in 1879:
I know that I will not escape from the criticism from both sides [Jews and Christians]. My Hebrew brethren will say, “What happened to R. Eliyahu! Yesterday he was one of us and today he is filled with a new spirit?!” And my Christian brethren will say, “This one who is a Jew comes to reveal to us the secrets of the Gospel?! How can we accept that he speaks correctly and a true spirit dwells within him?” These two extremes are really saying one thing. That is, it cannot be that what he is speaking with his mouth is what he believes in his heart. On this criticism, my soul weeps uncontrollably. Only God knows, and God is my witness that in this I am free of sin.30
One can see from this the way Soloveitchik understood the complexity of his project and the formidable barriers he faced. This was not, for him, merely a scholarly exercise but driven by a deep belief in the benefits—even the redemptive potential—of his work.
In 1845, Soloveitchik left Slutzk and traveled to Danzig and then Königsberg, seeking financial help from various rabbis, including Jacob Joseph Zalkinor of Sklov.31 In the same year, Soloveitchik published an edition of Toledot Adam, the life of Shlomo Zalman, brother of Hayyim of Volozhin and great-uncle of Elijah Zvi, written by Ezekiel Feivel of Vilna in 1801. This was apparently done for financial reasons. During this time, he also began contemplating publishing an edition of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, only some of which was eventually printed.
A curious thing about Soloveitchik’s publishing life is its lack of consistency. For example, he began publishing portions of Maimonides’ “Book of Knowledge” (the first volume of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah) soon after Toledot Adam but without Maimonides’ “Laws of Idolatry” (which is integral to the book). He eventually published the “Laws of Idolatry” in a separate volume with his own commentary, part of his multivolume project called Qol Qore, which I will detail in the next section (not the same as his commentary to the New Testament, but a prelude to it). The first volume of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, likely published in Danzig or Königsberg, included a commentary likely by him; but there is no attribution of the author of the commentary or the publishing house on the frontispiece.
In his separate commentary to Maimonides’ “Laws of Idolatry” published a few years later, we can see the beginning of Soloveitchik’s intellectual trajectory, which will culminate in our Qol Qore on Mark and Matthew. Commenting on Maimonides’ history of idolatry in chapter 1 of “Laws of Idolatry,” Soloveitchik writes: “Our teacher [Maimonides] brings proof from Jeremiah that even when Jeremiah was rebuking Israel for abandoning God and going after other gods of wood and stone, he said that all nations know that only God is one; they only err by elevating those that God himself elevated.” This is a fairly close, conventional reading of Maimonides’ text, but this sentiment will again appear in his commentary to the New Testament many times, where Soloveitchik will criticize his fellow Jews who think that Christianity maintains that Jesus is God, even in one place defending the Trinity as a “great mystery.” If the ancient idolaters even knew that God was one, certainly those in antiquity who had already been exposed to the monotheism of the Israelite religion must have known so.
During this early period in his publishing career (the 1840s), Soloveitchik was already interested in reaching beyond the Jewish world through translation. We have no information as to what brought him to this, although below I will discuss possible motives. He published a German translation of his edition of Maimonides’ “Book of Knowledge” in 1846 in Königsberg. In the introduction, he writes: “I decided to print these holy words, to publish this book as an aid to all. I am now here [in Königsberg] to seek help for my illness…. I have already published the first volume [in Hebrew]. And now I publish the second edition in German translation for those who do not know the original Hebrew.” Does this refer to Christians? We do not know.32 However, Dov Hyman found two approbations for the German edition that were apparently from non-Jews, suggesting that a non-Jewish readership existed and was desired.33
After this period, we have little knowledge of Soloveitchik’s whereabouts until at least the early 1850s. We do know that in 1853, he was likely in Volozhin because he was asked by Eliezer Yizhak Fried, who became dean of the Volozhin yeshiva sometime in the late 1840s, to travel to Berlin to raise money for the yeshiva, which he did.34 We also have a letter of introduction dated August 17, 1857, from a Rabbi Ettinger from Berlin. Such letters were common for Jews traveling to new communities.35 This letter was apparently used when Soloveitchik traveled to London.
In 1863, Soloveitchik, likely living in London, continued his work on Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, publishing an English translation of Maimonides’ “Laws of Kings,” which appears in the last volume of Maimonides’ multivolume collection. The frontispiece states only that the work was translated by “Learned Writers” and edited and revised by Elias Soloweyczyk. In the preface to his English edition, Soloveitchik writes: “The wise observations, sound judgment and true impartiality, which stamp this learned word—Yad Hazakah36 of Moses Maimonides—has induced me to translate his pages into modern languages, as to bring it within the pale of the modern reader. I have thus issued two editions in Germany, which met with great success not only among the Jewish doctors, but also among the most eminent Christian scholars.” While we cannot be sure why Soloveitchik specifically published Maimonides’ “Laws of Kings” at this point, we may surmise that it was part of his larger work on Christianity, since the “Laws of Kings” includes Maimonides’ understanding of the criteria of messiah. Thus Soloveitchik’s Maimonides publications seem to function as a preface to his work on the Gospels. I will discuss his use of Maimonides in his commentary in a separate section below.
Before we turn to the complex nature of the present translation of the text Qol Qore, we must mention an earlier work by that same title that Soloveitchik published in English in London in 1868. The book Qol Qore: A Voice Crying, the Law, the Talmud and the Gospel was published without Soloveitchik’s name in London, only stating that it was written by “Several Learned Men.” This text was discovered by Jacob Dienstag and given to Dov Hyman. There is no mention of this work until the preface of the 1985 reprinting of our Qol Qore in Jerusalem by Protestant printers that mentions that the work had been translated into French, German, Polish, and English. No other record had an English translation. The reason may be that this 1868 Qol Qore is not the same book as the other editions that begin to appear in 1870 with the French translation. Our Qol Qore is a commentary on the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke (Luke was lost). The 1868 English Qol Qore is an elucidation and commentary on Maimonides’ “Thirteen Principles of Faith.” After some prefatory remarks, Soloveitchik devotes an entire chapter to each of the principles of faith, arguing that none of them stands in contradiction to Christianity. His prefatory remarks make clear that this is part of his larger project on New Testament commentary that will appear in French in 1870.
Hyman makes the very plausible suggestion that Soloveitchik’s New Testament commentary was likely written in Hebrew between 1863 and 1868, at which time he published the English Qol Qore on Maimonides’ “Thirteen Principles.”37 In fact, in the 1868 English edition, Soloveitchik begins by saying: “It may, perhaps, appear presumptive of us to undertake writing a commentary on a book like the New Testament, and to choose a path that has seen trodden by so many…. But our object is not to comment; but be impelled by the circumstances of the times…. [W]e desire to institute an inquiry into the cause of an existing misunderstanding.” This assumes that this work on Maimonides’ “Thirteen Principles” is part of what will later be published as his commentary to the Gospel. By “misunderstanding,” it is not clear whether he means the desire to convert the Jews of Eastern Europe, which was becoming popular at that time, or the rising anti-Semitism fueled partly by theological precepts.
Writing in a Christian voice, the author (or translator) states that the misunderstanding has three components: (1) “Our Jewish brethren have no faith and that the summit of the Christian belief centers in the eradication
