31: Translating the Bible with Robert Alter

Jewish History Matters

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For this episode, we are joined by Robert Alter to discuss his monumental translation of the Bible. Robert Alter has been translating the Bible for more than twenty years, beginning with his translation of Genesis published in 1996. It’s really a tremendous achievement, as he brings his own particular sensibilities to the project as a literary scholar. We’re excited to share our fascinating conversation about the meaning of translation, the significance of Bible translations in particular, and what we get from a translation of the Bible that emphasizes its literary character and sensibilities.

Robert Alter is the Class of 1937 Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Berkeley. He has written widely on the European novel from the eighteenth century to the present, on contemporary American fiction, and on modern Hebrew literature, and has also written extensively on literary aspects of the Bible.

In the course of his career, Robert has written a number of significant books on the Bible as literature and the history of Bible translation including The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981), The Art of Biblical Poetry (1985), and more recently Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible (2010) and The Art of Bible Translation, which appeared in 2019.

• Purchase The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary at Amazon
• Purchase Pen of Iron on Amazon
• Purchase The Art of Bible Translation on Amazon