The Hebrew Bible: A Translation by Robert Alter

Messiah Community Radio Talk Show

A landmark event: the complete Hebrew Bible in the award-winning translation that delivers the stunning literary power of the original. A masterpiece of deep learning and fine sensibility, Robert Alter’s translation of the Hebrew Bible, now complete, reanimates one of the formative works of our culture. Capturing its brilliantly compact poetry and finely wrought, purposeful prose, Alter renews the Old Testament as a source of literary power and spiritual inspiration. From the family frictions of Genesis and King David’s flawed humanity to the serene wisdom of Psalms and Job’s incendiary questioning of God’s ways, these magnificent works of world literature resonate with a startling immediacy. Featuring Alter’s generous commentary, which quietly alerts readers to the literary and historical dimensions of the text, this is the definitive edition of the Hebrew Bible.

Robert Alter (Ph.D., Harvard University) teaches courses on the 19th-century European and American novel, on modernism, and on literary aspects of the Bible, and he also teaches and writes on modern Hebrew literature. His publications range from critical biography (Stendhal) to literary theory (The Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age) to two recent volumes of Bible translation accompanied by literary commentary —The Book of Psalms, and The Wisdom Books. His two most recent books are Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible (Princeton, 2010) and Strong As Death Is Love: The Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Jonah, Daniel (Norton, 2015). His translation with commentary of the complete Hebrew Bible has been published by Norton.

In 2009, he received the Robert Kirsch Award from the Los Angeles Times for lifetime contribution to American letters.