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The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary
[
Box Set
| Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3]
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.
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.
3132 pages, Hardcover
First published December 18, 2018
726 people are currently reading
2141 people want to read
About the author
Robert Alter
109 books296 followersRobert Bernard Alter is an American professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967, and has published many acclaimed works on the Bible, literary modernism, and contemporary Hebrew literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 93 reviews
December 24, 2018
Wow. I don't have enough superlatives to give to this collection. Robert Alter has distilled his 50 years of scholarship into these volumes. They are worth the price for the introduction alone, in which his criticisms of modern translations are especially and exquisitely harsh. He is clearly contemptuous of the modern tendency towards translation as an explanation of the text, instead of simply allowing the text to exist as written, ambiguity and all.
Another benefit is the extensive footnotes that explain the text. I was particularly taken by his translation of the book of Ruth where the footnotes make it clear that while Ruth's actions toward Boaz may seem suggestive, there is no indication of any pre-marital sexual relations between them.
This set is quite expensive but it is a fair price for the culmination of a life's work.
Another benefit is the extensive footnotes that explain the text. I was particularly taken by his translation of the book of Ruth where the footnotes make it clear that while Ruth's actions toward Boaz may seem suggestive, there is no indication of any pre-marital sexual relations between them.
This set is quite expensive but it is a fair price for the culmination of a life's work.
March 15, 2020
Robert Alter, at 84 years old, has translated the Old Testament. I first read Robert Alter’s book at Peter Leithart’s recommendation, in high school. I hated it at the time, due to its convoluted language and acceptance of higher criticism. During college, I came to like it quite a bit more, and post-college I loved it, though I still differed with his agnostic critical stance, and indeed I still do. Nevertheless, I came to respect Alter because he generally didn’t force the text to sound like it was about something that it was not. Beale is great, but let’s admit it, his “creation as temple” stuff is weird. Leithart and Jordan routinely go beyond what the text can bear. They also unintentionally made me have to grapple with the oddities and, frankly, difficulties of Biblical revelation—namely the fact that the Old and New Testaments often seem to be about different things, and the New Testament fulfillment of the Old Testament is very very odd and seems exegetically irresponsible. Make no mistake, Biblical theologians and things like the Bible Project are very right about a lot of things, but you sometimes feel that they are taking peripheral ideas in the text and foregrounding them. Ditto to a lot of modern literary criticism. With Alter, I felt like he kept the text about the characters, as they revealed themselves through speech and action, and as they made the choices that led them to their final fate. And so I set sail through his commentary.
I did not read the translation, which I don’t respect. I appreciate going closer to the Hebrew, but there’s so much stuff that is redundant, so reading it is like reading your Bible, and Alter throws in words that are highly distracting all over the place. The most prominent example is that while the KJV says that the law of the Lord is sweeter than the honeycomb, Alter goes with “bees’ quintessence.” Yeah, no.
So it is to the notes and introductions I go. The introduction to each book of the Pentateuch was extremely well done. I felt like I didn’t just have a description of things I already knew, but that each introduction hinted at the flavor and themes of the books as a whole, a thing too rare among conservatives.
I think Alter has hit the hammer on the head concerning Genesis: “The Creation story repeatedly highlights the injunction to be fruitful and multiply, while the Patriarchal Tales, in the very process of requently echoing this language of fertility from the opening chapters, make clear that procreation, far from being an automatic biological process, is fraught with dangers, is constantly under threat of being deflected or cut off.” I believe, moreover (and I think Beale and Leithart see this, though I haven’t got a quote), that the births of Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve and their proliferation in Egypt are all foreshadowings of a renewed creation.
Beyond that, in his comments on Genesis, there are countless gems that you can find (for instance, angels were probably great snakes or dragons or griffins). But the things I remember and think about all the time are the way he describes Abraham’s courtesy and decorum and the tension of his silence as he walks up Mount Moriah; Jacob’s tense and ambitious restlessness and lifelong grief over Rachel which is not neatly resolved at the end of the narrative; and Joseph’s hubris and mysteriousness as he deals with his brothers. Biblical characters are actually quite ambiguous at times: they reveal fully-rounded personalities, sometimes in two or three sentences, but we are not always privy to their motives and can guess at them. It is possible that Joseph is testing his brothers, uncertain whether they have changed or not, and darkly waiting to see how they will respond. It is also possible he is a moral reformer, putting them face to face with their guilt, hopeful that it will bring them to repentance. We are not told how he feels when he sees them bowing to him, whether it is bitterness, triumph, vengefulness, shrewdness, fear for Benjamin, or a mixture of all of the above.
Exodus is great because Alter rightly notes that the building of the Tabernacle echoes the creation account. He doesn’t go as far as the Biblical theologians, but he acknowledges cosmic symbolism. My favorite note of his here is that Moses is often called “the man, Moses.” For all Moses’s legendary status and the distance the author puts between us and him, he remains finally a man with deep insecurities.
I really loved how Alter talked about Leviticus: he observes that the four elements of Leviticus are oil, water, fire, and blood. That’s cool. He also rightly gestures to Mary Douglas and says that there is a cosmic theme. Numbers through Joshua were meh.
Judges was great: Gideon resembles Moses in his doubting. Jephthah is a tragic Joseph figure, cast out by his brothers, but whose fate is more like Agamemnon: doomed to sacrifice his daughter. His name means “to open” and Jephthah opens his mouth in a rash vow and later on sets the trap for the Gileadites by having them pronounce shibboleth. God pays more attention to Samson’s mother is given the first vision and she believes, but her husband is akward and often sidelined by God. Samson is always associated with fire. He is a powerful but uncontrollable figure, even by himself. He is led by his eyes. The story of Micah and his idol comes at the end of the book, but since Moses’s grandson features in it, it happened much earlier. The cutting of the body at the end of the book is symbolic of the division of the tribes. The battle with Benjamin echoes the attack on Ai, but with catastrophic results. The tribe that refuses to come at the end is Jabesh-Gilead, Saul’s tribe.
Ruth is good: Alter rightly recognizes that it is idyllic, with even mere farm hands greeting one another in blessing. He also notes that the name Orphah means back of the neck—the last thing Naomi sees of her daughter-in-law. Alter makes the more questionable claim that the author of Ruth was writing to justify a more accepting attitude towards Gentile converts, as opposed to the strictness of Ezra and Nehemiah. He gets the Tamar echoes: Ruth, like the earlier matriarch, is trying to get a child through Levirate marriage, in a way. One point that this book brings up, and it is very significant to conservatives like me, is that whoever Naomi’s sons were, their names were certainly not Mahlon and Chilion. This is not a problem, but people like me sometimes get nervous when we admit that names were adjusted after the fact for the purposes of narrative decoration. More on this below.
Alter's notes on Samuel are his best and his worst commentary. Alter’s basic interpretation is that David is a shrewd and politically Machiavellian opportunist who keeps his motives to himself. This kind of thing leads Alter into some unnecessarily poor readings. For instance, he reads Samuel as an irascible character who deliberately dupes Saul by delaying his arrival. Yet the Samuel of the text is portrayed favorably. Still, Alter gets many of the characters right. He is right to note that David begins as a charismatic leader who has to keep his secrets to himself and gets entangled very early on in polygamy. This poisons his life and after the sin with Bathsheba, he never recovers fully and is always an emotionally broken king whose reign is saved by the shrewd and ruthless Joab. Alter is fun to read in this book because he makes you realize how pitiful Saul is, how hostile and false Absalom is, and how well drawn all the characters are in this book.
