Five Books Of Moses [Hardcover]

This brilliant and rigorous book by Alter, who teaches Hebrew and comparative literature at Berkeley, strikes the perfect balance. It delves into literary and biblical scholarship, yet is accessible to the general reader. It argues forcefully and persuasively, but is never arrogant, even when Alter is detailing the inadequacies of other biblical translations. It points to the ways a single Hebrew word can make all the difference in our understanding of the text, but it never loses the forest for the trees. In a stimulating and thorough introduction, Alter makes a case for the coherence of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) as a whole, while acknowledging that it is "manifestly a composite construction" that was written and edited by many people over several centuries. He discusses why we need yet another translation, contending that every existing English translation has an anemic sense of the English language, while the King James Version—the most beautiful and literary English-language translation—is unreliable and sometimes inaccurate with the original Hebrew. After this energizing introduction, Alter proceeds with his eminently readable translation and fascinating footnotes on various Hebrew terms. This may well be the best one-volume introduction to the Torah ever published in English.
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"Robert Alter's translation with commentary of The Five Books of Moses can be fairly described as a godsend." Seamus Heaney, Books of the Year, The Times Literary Supplement "In this remarkable translation... a monument of scholarship... Alter brings a kind of sensitivity to bear on moment after moment of his translation..." James Wood, London Review of Books "The commentary is at least as important as the translation, and the two together make up a unique contribution both to biblical studies and to the understanding and appreciation of a text that is central to Western culture." John Barton, The Times Literary Supplement "...a new translation with fascinating annotations..." Robert Crumb, Summer Books, The Guardian" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Through a distinguished career of critical scholarship, Robert Alter's masterly new translation and probing commentary combine to give contemporary readers the definitive edition of The Five Books. Alter's translation recovers the mesmerising effect of these ancient stories - the profound and haunting enigmas, the ambiguities of motive and image, and the distinctive cadences and lovely precision of the Hebrew text. Alter's translation conveys the music and the meaning of the Hebrew text in a lyrical, lucid English. His commentary illuminates it with learned insight and reflection on its literary and historical dimensions.

ROBERT ALTER is the Class of 1937 Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He has published many acclaimed works on the Bible, literary modernism and contemporary Hebrew literature.