Genesis: Translation and Commentary

The intro was a hard read. More like a college level text book, but it provides background/logic/understanding of what the author tried to do in the translation. Once you get past that - insightful and thought provoking. An opportunity to look at Genesis with "new eyes". I liked the commentary with each chapter that provided historical, poetic and contextual references where a common phrase or story pattern was used in another part of the bible. This is the text for an on line class I am taking with HIllsdale college. I see other comments about why the translation fails as a "commentary" - but this is not a conservative or other commentary - it is his best effort at translation, where comments are provided to explain the translation - 2 distinctly different things.

Nice book, I bought it for a class I was taking on line. Saved a little and got it faster

The preface, labeled "To The Reader" by the translator, alone is worth the investment of cost and effort of Alter's brilliant translation. He explains, in terms accessible to lay readers, his priority of rendering the original Hebrew's vividness and readability into English. In his terms, above all, he strove to avoid the common practice of "the use of translation as a vehicle for explaining the Bible instead of representing it in another language." The examples he chose exemplify this exceptional translation that exhibit his mastery of both languages.

I purchased Dr. Alter's translation as a course book for an online course with Hillsdale College looking at Genesis as Literature. I purchased a paperback edition so my comment only relates to that. The book is of standard perfect binding quality and the typeface and paper results in a clear and easy to read experience (almost.) If you view the "Look Inside" feature here, you will see that the first word of each Chapter has a grey, drop-cap which in the physical book looks bad and is very distracting covering the first words of the first three lines of each chapter. Speaking to Alter's translation, it is superb. Do try the Hillsdale Course it was free (Jan 2022) and provided a unique perspective of the story telling in Genesis.

Great information

I'm a fan of Robert Alter and just finished reading Genesis cover-to-cover. It was very delightful to see the repeated themes and echoed story lines pointed out throughout the book. Alter's introduction and the commentary are great training in learning how to mull over stories and what the manner of telling it teaches you. For example, the first quotation of each character's direct speech tells you a lot about him and is not randomly chosen. Some negative reviews of Alter's works complain that he isn't really a believer or that he dismisses theology and prophecy. That misses the point of what he is trying to do. He looks at the scripture primarily through the lenses of literature, story telling and linguistics. His commentary helps the reader see what great story telling is going on, and to appreciate the motifs of story line, keywords and Hebrew literary devices involved. It's up to the reader to decide what to do with it in terms of faith. There are plenty of Bible commentaries out there with a theological or devotional agenda. This is one of the few translators who takes us into the literary dimensions of the scriptures and I thank the Lord for Dr. Alter's gifts of translation and commentary.

Interesting

I'll take Alter's translation and commentary of Genesis over any other commentary yet produced. Alter's translation is easily the best out there and provides for the greatest insights into the narrative strategy of the author/editor. Alter's translation has forced me to shake my head time and again in disappointment over major translations like the NASB or NIV simply because they force the ancient text to read like a modern writing - and as a result lead the reader to miss so many interesting, important and wonderful features of Genesis. Alter's footnotes are gold. It's not going to give you a full commentary on every part of the text - but he will capture the power of the narrative and the insights offered are priceless. Having read through Alter, when I pick up a commentary (like that of Wenham's or Waltke's - both excellent commentaries) I find myself bored and slightly disappointed. Alter does not deal extensively with the ancient cosmology of Genesis one and the extensive cultural and literary background to that text (John Walton's recent book on this is an important contribution to this). I'd have liked to have seen more on this from him. However, this is a bit peripheral to the literary and narrative intent of Alter. This "gap," if you will, doesn't really take away from the value of the book. It still must come with a 5-star recommendation. I'm afraid that those who have rated this book lower on the scale just don't get Genesis or the value of this translation.

Explica y describe con historia, dos flujos que se unen y dan una imagen más completa de la Biblia.

I think that my appreciation of prosody is not sufficient to understand this version of translation of Genesis. While I fully understand and appreciate the concern of the author to remain faithful to the original Hebrew, I am much less convinced of the result. I have read only a few chapters of the translation. But neither the NRSV nor the Bible de Jerusalem (1973) give me less feeling for the greatness of the book. Excellent intentions but doubt about the result . However I repeat this can be my lack of sensitivity of my ear to the prosody of the text.

This book provides some very good insights of Genesis

Good to get another angle - arrived in good order