The book of Kings was just plain fun and full of loads of insights. We really don’t get to know Solomon like we do David, and his character exists to be both the founding father and the corrupter of the nation. I really enjoyed the bits on Elijah and Elisha, and Alter observes that Elijah is the first-miracle worker and even that he’s kind of the closest prophet to Jesus! Usually Alter maintains a sharp distinction between the Testaments and contradicts New Testament readings (more on this later). Elijah is the first prophet to be known for his miraculous healings. One of my favorite notes is that when Elishah goes after Elijah he burns his plow: “Elisha’s turning the wooden plow into firewood is a sign that he is definitively putting behind him his life as a farmer to assume the role of prophet.” I also noticed this time that Elijah’s selection of Elisha and his later appointing of him as successor brackets the death of both Ahab and his son Ahaziah. While Elijah goes up to heaven in chariots of fire, Ahab’s son falls from a lattice and his messengers tell Elijah to come down. Up and down play key roles in that story. The ending comment on the restoration of Jehoiachin in Babylon is great: “This detail is probably a deliberate reminiscence of the Joseph story: when Joseph is freed from prison, he is clothed by Pharaoh in fine garments … This concluding image … seeks to intimate a hopeful possibility of future restoration: a Davidic king is recognized as king, even in captivity, and is given a daily provision appropriate to his royal status. As he sits on his throne elevated above the thrones of the other captive kings, the audience of the story is invited to imagine a scion of David again sitting on his throne in Jerusalem” (2.613).
Esther was fantastic, though the most insightful stuff was often the most bawdy stuff. Alter persuasively argues that the king is a bit of a fop and that he suffers from insecurity about his sexual prowess (women are said to come and go every day; Alter thinks the presumption is that the king would not actually lie with them). The scepter is a phallic symbol, and the king gets mad at Haman because he sees him on the same couch as Esther and there’s more than a little insecurity. The role of the eunuchs in a story of sexual comedy is duly exploited. He notes that Mordecai is clothed in royal garments, just like Joseph. One of the more tricky questions that he raised were the really epic notes in this story: the Persian empire seems impossibly wealthy, and there seems to be no reason for decrees to be irrevocable, according to Alter. I was not really shaken by this though, since Calvin said that Esther and Job might be allegories.
I didn’t learn as much from the Psalms, and what was particularly challenging is that Alter really doesn’t see Messianic prophecies here. I am going to have to think about this a bit more. I do remember enjoying some of his comments on my favorite Psalms. He sees Psalm 90 as attributed to the man Moses because it’s concerned with mortality. One obvious mistake that Alter makes is that he unnecessarily sees the wisdom books as in tension. He sees Job, Ecclesiastes and some Psalms as presenting a pessimistic view of the fate of the righteous, while on the other hand he sees a good-versus-evil triumphalism in Pslams and Proverbs. But my Mom is a better reader of texts: they’re not specific promises that everything will work out in this life, but general statements that a lot of the time righteousness pays off, which is not contradicted by the fact that the world is a messed up place, with deep injustice emanating from the halls of power.
His material on Proverbs was actually one of my favorite bits. Oddly enough, though Alter sees only a single bit of sexual innuendo in the Song of Solomon, he sees lots and lots of innuendo in Proverbs. Reading his comments, I was both encouraged by how the Bible talks a lot more than we usually think about the importance of sex for the young, and I learned that in pre-modern socities without pornography, actual fornication and adultery are far more prominent. Alter also really makes me doubt whether the beginning and ending of Proverbs are meant to match: they do both contain women, but that could easily have been done by a later redactor. Indeed, we know for a fact that Proverbs was redacted.
My favorite bit from Ecclesiastes was Alter’s argument that gathering stones and rolling them away might be a sexual reference. Alter also re-translates “money answers all things” as something more like ‘everybody is stressed out over money’. His introduction to Song of Solomon fights hard against allegorical readings, and I am in some ways very sympathetic to this. Possibly the most interesting detail was that moms were expected to explain the birds and bees to their daughters, and so the woman’s request for the man to come into her mother’s chamber evokes this. Alter also brought home to me how jarring the passages where the woman meets the watchmen are: love is as strong as death, and risks it, in these bits.
Alter was strongest on the first bits of Isaiah, and I really enjoyed having an interlocutor on this book, because it’s a difficult one to understand. He rightly notes that the first two chapters are kind of like those musical opening pieces that give you the high points of the rest of the musical performance. Alter notes echoes of the Exodus in Isaiah’s prophecies of restoration. Though Alter rejects Isaiah 9 as being about an Incarnation of God as man, he admits this is “an ideal king from the line of David who will sit on the throne of Judah and oversee a rule of justice and peace. The most challenging epithet in this sequence is ‘el gibor, which appears to say ‘warrior-god.’ The prophet would be violating all biblical usage if he called the Davidic king ‘God,’ and that terms is best construed here as some sort of intensifier” (2.651). The trickiest thing for me is that this doesn’t seem to be in the Psalms, even if it is in the prophets. More difficult for some will be his comments on the suffering servant. He rightly notes that Isaiah and Israel are both identified as God’s servant (2.786). He thus reads the suffering as the ignominy of Isaiah being disbelieved and Israel going into exile. I am afraid that I agree and slowly came to this reading with some trepidation, but it makes the most sense of the text as the original audience would have understood it. It is not particularly Messianic; Douglas Wilson agreed that it was a type when I mentioned it.
Alter likes Jeremiah more than the other prophets, and says that Ezekiel was a misogynistic psychopath. I am not kidding: he says that when people hang out in the desert and don’t eat a lot, they see weird and vivid things in their delirium. He peppers the commentary with stuff like this. On the more productive end, he sees that Jeremiah explicitly channels Job and that Daniel is like Joseph. He also acknowledges that Lamentations is deep stuff. He also likes Jonah and it’s large compassion even for the beasts of Nineveh. He sees the description of the city as a three days’ journey as a sign of its fictional status.
More could be said, but the best thing about Alter is that he has you meditate on the Biblical characters and their flaws and failures and quirks: you are just like them, and thinking about that is good for you.
I did not read the translation, which I don’t respect. I appreciate going closer to the Hebrew, but there’s so much stuff that is redundant, so reading it is like reading your Bible, and Alter throws in words that are highly distracting all over the place. The most prominent example is that while the KJV says that the law of the Lord is sweeter than the honeycomb, Alter goes with “bees’ quintessence.” Yeah, no.
So it is to the notes and introductions I go. The introduction to each book of the Pentateuch was extremely well done. I felt like I didn’t just have a description of things I already knew, but that each introduction hinted at the flavor and themes of the books as a whole, a thing too rare among conservatives.
I think Alter has hit the hammer on the head concerning Genesis: “The Creation story repeatedly highlights the injunction to be fruitful and multiply, while the Patriarchal Tales, in the very process of requently echoing this language of fertility from the opening chapters, make clear that procreation, far from being an automatic biological process, is fraught with dangers, is constantly under threat of being deflected or cut off.” I believe, moreover (and I think Beale and Leithart see this, though I haven’t got a quote), that the births of Isaac, Jacob, and the twelve and their proliferation in Egypt are all foreshadowings of a renewed creation.
Beyond that, in his comments on Genesis, there are countless gems that you can find (for instance, angels were probably great snakes or dragons or griffins). But the things I remember and think about all the time are the way he describes Abraham’s courtesy and decorum and the tension of his silence as he walks up Mount Moriah; Jacob’s tense and ambitious restlessness and lifelong grief over Rachel which is not neatly resolved at the end of the narrative; and Joseph’s hubris and mysteriousness as he deals with his brothers. Biblical characters are actually quite ambiguous at times: they reveal fully-rounded personalities, sometimes in two or three sentences, but we are not always privy to their motives and can guess at them. It is possible that Joseph is testing his brothers, uncertain whether they have changed or not, and darkly waiting to see how they will respond. It is also possible he is a moral reformer, putting them face to face with their guilt, hopeful that it will bring them to repentance. We are not told how he feels when he sees them bowing to him, whether it is bitterness, triumph, vengefulness, shrewdness, fear for Benjamin, or a mixture of all of the above.
Exodus is great because Alter rightly notes that the building of the Tabernacle echoes the creation account. He doesn’t go as far as the Biblical theologians, but he acknowledges cosmic symbolism. My favorite note of his here is that Moses is often called “the man, Moses.” For all Moses’s legendary status and the distance the author puts between us and him, he remains finally a man with deep insecurities.
I really loved how Alter talked about Leviticus: he observes that the four elements of Leviticus are oil, water, fire, and blood. That’s cool. He also rightly gestures to Mary Douglas and says that there is a cosmic theme. Numbers through Joshua were meh.
