Genesis: Translation and Commentary - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 039331670X ISBN 13: 9780393316704

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997

Synopsis

"[Here is] ?the ?Genesis for our generation and beyond."―Robert Fagles

Genesis begins with the making of heaven and earth and all life, and ends with the image of a mummy―Joseph's―in a coffin. In between come many of the primal stories in Western culture: Adam and Eve's expulsion from the garden of Eden, Cain's murder of Abel, Noah and the Flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham's binding of Isaac, the covenant of God and Abraham, Isaac's blessing of Jacob in place of Esau, the saga of Joseph and his brothers.

In Robert Alter's brilliant translation, these stories cohere in a powerful narrative of the tortuous relations between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, eldest and younger brothers, God and his chosen people, the people of Israel and their neighbors. Alter's translation honors the meanings and literary strategies of the ancient Hebrew and conveys them in fluent English prose. It recovers a Genesis with the continuity of theme and motif of a wholly conceived and fully realized book. His insightful, fully informed commentary illuminates the book in all its dimensions.

About this title

Review:

The Biblical book of Genesis contains some of the most sublime poetry known to man as well as the powerful and bloody history of early Israel. Literary critic Robert Alter here joins the ranks of contemporary authors who have tried to mimic, in English, the sonorous rhythms and parallel constructions of the original Hebrew. He also supplies an insightful, fascinating commentary that emphasizes the dramatic unity of the Genesis story. For believers seeking a deeper understanding of the Bible's first book, or for readers interested in the Bible as literature, Alter's contribution is essential.

About the Author:

Robert Alter's 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.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 039331670X
• ISBN 13: 9780393316704
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 324
• Editor: Alter Robert