The Hebrew Bible
A Translation with Commentary

Wow. I don't have enough superlatives to give to this collection. Robert Alter has distilled his 50 years of scholarship into these volumes. They are worth the price for the introduction alone, in which his criticisms of modern translations are especially and exquisitely harsh. He is clearly contemp......more

The translation, when it was sticking to a very literal and form-based format (as it purports to in the introduction), deservers is five starts. However, when Alter goes into his flights of fancy related to his biases and hobby-horses, his form-based translation philosophy goes out the window. It's......more

The bible is perhaps the most influential and important book ever printed, and yet the historical translators made many, many subjective and varying choices in meaning. This translation is both easy to read, with fantastic commentary, and beautifully printed. A true-life work achievement by a great......more

Alter's translation is groundbreaking. It is amazing how translations from the King James version forward change the meaning, prose, and rhythm of the original Hebrew and Greek. Alter's objectivity opens the blinds to the original meaning without the filters of well-intended prior translations. I bou......more

Jeepers, that was a long day of reading!......more