Judges was great: Gideon resembles Moses in his doubting. Jephthah is a tragic Joseph figure, cast out by his brothers, but whose fate is more like Agamemnon: doomed to sacrifice his daughter. His name means “to open” and Jephthah opens his mouth in a rash vow and later on sets the trap for the Gileadites by having them pronounce shibboleth. God pays more attention to Samson’s mother is given the first vision and she believes, but her husband is akward and often sidelined by God. Samson is always associated with fire. He is a powerful but uncontrollable figure, even by himself. He is led by his eyes. The story of Micah and his idol comes at the end of the book, but since Moses’s grandson features in it, it happened much earlier. The cutting of the body at the end of the book is symbolic of the division of the tribes. The battle with Benjamin echoes the attack on Ai, but with catastrophic results. The tribe that refuses to come at the end is Jabesh-Gilead, Saul’s tribe.
Ruth is good: Alter rightly recognizes that it is idyllic, with even mere farm hands greeting one another in blessing. He also notes that the name Orphah means back of the neck—the last thing Naomi sees of her daughter-in-law. Alter makes the more questionable claim that the author of Ruth was writing to justify a more accepting attitude towards Gentile converts, as opposed to the strictness of Ezra and Nehemiah. He gets the Tamar echoes: Ruth, like the earlier matriarch, is trying to get a child through Levirate marriage, in a way. One point that this book brings up, and it is very significant to conservatives like me, is that whoever Naomi’s sons were, their names were certainly not Mahlon and Chilion. This is not a problem, but people like me sometimes get nervous when we admit that names were adjusted after the fact for the purposes of narrative decoration. More on this below.
Alter's notes on Samuel are his best and his worst commentary. Alter’s basic interpretation is that David is a shrewd and politically Machiavellian opportunist who keeps his motives to himself. This kind of thing leads Alter into some unnecessarily poor readings. For instance, he reads Samuel as an irascible character who deliberately dupes Saul by delaying his arrival. Yet the Samuel of the text is portrayed favorably. Still, Alter gets many of the characters right. He is right to note that David begins as a charismatic leader who has to keep his secrets to himself and gets entangled very early on in polygamy. This poisons his life and after the sin with Bathsheba, he never recovers fully and is always an emotionally broken king whose reign is saved by the shrewd and ruthless Joab. Alter is fun to read in this book because he makes you realize how pitiful Saul is, how hostile and false Absalom is, and how well drawn all the characters are in this book.
The book of Kings was just plain fun and full of loads of insights. We really don’t get to know Solomon like we do David, and his character exists to be both the founding father and the corrupter of the nation. I really enjoyed the bits on Elijah and Elisha, and Alter observes that Elijah is the first-miracle worker and even that he’s kind of the closest prophet to Jesus! Usually Alter maintains a sharp distinction between the Testaments and contradicts New Testament readings (more on this later). Elijah is the first prophet to be known for his miraculous healings. One of my favorite notes is that when Elishah goes after Elijah he burns his plow: “Elisha’s turning the wooden plow into firewood is a sign that he is definitively putting behind him his life as a farmer to assume the role of prophet.” I also noticed this time that Elijah’s selection of Elisha and his later appointing of him as successor brackets the death of both Ahab and his son Ahaziah. While Elijah goes up to heaven in chariots of fire, Ahab’s son falls from a lattice and his messengers tell Elijah to come down. Up and down play key roles in that story. The ending comment on the restoration of Jehoiachin in Babylon is great: “This detail is probably a deliberate reminiscence of the Joseph story: when Joseph is freed from prison, he is clothed by Pharaoh in fine garments … This concluding image … seeks to intimate a hopeful possibility of future restoration: a Davidic king is recognized as king, even in captivity, and is given a daily provision appropriate to his royal status. As he sits on his throne elevated above the thrones of the other captive kings, the audience of the story is invited to imagine a scion of David again sitting on his throne in Jerusalem” (2.613).
Esther was fantastic, though the most insightful stuff was often the most bawdy stuff. Alter persuasively argues that the king is a bit of a fop and that he suffers from insecurity about his sexual prowess (women are said to come and go every day; Alter thinks the presumption is that the king would not actually lie with them). The scepter is a phallic symbol, and the king gets mad at Haman because he sees him on the same couch as Esther and there’s more than a little insecurity. The role of the eunuchs in a story of sexual comedy is duly exploited. He notes that Mordecai is clothed in royal garments, just like Joseph. One of the more tricky questions that he raised were the really epic notes in this story: the Persian empire seems impossibly wealthy, and there seems to be no reason for decrees to be irrevocable, according to Alter. I was not really shaken by this though, since Calvin said that Esther and Job might be allegories.
I didn’t learn as much from the Psalms, and what was particularly challenging is that Alter really doesn’t see Messianic prophecies here. I am going to have to think about this a bit more. I do remember enjoying some of his comments on my favorite Psalms. He sees Psalm 90 as attributed to the man Moses because it’s concerned with mortality. One obvious mistake that Alter makes is that he unnecessarily sees the wisdom books as in tension. He sees Job, Ecclesiastes and some Psalms as presenting a pessimistic view of the fate of the righteous, while on the other hand he sees a good-versus-evil triumphalism in Pslams and Proverbs. But my Mom is a better reader of texts: they’re not specific promises that everything will work out in this life, but general statements that a lot of the time righteousness pays off, which is not contradicted by the fact that the world is a messed up place, with deep injustice emanating from the halls of power.
His material on Proverbs was actually one of my favorite bits. Oddly enough, though Alter sees only a single bit of sexual innuendo in the Song of Solomon, he sees lots and lots of innuendo in Proverbs. Reading his comments, I was both encouraged by how the Bible talks a lot more than we usually think about the importance of sex for the young, and I learned that in pre-modern socities without pornography, actual fornication and adultery are far more prominent. Alter also really makes me doubt whether the beginning and ending of Proverbs are meant to match: they do both contain women, but that could easily have been done by a later redactor. Indeed, we know for a fact that Proverbs was redacted.
My favorite bit from Ecclesiastes was Alter’s argument that gathering stones and rolling them away might be a sexual reference. Alter also re-translates “money answers all things” as something more like ‘everybody is stressed out over money’. His introduction to Song of Solomon fights hard against allegorical readings, and I am in some ways very sympathetic to this. Possibly the most interesting detail was that moms were expected to explain the birds and bees to their daughters, and so the woman’s request for the man to come into her mother’s chamber evokes this. Alter also brought home to me how jarring the passages where the woman meets the watchmen are: love is as strong as death, and risks it, in these bits.
Alter was strongest on the first bits of Isaiah, and I really enjoyed having an interlocutor on this book, because it’s a difficult one to understand. He rightly notes that the first two chapters are kind of like those musical opening pieces that give you the high points of the rest of the musical performance. Alter notes echoes of the Exodus in Isaiah’s prophecies of restoration. Though Alter rejects Isaiah 9 as being about an Incarnation of God as man, he admits this is “an ideal king from the line of David who will sit on the throne of Judah and oversee a rule of justice and peace. The most challenging epithet in this sequence is ‘el gibor, which appears to say ‘warrior-god.’ The prophet would be violating all biblical usage if he called the Davidic king ‘God,’ and that terms is best construed here as some sort of intensifier” (2.651). The trickiest thing for me is that this doesn’t seem to be in the Psalms, even if it is in the prophets. More difficult for some will be his comments on the suffering servant. He rightly notes that Isaiah and Israel are both identified as God’s servant (2.786). He thus reads the suffering as the ignominy of Isaiah being disbelieved and Israel going into exile. I am afraid that I agree and slowly came to this reading with some trepidation, but it makes the most sense of the text as the original audience would have understood it. It is not particularly Messianic; Douglas Wilson agreed that it was a type when I mentioned it.
Alter likes Jeremiah more than the other prophets, and says that Ezekiel was a misogynistic psychopath. I am not kidding: he says that when people hang out in the desert and don’t eat a lot, they see weird and vivid things in their delirium. He peppers the commentary with stuff like this. On the more productive end, he sees that Jeremiah explicitly channels Job and that Daniel is like Joseph. He also acknowledges that Lamentations is deep stuff. He also likes Jonah and it’s large compassion even for the beasts of Nineveh. He sees the description of the city as a three days’ journey as a sign of its fictional status.
