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Robert Alter - The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary

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Robert Alter The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary
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Through a distinguished career of critical scholarship and translation, Robert Alter has equipped us to read the Hebrew Bible as a powerful, cohesive work of literature. The culmination of this work, Alters masterly new translation and probing commentary combine to give contemporary readers the definitive edition of The Five Books. Alters majestic translation recovers the mesmerizing effect of these ancient storiesthe profound and haunting enigmas, the ambiguities of motive and image, and the distinctive cadences and lovely precision of the Hebrew text. Other modern translations either recast these features for contemporary clarity, thereby losing the character of the original, or fail to give readers a suitably fluid English as a point of contact. Alters translation conveys the music and the meaning of the Hebrew text in a lyrical, lucid English. His accompanying commentary illuminates the text with learned insight and reflection on its literary and historical dimensions.

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More praise for Robert Alters The Five Books of Moses An astonishing - photo 1
More praise for Robert Alters

The Five Books of Moses

[An] astonishing translation. Out of Mr. Alters close reading and translation, something grander really does take shape, along with a conviction that the Bible is not just incidentally mysterious, posing challenges because of its antique references and sources. It is essentially mysterious.

Edward Rothstein, New York Times

[A] remarkable new translation of the Pentateuch, a monument of scholarship. The result greatly refreshes, sometimes productively estranges, words that may now be too familiar to those who grew up with the King James Bible. Alters translation brings delight because it follows the precepts of the committee of King James, but is founded on a greatly deeper conversance with Hebrew than the great 17th-century scholars could summon. And Alterbrings to his own English a scholarly comprehension of the capacities of literary usage.Especially fine is the way Alter seems to dig into the earth of the Hebrew to recover, in English, its fearless tactility.

James Wood, London Review of Books

In the ancient Hebrew, Alter discovers a profound music. He can raise an already beloved text to new heights of resonance and reality. Alters combination of a freshly minted text and splendidly concise commentaries makes the biblical words resonate.

Thomas DEvelyn, Christian Science Monitor

This is a masterpiece of clarity, erudition, and synthesis. Alter uses his talent as a literary critic to inspire in the reader a passion for studying the text. This work abounds in stimulating thinking and eloquent writing. He honors those he invites not just to follow him but to accompany him.

Elie Wiesel, Bible Review

The arrival of this new translation of The Five Books of Moses a heroic and literary achievement that captures in almost standard English the rhythms, repetition, and beauty of the Hebrew originalis cause for celebration.[This translation] well might become the definitive text for readers and scholars alike.

Pearl Abraham, The Forward

Alter has admirablyone could say miraculouslysucceeded.

Earl L. Dachslager, Houston Chronicle

The renowned scholar Robert Alter has produced a fresh translation [and] backed it up with an enlightening commentary. The result offers Old Testament newcomers, long-term absentees, and veterans a compelling reading experience.

Matt Love, Sunday Oregonian

The Five Books of Moses is a fine work that deserves admiration for its sheer scale and literary power. 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, Times Literary Supplement

Magisterialan extraordinary achievement by any measure. Alter is indeed a magician with words.

Diana Lipton, Booklog

Alter has succeeded admirably in conveying to English readers something of the flair, mystery, majesty, and power of the original Hebrew.

John W. Rogerson, Church Times

Has a story ever been at once so comprehensive, so intricate, and so integral as the one Alter gives us here? One is tempted to call it inspired.

Alan Jacobs, First Things

Alter demonstrates a general reverence for literature that is complete, and his reverence for the power of the original text is compelling as well. The thrill of discovery occurs often.

David M. Levine, Congress Monthly

Alters accomplishment is immense. He has produced a translation of the Pentateuch that respects and captures the beauty and majesty of the original.

Eric Ormsby, New Criterion

THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES
ALSO BY ROBERT ALTER

CANON AND CREATIVITY:
MODERN WRITING AND THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE

THE DAVID STORY

GENESIS

HEBREW AND MODERNITY

THE WORLD OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE

NECESSARY ANGELS: TRADITION AND MODERNITY IN KAFKA, BENJAMIN, AND SCHOLEM

THE PLEASURES OF READING IN AN IDEOLOGICAL AGE

THE LITERARY GUIDE TO THE BIBLE

(coeditor with Frank Kermode)

THE INVENTION OF HEBREW PROSE

THE ART OF BIBLICAL POETRY

MOTIVES FOR FICTION

THE ART OF BIBLICAL NARRATIVE

A LION FOR LOVE: A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF STENDHAL

DEFENSES OF THE IMAGINATION

PARTIAL MAGIC: THE NOVEL AS SELF-CONSCIOUS GENRE

MODERN HEBREW LITERATURE

AFTER THE TRADITION

FIELDING AND THE NATURE OF THE NOVEL

ROGUES PROGRESS: STUDIES IN THE PICARESQUE NOVEL

THE FIVE BOOKS OF MOSES

A Translation with Commentary

ROBERT ALTER

W. W. Norton & Company NEW YORK LONDON

Picture 2

Copyright 2004 by Robert Alter

Portions previously published in Genesis: Translation and Commentary
by Robert Alter copyright 1996 by Robert Alter.

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions,
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bible. O.T. Pentateuch. English. Alter. 2004.
The five books of Moses: a translation with commentary / Robert Alter.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN: 978-0-393-07024-8
1. Bible. O.T. PentateuchCommentaries. I. Alter, Robert. II. Title.
BS1223.A48 2004
222'.1077dc22
2004014067

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110
www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION

I. APPROACHING THE FIVE BOOKS

T he rabbinic sage Resh Lakish once wondered why the Hebrew text in Genesis used a seemingly superfluous definite article in the phrase And it was evening and it was morning, the sixth day. (The definite article is not used for the preceding five days.) He took this to be a hidden reference to the sixth day of the month of Sivan, when according to tradition the Torah was given to Israel: to teach us that the Holy One made a condition with all created things, saying to them, If Israel accepts the Torah, you will continue to exist. If not, I shall return you to welter and waste (Babylonian Talmud: Shabbat 88A). This is surely an extraordinary notion to entertain about the cosmic status of a book, imagining that the very existence of the world depends on it and on Israels embrace of it.

Jewish tradition abounds in such extravagant celebrations of the supreme importance of this book. What is it about this text that led to such a vision of its unique standing? Are the five literary units it comprises in fact one book or five? How were they brought together? What are we to call them?

Let us begin with the question of the name for the whole. The fluctuations of the title reflect something of the oscillation of the text itself between multiplicity and unity. The Five Books of Moses does not translate any of the circulating Hebrew titles, though it does register the traditional attribution of authorship to Moses. The more compact English title, the Pentateuch, derives from a Greek equivalent for one popular Hebrew designation, the Picture 3 umash. Both names simply mean the Five Books (though the book element is merely implied in the Hebrew term). Pentateuch was once the prevalent English title but has come to enjoy less currency, perhaps because faintly forbidding polysyllabic Greek terms are now less in favor. It does sound a little ponderous to the contemporary ear, and on those grounds it has not been adopted for this volume.

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