rights evidence and source record

Open rights evidence · reviewed 2026-09-28

published by the Jewish Publication Society in 1917 Public Domain

Reference system: bible

A Jewish English Bible for a new century

The Jewish Publication Society began the work in 1892, seeking a new English rendering of the Hebrew Bible for American Jews. After an initial process that relied on multiple contributors proved difficult to complete, a board of editors took responsibility for the translation. Max L. Margolis served as editor-in-chief, and the completed work appeared in 1917 as The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text.

The publication grew from a distinct religious and communal setting. It presents the Jewish Tanakh in English, rather than adding a New Testament or adopting the Christian Old Testament’s arrangement as its own. The Society later issued a new translation; “JPS 1917” identifies this earlier work.

Committee method and literary aim

The editors translated the Hebrew Masoretic Text, with Aramaic where the source text is Aramaic. Their preface describes consulting earlier English Bibles, Greek and Aramaic versions, and Jewish commentators from medieval and modern periods. This was a learned committee effort, not a word-for-word conversion made without interpretive traditions.

The translators valued literary English and drew on the register of the Revised Version while adapting it to Jewish interpretation and the Hebrew canon. That style can now feel formal or dated. Its choices are best understood in relation both to the source tradition and the Jewish scholars who produced it.

JPS 1917 official scan and preface

The Society’s American Jewish publishing project

At its 1892 convention, the Jewish Publication Society made a new English Bible for American Jews a priority. JPS describes a long publication process in which the Torah, Prophets, and Writings were issued separately before the 1917 edition was complete. The result is not simply a Christian Old Testament rendered by another publisher: its scope, book arrangement, and editorial setting are the Jewish Tanakh.

The edition title names the Masoretic Text and its preface credits consultation with prior translations and Jewish authorities. Its translators drew on the Revised Version’s literary register while making choices within Jewish textual and interpretive traditions. The archaic ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ therefore signal the translation’s early twentieth-century English style, not an ancient English Bible; later JPS translations are distinct projects.

The Holy Scriptures · JPS Tanakh 1917 · eBible.org engjps · Assist With Scriptures

The Holy Scriptures

A Jewish English Bible for a new century

Committee method and literary aim

The Society’s American Jewish publishing project

The 1917 Tanakh in this reader

Not the later NJPS