More could be said, but the best thing about Alter is that he has you meditate on the Biblical characters and their flaws and failures and quirks: you are just like them, and thinking about that is good for you.
January 1, 2025
The translation, when it was sticking to a very literal and form-based format (as it purports to in the introduction), deservers is five starts. However, when Alter goes into his flights of fancy related to his biases and hobby-horses, his form-based translation philosophy goes out the window. It's frustrating and dishonest (which I suppose is a limitation of a one-translator-translation of the Bible). For example, in Genesis, instead of translating "Adam" as "Man" he renders it "Human" which is not what Adam means. So, it's "Eve" for Eve, but when it's Adam it's "Human" (are we to take from this that Eve wasn't human!?). Clearly, Alter's feminism is showing.
Something that's helpful about his translation is his translating the same Hebrew word the same way through out so structural and typological aspects of the Hebrew are more evident in English, however, his bias started to show again when he rendered "One like a son of man" in Daniel 7 as "One like a human." Or in Ezekiel, instead of rendering again literally as "Son of Man" he renders it "man." Because of his agenda, he's not even consistent in these cases. What happened to his commitment to bringing over Jewish idioms literally? It felt like anywhere the OT has been used by Christians, or hated by feminists, he was sure to render that aspect out of it, even if it was the more "faithful-to-Hebrew" rendering.
Also, the introductions to each book were 2/3rds awful, but with only occasional nuggets of insight.
Something that's helpful about his translation is his translating the same Hebrew word the same way through out so structural and typological aspects of the Hebrew are more evident in English, however, his bias started to show again when he rendered "One like a son of man" in Daniel 7 as "One like a human." Or in Ezekiel, instead of rendering again literally as "Son of Man" he renders it "man." Because of his agenda, he's not even consistent in these cases. What happened to his commitment to bringing over Jewish idioms literally? It felt like anywhere the OT has been used by Christians, or hated by feminists, he was sure to render that aspect out of it, even if it was the more "faithful-to-Hebrew" rendering.
Also, the introductions to each book were 2/3rds awful, but with only occasional nuggets of insight.
April 14, 2024
📕 I don’t know how you’re supposed to rate books that are sacred to one religion or another. It’s not as if you’re rating a novel or short story collection. In fact, the Hebrew Bible and its stories have their place in three monotheistic religions.
The reading by the narrator is excellent. Genesis is memorable for the story of Joseph and his brothers, Exodus for the story of Moses and Israel leaving Egypt, 1st and 2nd Samuel are the story of David.
I found it a pleasant relief to reach Psalms and Proverbs and Ruth and Esther and get away from the prophetic and historical books. They could be quite dark at times.
The reading by the narrator is excellent. Genesis is memorable for the story of Joseph and his brothers, Exodus for the story of Moses and Israel leaving Egypt, 1st and 2nd Samuel are the story of David.
I found it a pleasant relief to reach Psalms and Proverbs and Ruth and Esther and get away from the prophetic and historical books. They could be quite dark at times.
March 31, 2022
The bible is perhaps the most influential and important book ever printed, and yet the historical translators made many, many subjective and varying choices in meaning. This translation is both easy to read, with fantastic commentary, and beautifully printed. A true-life work achievement by a great writer and scholar.
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November 18, 2024It is often said in Judaism that one should not read Torah in isolation and without accompanying commentary. Traditionally, that commentary comes in the form of Rabbinic writings - but sometimes, a more modern, secular, accessible, or just plain different, set of commentary is called for.
Enter Alter's English translation of the Tanakh. This translation makes the process of reading scripture more fun than older versions (which often produced the English-language text once it had already been translated from Hebrew into another language, thus creating multiple opportunities for the original words to be lost in translation).
The footnotes, however, are the real gold of this edition. Often, they occupy more real estate on the page than is allocated to the text that they are commenting on (those familiar with Rabbinic commentary will not find this a new phenomenon). Take a look at the first footnote, for example, which is commenting on the opening of Genesis (which, in Alter's translation, reads "When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep..."):
Wait, what? The opening of the Torah has a made up word? who knew? I certainly didn't.
And so it goes on, with a good measure of context for making sense of what you are reading when a ton of meaning is implied and not said out loud due to contemporary conventions and conversational taboos (Book of Ruth, I'm looking at you).
Granted, at times the footnotes get into the weeds of the choices made in the translation, and at other times, Alter is in conversation with other academics. But, as the footnote I quote above (I believe) shows, even such pedantic dives into the Sea of Reeds can be fascinating to read.
Whether or not you identify as Jewish, when you are considering reading this major piece of the world literary canon, Alter's translation is a great pick.
Note on the Audible version
64 hours of narration from the Alter translation are available on Audible, included with a basic membership. While that is already a lot of hours of audio, unfortunately it does not include the footnotes at all (which would probably triple the length of the narration, at least). That makes me quite sad.
Without the footnotes, listening to this text feels like taking a supersonic jet to complete one of the routes from the "Most Scenic Drives in America" guidebook. It's missing the point of the journey.
Enter Alter's English translation of the Tanakh. This translation makes the process of reading scripture more fun than older versions (which often produced the English-language text once it had already been translated from Hebrew into another language, thus creating multiple opportunities for the original words to be lost in translation).
The footnotes, however, are the real gold of this edition. Often, they occupy more real estate on the page than is allocated to the text that they are commenting on (those familiar with Rabbinic commentary will not find this a new phenomenon). Take a look at the first footnote, for example, which is commenting on the opening of Genesis (which, in Alter's translation, reads "When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep..."):
welter and waste. The Hebrew tohu wabohu occurs only here and in two later biblical texts that are clearly alluding to this one. The second word of the pair looks like a nonce term coined to rhyme with the first and to reinforce it...
Wait, what? The opening of the Torah has a made up word? who knew? I certainly didn't.
And so it goes on, with a good measure of context for making sense of what you are reading when a ton of meaning is implied and not said out loud due to contemporary conventions and conversational taboos (Book of Ruth, I'm looking at you).
Granted, at times the footnotes get into the weeds of the choices made in the translation, and at other times, Alter is in conversation with other academics. But, as the footnote I quote above (I believe) shows, even such pedantic dives into the Sea of Reeds can be fascinating to read.
Whether or not you identify as Jewish, when you are considering reading this major piece of the world literary canon, Alter's translation is a great pick.
Note on the Audible version
64 hours of narration from the Alter translation are available on Audible, included with a basic membership. While that is already a lot of hours of audio, unfortunately it does not include the footnotes at all (which would probably triple the length of the narration, at least). That makes me quite sad.
Without the footnotes, listening to this text feels like taking a supersonic jet to complete one of the routes from the "Most Scenic Drives in America" guidebook. It's missing the point of the journey.
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February 4, 2023"Proverbs . . . is in some ways . . . not altogether a likely book for inclusion in the canon."
"The Book of Job is in several ways the most mysterious book of the Hebrew Bible."
"The Song of Songs stands out in striking distinctiveness . . . "
"Lamentations is unique among books of the Bible . . . "
"Qohelet is in some ways the most peculiar book of the Hebrew Bible."
"Of the several biblical books that test the limits of canon, Esther may well be the most anomalous."
"Daniel is surely the most peculiar book in the Hebrew Bible."
"Chronicles . . . is, at least from a modern perspective, the most peculiar book of the Hebrew Bible."
Despite Bob's strict adherence to secularism and general silliness in the commentary, what an incredible work. Sure, there are funny little thesaurus-searched word choices now and then; sometimes he translates a phrase just to be contrarian from other translations, yet sometimes he translates a phrase to keep with the tradition of other translations; but all in all it's a real beauty. It was a great choice for my straight-through reading of the Bible. He succeeded in his mission: the balance of graceful language and readable language. As English biblical poetry goes, Alter is undeniably king.
"The Book of Job is in several ways the most mysterious book of the Hebrew Bible."
"The Song of Songs stands out in striking distinctiveness . . . "
"Lamentations is unique among books of the Bible . . . "
"Qohelet is in some ways the most peculiar book of the Hebrew Bible."
"Of the several biblical books that test the limits of canon, Esther may well be the most anomalous."
"Daniel is surely the most peculiar book in the Hebrew Bible."
