This is a (rather ambitious) project to translate the Rambam's Mishne Torah into English. The goals of the project are:
- Provide a side-by-side translation using the most complete and accurate source text currently available
- Translate as accurately as possible from that text, while trying to make the English flow properly and be accessible for readers of modern American English.
- Publish in PDF, suitable for both printing and online reading.
- Free for download
Our current releases are here. Since there are other translations of the Mishne Torah into English, why make a new one?
- The Moznaim edition by R' Eliyahu Touger (now available online) is the most commonly available version. Unfortunately, the Hebrew text is based on the censored (and otherwise inaccurate) Vilna printed editions. In addition, the translation is often inaccurate (straying even from the poor source text used!) and incorrect.
- The Yale Judaica series is difficult to acquire, and is as of yet incomplete. It is also very expensive. I don't know what version of the source text it uses, nor what the quality of the translation is - though I would expect a university publisher to do high-quality work.
- The Birnbaum translation is out of print, and it only contains what the author thought were the "highlights"
So an English speaking person who wishes to truly understand the Mishne Torah, but does not yet know Hebrew well enough to read the source, has no good choices. The overarching goal of this project is to correct that deficiency.
If you are interested in "lending a hand" to make this project come to fruition more quickly, please read this page.