Robert Alter

Three decades ago, renowned literary expert Robert Alter radically expanded the horizons of biblical scholarship by recasting the Bible as not only a human creation but a work of literary art deserving studied criticism. In The Art of Biblical Poetry, his companion to the seminal The Art of Biblical Narrative, Alter takes his analysis beyond narrative craft to investigate the use of Hebrew poetry in the Bible. Updated with a new preface, myriad revisions,...

Robert Alter has taught Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, since 1967. The author of more than twenty books, he has also published four volumes of Bible translation, most recently The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (Norton). In 2009, Alter received the Robert Kirsch Award from the Los Angeles Times for lifetime contribution to American letters. How the King James Bible has influenced the style...

"An award-winning translation brings new immediacy to these beloved books of the Bible. Read them for the first time, again. These five late biblical books offer readers a range of pleasures not usually associated with the Bible. They are artful, entertaining literary works-innovative, even startling. Women often stand center stage. Song of Songs is a celebration of young love, frankly sensuous, with no reference to God or covenant. It offers some...

A landmark event: the complete Hebrew Bible in the award-winning translation that delivers the stunning literary power of the original. A masterpiece of deep learning and fine sensibility, Robert Alter's translation of the Hebrew Bible, now complete, reanimates one of the formative works of our culture. Capturing its brilliantly compact poetry and finely wrought, purposeful prose, Alter renews the Old Testament as a source of literary power and spiritual...

Cheops' daughter, the story goes, earned the money for her pyramid by practicing what was even then the Oldest Profession. Her price had been one stone per man. She built a pretty big pyramid. Many centuries later, beautiful Greta Brandt also made some fancy burial plans - but they were for her husband Farley, who wasn't dead yet. And until he was, Greta intended to leave no stone unturned. Then she met Dave Ferris, a young and not-too-scrupulous...

The swamp had no name and no landmarks: just cypress, Spanish moss, and alligators - and a wrecked plane with eighty thousand dollars inside it. The man who found the Money Plane could have any woman he wanted - even the deliriously carnal Dorry Mears - as long as he kept the source of his fortune a secret. But in the swamp no secret was ever safe. And neither was anyone who had Dorry for a mistress.

"A landmark event: the complete Hebrew Bible in the award-winning translation that delivers the stunning literary power of the original. A masterpiece of deep learning and fine sensibility, Robert Alter's translation of the Hebrew Bible, now complete, reanimates one of the formative works of our culture. Capturing its brilliantly compact poetry and finely wrought, purposeful prose, Alter renews the Old Testament as a source of literary power and spiritual...