The Text of Handel’s Messiah

A Time Capsule of Early-Modern Textual Criticism

by Marybeth Hauffe

Book cover: The Text of Handel’s Messiah

Extent: 258 pages

Publisher: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt

Subjects: Music & Performing Arts, Religious Studies

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(October 2025)

ISBN: 9783374076208

Price: $160.00

In stock

Is Handel’s Messiah anti-Judaistic? The question has been coursing through the academic world for some time now. This book shows the oratorio’s text to be more often than not in agreement with traditional Jewish translation and commentary. Moreover, its divergences from ascribed King-James-Version and Book-of-Common-Prayer texts, in preference for those sourced by the Codex Alexandrinus and Peshitta, evidence not only librettist Charles Jennens’ philological prowess, but also the oratorio itself as an example of eighteenth-century English scholarship at its very best.

  • By (author) Marybeth Hauffe