"Chronicles . . . is, at least from a modern perspective, the most peculiar book of the Hebrew Bible."
Despite Bob's strict adherence to secularism and general silliness in the commentary, what an incredible work. Sure, there are funny little thesaurus-searched word choices now and then; sometimes he translates a phrase just to be contrarian from other translations, yet sometimes he translates a phrase to keep with the tradition of other translations; but all in all it's a real beauty. It was a great choice for my straight-through reading of the Bible. He succeeded in his mission: the balance of graceful language and readable language. As English biblical poetry goes, Alter is undeniably king.
October 7, 2019
Alter's translation is groundbreaking. It is amazing how translations from the King James version forward change the meaning, prose, and rhythm of the original Hebrew and Greek. Alter's objectivity opens the blinds to the original meaning without the filters of well-intended prior translations.
I bought it in kindle version to save a few dollars. I am going to break down and buy the print version to savor the text and imagine the illustrations are beautiful. While admiring the volumes, imagine Alter sitting at his desk writing out the drafts, which he does entirely with pen and ink, which he then has transcribed. Incredible!
I bought it in kindle version to save a few dollars. I am going to break down and buy the print version to savor the text and imagine the illustrations are beautiful. While admiring the volumes, imagine Alter sitting at his desk writing out the drafts, which he does entirely with pen and ink, which he then has transcribed. Incredible!
January 1, 2025
Jeepers, that was a long day of reading!
October 5, 2020
This translation is best for theologians and language scholars, neither of which describe me. Some of it went over my head. But it gave me a deeper understanding and appreciation for the Old Testament, writings that are often viewed as boring and outdated to modern readers. Learning their historical and cultural contexts gave them life.
So if you're a scholar of Jewish history, ancient Hebrew, the Bible as literature, or early religious cultures, this is a must. Alter describes each book and its significance in the canon very well, and his detailed footnotes provide anything you ever wanted to know about the text. But if you're only mildly interested in these subjects or are looking for spiritual guidance...you should probably keep looking.
So if you're a scholar of Jewish history, ancient Hebrew, the Bible as literature, or early religious cultures, this is a must. Alter describes each book and its significance in the canon very well, and his detailed footnotes provide anything you ever wanted to know about the text. But if you're only mildly interested in these subjects or are looking for spiritual guidance...you should probably keep looking.
October 5, 2021
This was an amazing read. Like with my first time through with the 'old testament,' it got real dry for me during most of the histories and the major prophets. Even still, Alter's translation feels infinitely more engaging, on a reading level, than any other translation I've read. Genesis, Job, and the other wisdom books were particularly amazing. His introductions are required reading (they'd be very interesting for classes, I imagine), and the footnotes are usually very engaging too.
One of his priorities in this translation is to keep a sense of the formal, typological, and aesthetic qualities of the original Hebrew in his English. He critiques translators who are hell-bent on translating only the "meaning" in a kind of standardized "journalistic newspaper English." That being said, he doesn't ever seem to deviate from the meaning of the original or other translations too much either. One of the ways he goes about translating aesthetics, form, and typology of the original is by preserving the use of a repeated, single Hebrew word in the original with a single word in his English version. The example he uses is the Hebrew word for "seed" which was used to mean a literal seed, semen, offspring, and other things. In his English translation, though he admits it's shortcomings, he therefore uses the English word "seed" in as many places as he can, trying to stretch the use of it but also giving us a sense of how important that word/concept is for the Hebrew bible generally, tracking its usage throughout Genesis, Exodus, and elsewhere.
This work is wildly inspiring to me as a scholar, and it has given me a new interest in translation as an art and practice.
Highly recommend.
One of his priorities in this translation is to keep a sense of the formal, typological, and aesthetic qualities of the original Hebrew in his English. He critiques translators who are hell-bent on translating only the "meaning" in a kind of standardized "journalistic newspaper English." That being said, he doesn't ever seem to deviate from the meaning of the original or other translations too much either. One of the ways he goes about translating aesthetics, form, and typology of the original is by preserving the use of a repeated, single Hebrew word in the original with a single word in his English version. The example he uses is the Hebrew word for "seed" which was used to mean a literal seed, semen, offspring, and other things. In his English translation, though he admits it's shortcomings, he therefore uses the English word "seed" in as many places as he can, trying to stretch the use of it but also giving us a sense of how important that word/concept is for the Hebrew bible generally, tracking its usage throughout Genesis, Exodus, and elsewhere.
This work is wildly inspiring to me as a scholar, and it has given me a new interest in translation as an art and practice.
Highly recommend.
December 31, 2024
What a wonderful journey this has been. Robert Alter’s Tanakh is so fluid and evocative, and his supple treatment of its ambiguities rightly foregrounds the mystery and allure without sacrificing accessibility or undermining the inherent terseness and opacity of the text. His commentary is an education in itself, providing the perfect blend of literary criticism and historical, archaeological, theological, and ethnographic ambience. It brings life not only to the text but to the world of the text. Whether one reads the Tanakh as holy scripture, as literature, or as the imprint of a brilliant, exotic, frightening, and utterly profound culture of the ancient Near East, it proves an endlessly fascinating artifact of the human race. The world will never see its like again.
Want to read
July 15, 2019From Plough's review (https://www.plough.com/en/topics/cult...
From his earliest writings on the Bible, Alter has warred against what he calls “the heresy of explanation”: the tendency among most modern English Bible translators to turn the original text’s weirder idioms into their own English-language explanatory glosses....He complains forcefully about this kind of thing in The Art of Bible Translation, and sets out a convincing brief guide to some of the Bible’s distinct stylistic devices – the semantic parallelism seen throughout the Psalms, in which the first line sets out an idea and the second elaborates or retraces it; the constant use of punning and wordplay, some of it untranslatable; the kind of repetition in which tiny variations or omissions often speak volumes; a preference for concrete language. His translation, however, makes the strongest argument of all. After you’ve read Alter, the NRSV or the NIV read like the work of a subcommittee of deans. At the same time, he isn’t simply literal, in the manner of Everett Fox, whose jerky, jittery rendering of the Pentateuch makes me feel as though I’m reading Talking Heads lyrics. He makes the text sound strange, but still recognizably English. (A brief example, from Isaiah 1:11: “I am sated with the burnt offerings of rams and the suet of fatted beasts.” As you read you really feel all those ts in your teeth.) In his judiciously-applied literalism and sensitivity to English idiom, he makes possible an encounter with the text that other contemporary translators don’t seem to trust readers with.
March 2, 2019
My indulgence ... using my book allowance for the next three months. Of course, I am not going to be reading this straight through. I've read a lot of it in the books published over the years as Alter translated them. However, this is the complete set with about a third of the books being published first as part of this set. A real treasure.
December 31, 2022
Rating for literary power over translation accuracy (which I’m not equipped to evaluate). It’s a beautiful edition, useful, and productive to read.
July 29, 2020
I read two other books by Robert Alter before reading this one—both of which I thoroughly enjoyed—so I was really looking forward to his translation of the Tanakh, thinking that it would help me see it with new eyes. In short, I was disappointed.
There are a number of reasons for this. First, for some inexplicable reason Mr. Alter reverts to ancient English again and again. As an example in place of saying someone “went out,” Mr. Alter translates they “sallied forth,” enough times for it to be annoying. Sallied forth? I thought the last person who sallied forth lived in the 19th century. It’s baffling to me why he would choose to translate like that.
The translation was not very fresh and vivid, perhaps Mr Alter knows too much about Bible translation and got too caught up in making it accurate, but the translation just didn’t stand out to me like I expected it to.
Mr. Alter suffers from what I will call “arrogant insider knowledge,” because again and again he feels free to make comments about the text with the arrogant assumption that he is correct, and yet he, like most other Bible scholars, is merely making an assumption. Here is an example. He writes about the book of Deuteronomy, “Although Deuteronomy, as we have already noted, was originally composed quite independently of the preceding four books and actually before a good many of the Priestly passages they contain were even written.”
Oh, really? And you are certain of this, Mr. Alter because you talked to the author? How exactly do you know this? The truth of the matter is that you do not know it and you’re only making an assumption based upon your own theories. It’s fine to say, “I think Deuteronomy was originally composed…” but since you weren’t around when Deuteronomy was actually written, don’t act like you were.
