The Book of David

In 1990, David Rosenberg and Harold Bloom published the audacious New York Times bestseller The Book of J, which identified one of the earliest writers of the Bible to be a woman. Now David Rosenberg returns with The Book of David, which redefines the meaning of spirituality in our time. In this book, another great writer, often called the Court Historian or Western civilization's first novelist, is given back to us, and in place of conventional myths we find inspired images of who we are today.

Our ancestors read the Bible sure of its authors, of whom King David was perhaps most beloved. Now the original story of David is lifted out of the surrounding material so that it becomes, once again, our founding narrative of spiritual consciousness. Based on an exhilarating translation that uncovers the original sources, we behold a radiant writer who stands behind King David, creating the way we talk to and think about God. His sublime creation reinvents our idea of the spiritual warrior as well as the original language of spirituality.

Seven years in the making, The Book of David starts where the conventional tales leave off, discarding the "David and Goliath"  stereotype and providing a startling, mature figure of David. Three thousand years later, David steps forward from the pages of this book in a new form, an intimate story in which we are allowed to see ourselves mirrored in his flaws, appetites, and strengths. David becomes a leader in whom we are able to recognize the leaders we are and the leaders we choose. The Book of David will transform the way readers view themselves, their society, and their religion. It is unique in all that it contains: biography and novel, history and poetry, critique and guide, and, above all, a fountain of inspiration.

Praise for THE BOOK OF DAVID

"The immediacy--the sense of contingency and danger--is undeniable, and it carries the thrill of vertigo. This is so because of Rosenberg's translation. As one reads, one imagines the writer smiling to herself, then pressing down on her scroll. It weds Rosenberg's translation to the veiled, suppressed subjectivity of the reader, and frees it. "
--Greil Marcus

"[The imaginative mastery behind the Bible] emerges in Rosenberg's version as it does not in King James. What we are likeliest to miss when we read previous translations is given back to us by Rosenberg."
--Harold Bloom

David Rosenberg is the leading translator of biblical poetry and poetic prose in our time. He received the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Prize for 1992, the first major literary award for a biblical translation. The former editor-in-chief of the Jewish Publication Society, Rosenberg's poetry and essays have appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, Harper's, The Paris Review, Five Fingers Review, and in the recent cutting-edge anthology Primary Trouble. Rosenberg has also created a bond between writers today and the Bible's writers in three unique anthologies he conceived and edited: Congregation (1987), Communion (1996), and Genesis: As It Is Written (1996)