The Grammar of God, Aviya Kushner
The Grammar of God, Aviya Kushner
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The Grammar of God
A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible

Author: Aviya Kushner

Narrator: Kirsten Potter

Unabridged: 6 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/08/2015

Synopsis

Aviya Kushner grew up in a Hebrew-speaking family, reading the Bible in the original Hebrew and debating its meaning over the dinner table. She knew much of it by heart - and was therefore surprised when, while getting her MFA at the University of Iowa, she took the novelist Marilynne Robinson's class on the Old Testament and discovered she barely recognized the text she thought she knew so well. Kushner began discussing the experience with Robinson, who became a mentor, and her interest in the differences between the ancient language and the modern one gradually became an obsession. In this eye-opening chronicle, Kushner tells the story of her vibrant relationship to the Bible, and along the way illustrates how the differences in translation affect our understanding of our culture's most important written work

About Aviya Kushner

Aviya Kushner has worked as a travel columnist for The International Jerusalem Post, and her poems and essays have appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Harvard Review, Partisan Review, and The Wilson Quarterly. She teaches at Columbia College Chicago and is a contributing editor at A Public Space and a mentor for the National Yiddish Book Center.

Reviews

Goodreads review by ❀Aimee❀ Just one more page... on June 20, 2015

The book wasn't exactly like I expected, but I enjoyed it. While there certainly was discussion about Hebrew grammar and differences between the Hebrew and current versions, the book was much more than this. This was also a memoir of the author's life and family. It was her musings on what faith mean......more

Goodreads review by Marlee on November 11, 2015

Sometimes a good book changes the way you see the world for a few days, and sometimes a really good book changes the way you see the world for a long time. This book knit some important things together, and in so doing, slipped me an important puzzle piece of understanding which I will carry with me......more

Goodreads review by Tim on May 30, 2015

The English Old Testament is a source of inspiration for millions of people. But what if the English translation deviates from the original Hebrew meaning throughout the text? That’s the premise of Aviya Kushner’s new book The Grammar of God: a Journey Into the Words and Worlds of the Bible. Kushner......more

Goodreads review by Moshe on May 05, 2017

I really liked the combination of a book highlighting differences between the original Hebrew bible and it's many translations which the author researched for years, woven with her own memories of her childhood, family, studies and the city and faith she was brought up in. On the other hand, if I ha......more

Goodreads review by Ari on October 07, 2016

This one was a disappointment, mostly because I was expecting something completely different. The book is billed as 'a journey into words and worlds of the Bible,' and starts off strong discussing the issues with translations, but ends up really being nearly completely a memoir. The author writes ae......more

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