Here is another example. Mr. Alter writes about the fact that once a decree was given by the kings of Persia—as in the book of Esther—they could not be revoked. He says: “This crucial point is distinctly part of the fantasy world reflected in the plot of this book. The Persian empire—and indeed any empire—could scarcely have been governed on the basis of absolutely irrevocable decrees.”
Really? Who told you this, Mr. Alter? Are you an expert on Persian affairs? Do you have every law ever written by the Persians so you can make a definitive statement like that? No you do not. This is an assumption, so stop acting like it’s a fact! Grr… [I hate this kind of behavior]
Here is another example where Mr. Alter comments about the bronze serpent story in Numbers. He says: “Archaeologists have found numerous serpents, evidently cultic objects, and it looks as if these were objects of worship in popular religion, which were then retrojected on Moses in the story told in Numbers.”
So somehow Mr. Alter knows enough about the story in Numbers that he can say without hesitation it didn’t really happen, this is just a story from the future that is stamped onto the past. He is again making an assumption and stating it as a fact! (or at least an almost fact “It looks like”) I got so fed up with this behavior that after about half the book, I quit reading the notes and just stuck to the text. This is behavior you wouldn’t allow your average college freshmen to get away with, yet a biblical scholar can do it again and again and he’s treated seriously? How about a little humility. How about saying, “I think this is what happened, but we cannot say conclusively.”
This is all a shame because Mr. Alter can be quite eloquent and effective. Here is a comment on Psalm 34.19. He writes: “Part of the spiritual greatness of Psalms, part of the source of its enduring appeal through the ages, is that it profoundly recognizes the bleakness, the dark terrors, the long nights of despair that shadow most lives, and, against all this, evokes the notion of a caring presence that can reach out to the broken-hearted.”
That’s a beautiful passage, eloquent and heart-felt and very accurately conveys the pathos of the psalms. This is what I was hoping to read in the book and unfortunately there just isn’t enough of this kind of writing to make up for the assumptions masquerading as facts to make it worth reading.
To give Mr. Alter his due, here is another beautiful example from a comment on Psalm 79.13: “The conclusion of this psalm gives us a glimpse of the sustaining belief that enabled the exiled Judahites to persist as a distinctive group. The nation has undergone the most catastrophic defeat, but its God has suffered no diminution. Even in exile, the people acclaims God and is unswerving in its belief in His rescuing power.”
There are a number of reasons for this. First, for some inexplicable reason Mr. Alter reverts to ancient English again and again. As an example in place of saying someone “went out,” Mr. Alter translates they “sallied forth,” enough times for it to be annoying. Sallied forth? I thought the last person who sallied forth lived in the 19th century. It’s baffling to me why he would choose to translate like that.
The translation was not very fresh and vivid, perhaps Mr Alter knows too much about Bible translation and got too caught up in making it accurate, but the translation just didn’t stand out to me like I expected it to.
Mr. Alter suffers from what I will call “arrogant insider knowledge,” because again and again he feels free to make comments about the text with the arrogant assumption that he is correct, and yet he, like most other Bible scholars, is merely making an assumption. Here is an example. He writes about the book of Deuteronomy, “Although Deuteronomy, as we have already noted, was originally composed quite independently of the preceding four books and actually before a good many of the Priestly passages they contain were even written.”
Oh, really? And you are certain of this, Mr. Alter because you talked to the author? How exactly do you know this? The truth of the matter is that you do not know it and you’re only making an assumption based upon your own theories. It’s fine to say, “I think Deuteronomy was originally composed…” but since you weren’t around when Deuteronomy was actually written, don’t act like you were.
Here is another example. Mr. Alter writes about the fact that once a decree was given by the kings of Persia—as in the book of Esther—they could not be revoked. He says: “This crucial point is distinctly part of the fantasy world reflected in the plot of this book. The Persian empire—and indeed any empire—could scarcely have been governed on the basis of absolutely irrevocable decrees.”
Really? Who told you this, Mr. Alter? Are you an expert on Persian affairs? Do you have every law ever written by the Persians so you can make a definitive statement like that? No you do not. This is an assumption, so stop acting like it’s a fact! Grr… [I hate this kind of behavior]
Here is another example where Mr. Alter comments about the bronze serpent story in Numbers. He says: “Archaeologists have found numerous serpents, evidently cultic objects, and it looks as if these were objects of worship in popular religion, which were then retrojected on Moses in the story told in Numbers.”
So somehow Mr. Alter knows enough about the story in Numbers that he can say without hesitation it didn’t really happen, this is just a story from the future that is stamped onto the past. He is again making an assumption and stating it as a fact! (or at least an almost fact “It looks like”) I got so fed up with this behavior that after about half the book, I quit reading the notes and just stuck to the text. This is behavior you wouldn’t allow your average college freshmen to get away with, yet a biblical scholar can do it again and again and he’s treated seriously? How about a little humility. How about saying, “I think this is what happened, but we cannot say conclusively.”
This is all a shame because Mr. Alter can be quite eloquent and effective. Here is a comment on Psalm 34.19. He writes: “Part of the spiritual greatness of Psalms, part of the source of its enduring appeal through the ages, is that it profoundly recognizes the bleakness, the dark terrors, the long nights of despair that shadow most lives, and, against all this, evokes the notion of a caring presence that can reach out to the broken-hearted.”
That’s a beautiful passage, eloquent and heart-felt and very accurately conveys the pathos of the psalms. This is what I was hoping to read in the book and unfortunately there just isn’t enough of this kind of writing to make up for the assumptions masquerading as facts to make it worth reading.
To give Mr. Alter his due, here is another beautiful example from a comment on Psalm 79.13: “The conclusion of this psalm gives us a glimpse of the sustaining belief that enabled the exiled Judahites to persist as a distinctive group. The nation has undergone the most catastrophic defeat, but its God has suffered no diminution. Even in exile, the people acclaims God and is unswerving in its belief in His rescuing power.”
July 16, 2025
The labor of scholarship that has gone into this three-volume work is nothing short of Samsonian. It is a feat of erudition and eloquence. Alter has written in a great deal of places that he was seeking to translate the Hebrew Bible with its formal literary characteristics in mind, and he has largely accomplished just that. Alter’s sense of both the English and the Hebrew literary tradition are perpetually on display, and there are a few places where his word choice feels genuinely inspired: take “welter and waste” (תֹּהוּ וָבֹהוּ) in Gen. 1:1, or “merest breath” in Ecclesiastes 1:2 (הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים). His commentary, all the while, explains all and any stranger choices made in translation, often presenting to the reader the varying possibilities that the Hebrew text offers, as well as elucidating trickier sections. It is, through and through, philologically sound. Throughout his notes, Alter is constantly referencing contemporary scholarship, late antique and medieval commentators, as well as poets and authors from James Joyce to Samuel ibn Nagrīla. Throughout my own reading, he has sometimes felt like a sort of Virgil, leading me through the Tanakh’s more challenging passages. Not to belabor the point, I have nothing but the utmost respect and affection for Alter’s work, and I sincerely recommend it to any would-be Bible readers.
I do have my quibbles. Most of them are minor. Alter’s attempt to replicate the rhythms and emphases of the Hebrew sometimes lead to somewhat crabbed English: take for example Psalms 30:10, “what profit in my blood, in my going down deathward?”. The copular verb is missing in the original, but that’s normal Hebrew syntax, and the bə- + infinitive construction of בְּרִדְתִּי is almost always translated with “when” into English. (The KJV here is much clearer, though it loses some of the power of the Hebrew—damned if you do, damned if you don’t.) The translation’s lexicon has some Alterisms as well, like “overweening”, “guttering” and Psalms 19:11’s “quintessence of bees” (נֹפֶת צוּפִים). Finally, as far as typesetting goes, more paragraph breaks would do wonders for legibility.
