Synopses & Reviews
A controversial national best seller upon its initial publication,
The Book of J is an audacious work of literary restoration revealing one of the great narratives of all time and unveiling its mysterious author.
J is the title that scholars ascribe to the nameless writer they believe is responsible for the text, written between 950 and 900 BCE, on which Genesis, Exodus, and Numbers is based. In The Book of J, accompanying David Rosenberg's translation, Harold Bloom persuasively argues that J was a woman very likely a woman of the royal house at King Solomon's court and a writer of the stature of Homer, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy. Rosenberg's translations from the Hebrew bring J's stories to life and reveal her towering originality and grasp of humanity. Bloom argues in several essays that J was not a religious writer but a fierce ironist. He also offers historical context, a discussion of the theory of how the different texts came together to create the Bible, and translation notes.
Review
"A great book...Rosenberg has produced a superb piece of translation...Bloom wrestles with the Angel of Literature, and walks away with the Blessing." Village Voice Literary Supplement
Review
"Beguiling....In The Book of J, bright ideas gleam, vanish, and are replaced by more." New York Times Book Review
Review
"David Rosenberg has given a fresh interpretative translation....[Bloom's] scatterings of earthly delights have considerable allure...mixing erudition with poetic leaps of the imagination." Washington Post Book World
Synopsis
J is the title that scholars ascribe to the nameless writer they believe is responsible for the text, written between 950 and 900 BCE, on which Genesis, Exodus and Numbers is based. In The Book of J, Bloom and Rosenberg draw the J text out of the surrounding material and present it as the seminal classic that it is.
In addition to Rosenberg's original translations, Bloom argues in several essays that "J" was not a religious writer but a fierce ironist and a woman living in the court of King Solomon. He also argues that J is a writer on par with Homer, Shakespeare and Tolstoy.
Bloom also offers historical context, a discussion of the theory of how the different texts came together to create the Bible, and translation notes. Rosenberg's translations from the Hebrew bring J's stories to life and reveal her towering originality and grasp of humanity.
About the Author
Harold Bloom is Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University, Berg Professor of English at New York University, and a former Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard. His more than twenty-five books include How to Read and Why, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, The Western Canon, The Book of J, and The Anxiety of Influence. He is a MacArthur Prize Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the recipient of many awards, including the Academy's Gold Medal for Criticism and the International Prize of Catalonia.