THE ARTSCROLL BIBLE is trashed in a rambling article by Michael Fox in Ha'aretz. In "Musings / Roll up this scroll" he tells us that the Hebrew Bible is a better literary work than the King James translation, although the latter is still a "literary masterpiece." No such kind word for the Artscroll translation:

In stamping out heresy, the Artscroll in its translations is not above tampering with the text. Contrast with the standard translations its treatment of the Song of Songs, a powerfully erotic set of poems with no apparent religious content. The book was admitted into the canon of the Bible as an allegory and perhaps, one would like to think, for its literary quality.

At any rate Rabbi Akiva called it the holiest of all books and the liturgy of the Hasidim calls for it to be read every Sabbath eve. By means of marginal notes the King James translators present the book as an extended metaphor of the love of Christ for the Church. The line "a bundle of myrrh is my beloved unto me, he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts" is annotated "The Church and Christ congratulate each other," but the translation itself is literal; the translators, though clerics, seldom resort to euphemism in their translations.

Avian abominations

Artscroll, however, is not content to leave to its commentary an allegorical interpretation. Religious correctness has compelled it to ignore the literal meaning of the book entirely. See where Artscroll has placed that bundle of myrrh: "But my Beloved responded with a bundle of myrrh ... the fragrant atonement of erecting a Tabernacle where His Presence would dwell amid the Holy Ark's staves."

Sometimes the demands of orthodoxy make the Artscroll translators give up in despair. Chapter XI of Leviticus contains a list of 20 birds that may not be eaten. The King James Version speaks of eagles, ospreys, vultures, owls, hawks, cuckoos, cormorants and kites. Subsequent versions have altered some of these translations in the light of later scholarship. But Artscroll's house ornithologist must have been on leave when the avian abominations were listed as: "the nesher, the peres, the ozniah; the daah and the ayah according to its kind; every orev according to its kind; the bas hayaanah, the tachmos, the shachaf, and the netz according to its kind; the kos, the shalach, and the yanshuf; the tinshemes, the kaas, and the racham; the chasidah, according to its kind, the duchifas, the anafah according to its kind and the atalef."

Well, thank you for "and" and "the."

I haven't seen the translation myself, but the examples he gives, not all of which are quoted above, don't sound very encouraging.

UPDATE: Reader Dan Rabinowitz e-mails:

I was supremely disappointed at the "trashing" that the artscroll bible got. First of all it has been out for a couple of years now, and to subject it to that minor of a review is rather pathetic. It is not as if the reviewer did not have time?! Further, the Shir HaSHirim critique, Artscroll many years ago, I don't know exactly when published a in a single volume the Shir HaShirim, this current translation just reuses that one, so no big news there.

True, the review could have been more thorough. As I said, I haven't seen the translation.