Perhaps where Alter’s translation falters most is in dealing with the Bible’s particular reception history. There are a great number of “Biblical” concepts—sin, atonement, redemption, soul, spirit, Messiah—that had likely not fully developed by the Biblical canon stabilized, and Alter has consequently decided not to translate their Hebrew equivalents as such. His renderings of נפש and רוח, profoundly polyvalent words in Hebrew, into coherent English are admirable, and I have no problem with translating חטא as “offense” and כיפור as “purification”. That said, there are moments in which Alter does not wholly take the leap into the Iron Age conceptual world that he has promised. He translates יום כפור as “the Day of Atonement” in Lev. 23:27, and פשע as “sin” in Psalm 32. All the while, and maybe too inflexibly, Alter translates בן אדם everywhere as “human being” rather than “son of man” so as to avoid any messianic implications. All of these, however, are cases in which the Hebrew has a number of possible interpretations, and the translator *must* pick one; the vast majority of these choices are signaled in Alter’s unfaltering commentary.
I do have my quibbles. Most of them are minor. Alter’s attempt to replicate the rhythms and emphases of the Hebrew sometimes lead to somewhat crabbed English: take for example Psalms 30:10, “what profit in my blood, in my going down deathward?”. The copular verb is missing in the original, but that’s normal Hebrew syntax, and the bə- + infinitive construction of בְּרִדְתִּי is almost always translated with “when” into English. (The KJV here is much clearer, though it loses some of the power of the Hebrew—damned if you do, damned if you don’t.) The translation’s lexicon has some Alterisms as well, like “overweening”, “guttering” and Psalms 19:11’s “quintessence of bees” (נֹפֶת צוּפִים). Finally, as far as typesetting goes, more paragraph breaks would do wonders for legibility.
Perhaps where Alter’s translation falters most is in dealing with the Bible’s particular reception history. There are a great number of “Biblical” concepts—sin, atonement, redemption, soul, spirit, Messiah—that had likely not fully developed by the Biblical canon stabilized, and Alter has consequently decided not to translate their Hebrew equivalents as such. His renderings of נפש and רוח, profoundly polyvalent words in Hebrew, into coherent English are admirable, and I have no problem with translating חטא as “offense” and כיפור as “purification”. That said, there are moments in which Alter does not wholly take the leap into the Iron Age conceptual world that he has promised. He translates יום כפור as “the Day of Atonement” in Lev. 23:27, and פשע as “sin” in Psalm 32. All the while, and maybe too inflexibly, Alter translates בן אדם everywhere as “human being” rather than “son of man” so as to avoid any messianic implications. All of these, however, are cases in which the Hebrew has a number of possible interpretations, and the translator *must* pick one; the vast majority of these choices are signaled in Alter’s unfaltering commentary.
December 23, 2019
Reviewing the Bible itself is somewhat superfluous, so this is really a review of the translation.
I've always been interested in Bible translation and the differences between translations. I can read the Bible in Hebrew, but I'm not fluent, so if I want detail and nuance, I need the English. That's aside from the historical and literary importance of various translations. My go-to for years has been the JPS translation. (The KJV has literary value for its influence on the English language, but not as a working translation for understanding source text.) I prefer it to the Artscroll, which is prone to ideological bias.
Alter's translation makes use of the Septuagint as well as the Masoretic text and he uses historical evidence outside of traditional Jewish sources to determine meaning, which will be controversial for some Jews. However, his commentary is extremely informative regarding his choices and his reasoning, and was enlightening. He does consider himself to be *the* expert--there's a touch of arrogance--but his opinions are interesting.
His style strikes a good balance. It has an appropriate feel of formality, unlike some contemporary Christian translations, but is not archaic, and he seeks to preserve a sense of the Hebrew--for example, by preserving the conjunctions and long sequences of verbs that are used for narrative flow.
I've read the Bible before, though I don't think I've ever managed to read it all in order rather than one book at a time, but I enjoyed the re-read. I would have liked to have seen it paired with the Hebrew source for easy comparison, but given the length of the text as is, that would be quite the set.
I've always been interested in Bible translation and the differences between translations. I can read the Bible in Hebrew, but I'm not fluent, so if I want detail and nuance, I need the English. That's aside from the historical and literary importance of various translations. My go-to for years has been the JPS translation. (The KJV has literary value for its influence on the English language, but not as a working translation for understanding source text.) I prefer it to the Artscroll, which is prone to ideological bias.
Alter's translation makes use of the Septuagint as well as the Masoretic text and he uses historical evidence outside of traditional Jewish sources to determine meaning, which will be controversial for some Jews. However, his commentary is extremely informative regarding his choices and his reasoning, and was enlightening. He does consider himself to be *the* expert--there's a touch of arrogance--but his opinions are interesting.
His style strikes a good balance. It has an appropriate feel of formality, unlike some contemporary Christian translations, but is not archaic, and he seeks to preserve a sense of the Hebrew--for example, by preserving the conjunctions and long sequences of verbs that are used for narrative flow.
I've read the Bible before, though I don't think I've ever managed to read it all in order rather than one book at a time, but I enjoyed the re-read. I would have liked to have seen it paired with the Hebrew source for easy comparison, but given the length of the text as is, that would be quite the set.
August 21, 2019
5 stars for the translation, 2 stars for the commentary. Works best, I think, when read out loud. More in depth review here.
Want to read
October 9, 2019Alter was interviewed on Spectator Books [https://audioboom.com/posts/7152090-r...] which provides a decent overview of his project which approached the various texts largely from a literary perspective and discipline vs. a merely theological, religious undertaking.
April 15, 2025
This is a majestic, epochal translation of the Hebrew Bible. Robert Alter accomplishes exactly what he sets out to do: crafting an elevated yet faithful rendering of the text that captures both its literary beauty and its raw power. Each biblical book in this translation retains its own distinct voice and texture without falling into modern casualness or smoothing out the edges. The language is elevated but never stale—it’s visceral, evocative, and often startling. Whether it’s the graphic imagery in Ezekiel, the laments of Lamentations and the Psalms, or the brutal violence in Judges, Alter doesn’t flinch. He strips away the layers of euphemism found in many modern translations, allowing the ancient voices to speak more directly, more honestly, and more artistically. This is not a literal translation, but it is deeply faithful—faithful to the rhythms, imagery, and nuance of the original Hebrew.
What sets this translation apart is the unique value of having a single translator. Alter makes a strong case against committee-based translations, and this work proves his point. Where committee translations often iron out distinctive features or settle for a neutral middle ground, Alter’s solo work has cadence, consistency, and personality. You feel the care and attention in every line, and yet each biblical author still feels distinct. His choices aren’t always my favorite—like his frequent use of “Master” instead of “God” or “Lord,” or his avoidance of the word “sin” in favor of terms like “crime” or “wrongdoing.” But even these quirks flow from a clear rationale: this is not a religiously dogmatic translation, and it’s not designed to serve the assumptions of any particular faith tradition. Alter’s Jewish background informs his sensitivity to the text, but his project is literary and scholarly at heart.
The real treasure, beyond the translation itself, is Alter’s commentary. For readers like me who see the Bible as culturally shaped and fully human as well as sacred, his notes and introductions are worth the price of admission. He engages deeply with the best of biblical scholarship, offering masterful overviews of each book, rich literary insights, and commentary that opens up the Hebrew’s texture and complexity. If you’re looking for a devotional Bible, this might not be your favorite—it won’t tie everything up with a bow. But if you’re willing to wrestle with the strangeness, beauty, and challenge of the Hebrew Bible, this translation will stop you in your tracks and invite you to see it with new eyes. I only wish it were available in more formats beyond the expensive three-volume box set—it deserves a much wider audience. For now, though, it remains my favorite English translation of the Hebrew Bible and the one I turn to most when I want to really encounter the text.
What sets this translation apart is the unique value of having a single translator. Alter makes a strong case against committee-based translations, and this work proves his point. Where committee translations often iron out distinctive features or settle for a neutral middle ground, Alter’s solo work has cadence, consistency, and personality. You feel the care and attention in every line, and yet each biblical author still feels distinct. His choices aren’t always my favorite—like his frequent use of “Master” instead of “God” or “Lord,” or his avoidance of the word “sin” in favor of terms like “crime” or “wrongdoing.” But even these quirks flow from a clear rationale: this is not a religiously dogmatic translation, and it’s not designed to serve the assumptions of any particular faith tradition. Alter’s Jewish background informs his sensitivity to the text, but his project is literary and scholarly at heart.
