The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary

Where to begin? First, I love the Word of God. I have been a student of that Word for my whole life on a personal level and at a scholastic level for the past twenty years. This translation is serving as a game changer for me. Dr. Alter does his best to retain the style of the Hebrew and it produces some amazing passages. My favorite so far being Judges 2:11ff "11And the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and they served the Baalim. 12And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers Who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they went after other gods, of the gods of the peoples that were all around them, and they bowed to them and vexed the LORD. 13And they forsook the LORD and served Baal and the Ashtoroth. 14And the LORD’s wrath flared up against Israel, and He gave them into the hand of plunderers who plundered them, and He handed them over to their enemies all around, and they were no longer able to stand up against their enemies. 15Whenever they sallied forth, the LORD’s hand was against them for harm, as the LORD had spoken and as the LORD had vowed to them, and they were in sore straits. 16And the LORD raised up judges and rescued them from their plunderers." The retention of the many "ands," which would normally be smoothed out with commas or dropped entirely in English, reminds us that the fall of Israel was a process. Each "and" represents a choice to go further away from God or a corresponding deepening of God's anger. The notes which accompany the translation are gold, though Dr. Alter could use an archeology brush up and is very much invested in the late date, multi source theory of how we got the OT. Even then, he is gracious with such things. Dr. Alter has given us a valuable tool to better understand both Testaments. Worth every penny!

Love this audio Hebrew Bible. It is a Hebrew translation and commentary that expresses the original language wording. Excellent tool.

This is a very wonderful set. Well put together hardcopy that anyone would enjoy. It is also very readable.

Great translation ode the Hebrew Bible into English. I’ve learned so much reading from this perspective the first five books of the Bible and I have grown in my studies because of it.

Go buy this! ... Congratulations and many thanks to Robert Alter on his complete Hebrew Bible - among the few translations and commentaries void of sectarian polemics. And, if I may add, a work of art, and of superior scholarship accessible to the laity. For nearly as many years as he has been working on his translation, many of us have been buying individually the long list of his translations, one by one, from "The Five Books of Moses," clear through "The Prophets" to "The Writings," that is, the Psalms and other Wisdom literature - now all compiled into three hefty volumes. In fact, only days before the long expected surprise announcement of the release of Alter's Bible, I had pulled from the shelf his volume entitled "Strong as Death is Love" (Song 8:6) given that Rabbi Peter Hyman and I will teach our Spring seminar on Esther and Ruth, those texts in the current volume, again, of "The Writings." … Many Christians will be unsettled with Alter's excision of apparent christologies from his works. Indeed, for centuries Jews have relied upon the KJV for reading in English, pleased with the cadences of the time of King James and his committee of translators - regardless of their distance, due to time and exclusion, from Hebrew literary meaning and studies. (Though not at my fingertips, The Oaks of Mamre Library has a fine volume of the KJV Psalms with rabbinic commentary printed, I believe in the 1890s, by Soncino, then the foremost UK Jewish publishing house.) The Christian perplexion here is the New Testament Pauline instruction that the Hebrew scriptures were to be read as prophetic of Jesus' messianic divinity. … That said, Alter salutes such previous translators as the KJV committee and Msgr. Ronald Knox (Roman Catholic convert, son and grandson of Anglican bishops) by retaining their finer moments within his work. Knox, to my mind, is the finest one-man-band Christian Bible translator of the earlier part of the 20th Century, who said that his work was a gift to Roman Catholics, so they could possess a Bible as beautiful as the Church of England's Authorized Version (read KJV). Alter in various forewords to his books, always goes out of his way to salute previous devotees to good scripture. Knox, whose work I have long loved, would enjoy Alter's elevated companionship for Hebrew understanding not available a century ago. … I am overjoyed with Alter's product. Publisher Norton, however, for a few dollars more could have produced fine cloth boards to compliment the otherwise excellent smith sewn bindery - very important because the next generation of scholars will dote over these books, vulnerable to the ravages of use. As for all of my earlier individual volumes of Alter, these may now become fine beach reads.

Readable translation with endless annotations for deep understanding. I still prefer KJV for poetry but Alter translation is fantastic as well.

The Bible arrived damaged both outside and inside. So, despite its price and being a gorgeous, aesthetically beautiful edition, it won't serve as a gift. As far as its contents go, this is, in my opinion, strictly for those who are interested in Robert Adler more than in the Bible itself. In those three thick volumes on each page there is more place dedicated to comments and prefaces to each book by the translator, than the biblical text itself. On some pages, there are only two lines of the biblical text and the rest is the text written by Adler himself. This breaks the biblical text into small pieces on each page, it breaks the flow of reading or the biblical verses, passages, and stories in some unusual places. That said, the edition is gorgeous, it's the publishing work of art, a masterpiece of publishing, and the translation is unusual to the point of being earth-shaking and heart wrenching. It is also full of deep faith, awe, and reverence for the Lord. Every word is permeated with love and radiates beauty, every line - with urgent joy. The commentaries are exceptionally interesting, substantial, and worthy of reading and the whole publication is the must have for all who are looking for a good study Bible. The print size is large enough for me to read it without glasses both in the Bible text and in the comments which I appreciate a lot.

Beautiful edition of a brilliant book. It looks even better in person, the listing photo doesn’t do it justice.

A fantastic translation. There are better evaluations among the other reviews.

Maravilhoso!

Bible readers have typically been forced to choose between a translation that is literary (such as the King James Version) or one rendered in contemporary English which is supposedly more “accurate”. Robert Alter persuasively argues that these later translations, however, are in fact far from accurate: in seeking to remove all ambiguity from the text modern translators have lost contact both with the innate mystery of the original Hebrew and with its poetic qualities, which are often based in the repetition & parallelism of a consciously pared-down vocabulary. This translation of the Old Testament (or, more properly, Tanakh) brings English speakers closer to the true nature of the text than ever before. The annotation (which I understand from another review here is missing from the Kindle edition) is absolutely essential, because it is only by reading the notes in conjunction with the body text that you can understand the sensitive choices that have been made in translation and how they relate to the language & artistry of the original writers. These three volume are beautifully bound and printed. The second physical book - containing the Prophets (Nevi’im) - is admittedly fairly hefty, but Bibles are typically unwieldy and overall this set is convenient for reading. Which is important, since this is a Bible worth reading rather than keeping as a reference volume. Although the NRSV translation is so ubiquitous that it is inescapable as a “copy text”, it is Alter's translation that I feel that I will consult more in the future. This Bible has no devotional orientation (i.e. it is not a “Bible for Jews”); it is a scholarly translation, for everyone. I would heartily encourage anyone reading this review to order a copy.