Robert Alter
Genesis
Translation and Commentary
Robert Alter sets a new standard in the translation of this formative book of the Hebrew Bible.
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.
Robert Alter is Class of 1937 Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. A distinguished literary critic, Professor Alter is the author of The Art of Biblical Narrative and The Art of Biblical Poetry, and is co-editor with Frank Kermode of The Literary Guide to the Bible.
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