The real treasure, beyond the translation itself, is Alter’s commentary. For readers like me who see the Bible as culturally shaped and fully human as well as sacred, his notes and introductions are worth the price of admission. He engages deeply with the best of biblical scholarship, offering masterful overviews of each book, rich literary insights, and commentary that opens up the Hebrew’s texture and complexity. If you’re looking for a devotional Bible, this might not be your favorite—it won’t tie everything up with a bow. But if you’re willing to wrestle with the strangeness, beauty, and challenge of the Hebrew Bible, this translation will stop you in your tracks and invite you to see it with new eyes. I only wish it were available in more formats beyond the expensive three-volume box set—it deserves a much wider audience. For now, though, it remains my favorite English translation of the Hebrew Bible and the one I turn to most when I want to really encounter the text.
March 16, 2025
The introduction to this book alone made it incredibly worthwhile and changed the way I think about translated works.
I read this for its literary and cultural value and this particular translation has a reputation for excellence. I didn’t know quite what to expect but had some vague notions of really dry lists of genealogies and ritual protocols. That was certainly the case in some books (Leviticus and II Chronicles especially) but overall the impression I got was one of massive diversity in tone and style. Genesis is basically a family saga drama writ large, first and second Samuel seem like a political treatise on kingship, and books like Ruth and Esther tell self contained, almost parable like tales. Genre, mood, and message vary wildly from book to book and taken as a whole the collection seems more like an anthology than a single monolithic work.
Helpful introduction to each book as well as copious notes in the text really set this volume apart and proved to be endlessly fascinating. In the introduction the translator notes that something will always be lost in translation, there’s just no way to make ancient Hebrew come across in English flawlessly. His goal in this three volume set, and one I think he achieved, was to capture the poetic and literary essence of the original text. He also makes a compelling case against the practice of translators trying to “fix” the source material, i.e. altering words or concepts deliberately when it doesn’t appear to make sense rather than allowing the ambiguities to persist in their final translation. It was an interesting perspective I'd never heard before.
Occasionally dry, but generally fascinating, I now better understand why these writings have been treasured by so many for so long.
I read this for its literary and cultural value and this particular translation has a reputation for excellence. I didn’t know quite what to expect but had some vague notions of really dry lists of genealogies and ritual protocols. That was certainly the case in some books (Leviticus and II Chronicles especially) but overall the impression I got was one of massive diversity in tone and style. Genesis is basically a family saga drama writ large, first and second Samuel seem like a political treatise on kingship, and books like Ruth and Esther tell self contained, almost parable like tales. Genre, mood, and message vary wildly from book to book and taken as a whole the collection seems more like an anthology than a single monolithic work.
Helpful introduction to each book as well as copious notes in the text really set this volume apart and proved to be endlessly fascinating. In the introduction the translator notes that something will always be lost in translation, there’s just no way to make ancient Hebrew come across in English flawlessly. His goal in this three volume set, and one I think he achieved, was to capture the poetic and literary essence of the original text. He also makes a compelling case against the practice of translators trying to “fix” the source material, i.e. altering words or concepts deliberately when it doesn’t appear to make sense rather than allowing the ambiguities to persist in their final translation. It was an interesting perspective I'd never heard before.
Occasionally dry, but generally fascinating, I now better understand why these writings have been treasured by so many for so long.
August 22, 2023
Really good and a great reader. He tried to make a translation that maintained the “art” of the original Hebrew. Translating words the same way so that you see (hear) the connection between them, trying to keep the puns and rhythm of the Hebrew. I think he did that well, though he did unfortunately choose to mistranslate some other phrases to meet his goals. Translation is difficult since it too often leans into interpretation. Alter is a Jewish Critical theologian, so he tends in that direction. I found it very helpful and good. The audio version didn’t include his commentary, but I’ve been reading his Genesis Translation and Commentary separately and his comments are a mix of excellent and disappointing. The introductions are usually good, but often falling into his textual criticism and causing headache.
Even so, his comments have been valuable and the translation itself was a joy. I think it would pair well with a more precise translation.
Even so, his comments have been valuable and the translation itself was a joy. I think it would pair well with a more precise translation.
July 15, 2025
I long ago described my reaction to this translation in a marathon reading of the Bible (Old and New Testaments, but not the Apocrypha — Deuterocanonical books if you are a Catholic). Basically, I fell in love with Alter’s translation of the Psalms and Five Books of Moses, and decided I could somehow afford the whole thing at a prepublication discount.
I am, on the whole, very satisfied with the translation, and even more so with the commentary, which ranges from literary insights to academic. Fortunately for me, I often know the latter, so what he says is as interesting as his original insights.
There are some problems with the translation, of course. I sometimes think his choice is stylistically questionable, although in most places I won’t presume to question his accuracy, or at least accept it as a possible reading even if I disagree.
Most places. For some reason he persistently used “antlers” when the context clearly means “horns” (as of cattle). In older English horns can mean antlers, but it doesn’t work in reverse in modern English. (E.g., reindeer were once hran-deor, horned beasts, because even the females had antlers. But that was back in King Alfred’s day.)
I am, on the whole, very satisfied with the translation, and even more so with the commentary, which ranges from literary insights to academic. Fortunately for me, I often know the latter, so what he says is as interesting as his original insights.
There are some problems with the translation, of course. I sometimes think his choice is stylistically questionable, although in most places I won’t presume to question his accuracy, or at least accept it as a possible reading even if I disagree.
Most places. For some reason he persistently used “antlers” when the context clearly means “horns” (as of cattle). In older English horns can mean antlers, but it doesn’t work in reverse in modern English. (E.g., reindeer were once hran-deor, horned beasts, because even the females had antlers. But that was back in King Alfred’s day.)
September 3, 2025
On Feb 6th, 2022 I started working through the entirety of the Tanakh as part of the 929 project, reading one of each of the 929 chapters each day (not including Friday/Saturday, as not to overlap with shabbat). After 3.5 years, I’m finally done (with this - but I’ll be starting the torah cycle on Simchat Torah in October). Robert Alter’s translation has been a constant companion since 2022, and I’m grateful for its insight and clarity. (Also, I needed a few extra days bc I've been sick - the last official day was 4 Elul, about a week ago.)
The next cycle is beginning, so for anyone interested:
Here’s the info page on the 929 project: https://www.929.org.il/pages/aboutEN....
And this link takes you to current chapter of the tanakh and commentary each day: https://www.929.org.il/lang/en/today
The next cycle is beginning, so for anyone interested:
Here’s the info page on the 929 project: https://www.929.org.il/pages/aboutEN....
And this link takes you to current chapter of the tanakh and commentary each day: https://www.929.org.il/lang/en/today
October 22, 2024
The translator is not too interested in making the English smooth. His goal was to give a sense of the structure and flow of the Hebrew as much as possible, which I really enjoyed, especially in Psalms.
The beginning of each book starts with commentary. Since the guy is coming from a secular perspective, there’s a lot that I disagreed with (although he’s pretty conservative for a secular scholar). What was helpful was that it pointed out some good literary observations and displayed what’s important in the world of secular biblical studies.
The beginning of each book starts with commentary. Since the guy is coming from a secular perspective, there’s a lot that I disagreed with (although he’s pretty conservative for a secular scholar). What was helpful was that it pointed out some good literary observations and displayed what’s important in the world of secular biblical studies.
January 3, 2021
The Bible as a literary work of art; Alter’s tour de force is very accessible yet tantalizingly incisive; an absolute masterpiece.
September 29, 2021
Masterpiece of a translation ..took me 9 months to read and Alter managed to keep my interest and engagement, even through the dullest books ....
May 18, 2022
Saying I read this is a lie. I got 1% through it and absorbed as much as I could. Very well written and encouraging in a lot of respects, but also worth noting that it is a very big book.
January 12, 2020
Wow! What a monumental effort. Not only do you get the Bible, there is an extensive commentary at the bottom of each page. Sometimes the commentary is more than the actual text on the page! Some of Alter's comments are humorous, which adds some light relief as not all of the book is easy going. Take a look at the start of 1 Chronicles if you want an example. There are a few typo's in this version but I would imagine these will get resolved as further editions are produced. This book is wholeheartedly recommended!
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