Staff Pick
A translation of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes that is recommended by Harold Bloom and Seamus Heaney is a translation you will love. Alter's work is an ideal blend of academic exactness and depth with a poetic sensibility that is up to the challenge of the profound original Hebrew. Alter captures the beauty of the ancient biblical prose, a beauty that is too often lost in translation. Recommended By Jonathan V. B., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Here in Robert Alter's bold new translation are some of the most magnificent works in world literature. The astounding poetry in the Book of Job is restored to its powerful ancient meanings and rhythms. The creation account in its Voice from the Whirlwind is beautiful and incendiary. By contrast, a serene fatalism suffuses Ecclesiastes with a quiet beauty, and the pithy maxims of Proverbs impart a worldly wisdom that is satirically shrewd. Each of these books addresses the universal wisdom that the righteous thrive and the wicked suffer in a rational moral order; together they are essential to the ancient canon that is the Hebrew Bible.
Review
"Magnificent: This translation is superb [and] the commentary is rich in linguistic, historical, and literary insights that immeasurably enrich the reading of these texts." John Timpane Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"A master translator of Hebrew poetry." Jon Meacham
Review
"Masterfully translated." John Timpane
Review
"A master translator of Hebrew poetry." Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"Masterfully translated." The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
First time in paperback: "One of the most ambitious literary projects of this or any age."--Adam Kirsch,
About the Author
Robert Alter's ongoing translation of the Hebrew Bible, the magnificent capstone to a lifetime of distinguished scholarly work, has won the PEN Center Literary Award for Translation. His immense achievements in scholarship ranging from the eighteenth-century European novel to contemporary Hebrew and American literature earned Alter the Robert Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Los Angeles Times. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, Alter is the Class of 1937 Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.