A “Mind-Boggling” Implication: The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and the Definition of a Work

Abstract

The uniform title Bible. O.T. has long caused difficulty in Judaica Libraries. The well documented problems caused by this heading are reviewed. Alternative models developed by the Hebraica Team of the Library of Congress (LC) are discussed, as is an LC proposed rule change to Resource Description and Access (RDA) that was partially approved by the Joint Steering Committee. The idea by members of the Association of Jewish Libraries to use the Virtual International Authority File as a technical solution is reviewed briefly. The author endorses a model from LC that uses different uniform titles for the Hebrew Bible and Christian Bible. Separate uniform titles are necessary because the two Bibles represent unique works; the ideational and textual differences of the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament are seen in both canonical and translation differences. “Jews undoubtedly fare far worse than all others when it comes to equitable subject treatment.”—Sanford Berman (1984, p. 173) As a cataloging intern in an academic library with one of the world’s largest collections of printed Judaica, I was curious to see how the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) handled the challenging uniform title heading Bible. O.T.Would JTS use the heading Bible. O.T., despite the Christian terminology, or abandon the term even though it is used in most libraries? I was further interested in seeing what the library literature had to say on the topic and to tease out all the different problems raised by Bible. O.T. for Judaica librarians. Lastly I investigated possible alternatives to the use of the heading being considered by the Library of Congress (LC), the Joint Steering Committee (JSC) for the Development of RDA, and others. But first, I will clarify what is meant by the term uniform title. 1 JUDA ICA L IBRAR IANSH IP VOL . 15 2009