Robert Alter | |
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| Born | 1935 |
| Education | Doctor of Philosophy, Master of Arts, Bachelor of Arts  |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupation | Scholar of the Bible as literature, university teacher, Hebraist |
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| Awards |
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| Position held | president (1996–1997) |
Robert Bernard Alter (born 1935) [1] is an American professor of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967. [2] He published his translation of the Hebrew Bible in 2018.
Robert Alter earned his bachelor's degree in English (Columbia University, 1957) and his master's degree (1958) and doctorate (1962) from Harvard University in comparative literature. He started his career as a writer at Commentary , where he was for many years a contributing editor. He has written twenty-three books, most recently his translation of the entire Hebrew Bible. [3] He lectures on topics ranging from biblical episodes[ vague ] to Kafka's modernism and Hebrew literature.
One of Alter's contributions is the introduction of the type scene into contemporary scholarly Hebrew Bible studies. An example of a type scene is that of a man meeting a young woman at a well, whom he goes on to marry; this scene occurs twice in Genesis and once in Exodus, and, according to Alter, distortedly[ clarification needed ] in 1 Samuel and the Book of Ruth. [4]
Alter has served as an active member of the Council of Scholars of the Library of Congress and as the president of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1966 and 1978. [5] He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986. [1] In 2001, he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. [6] He was a senior fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, a fellow at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, and Old Dominion fellow at Princeton University. He is a member of the editorial board of the Jewish Review of Books .
His book The Art of Biblical Narrative won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought. [7] In 2009, he was the recipient of the Robert Kirsch Award ( Los Angeles Times ) for lifetime contribution to American letters. [8] [9] He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree by Yale University in 2010. [10] He is a Doctor Honoris Causa of Hebrew University (2015). [11]
The Bible is a collection of religious texts or scriptures, some, all of which, or a variant of which, are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, Islam, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthology, a compilation of texts of a variety of forms, originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek. These texts include instructions, stories, poetry, and prophecies, and other genres. The collection of materials that are accepted as part of the Bible by a particular religious tradition or community is called a biblical canon. Believers in the Bible generally consider it to be a product of divine inspiration, but the way they understand what that means and interpret the text varies.
The Book of Nehemiah in the Hebrew Bible, largely takes the form of a first-person memoir by Nehemiah, a Jew who is a high official at the Persian court, concerning the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem after the Babylonian exile and the dedication of the city and its people to God's laws (Torah).
The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom in the Books of Samuel, during which biblical judges served as temporary leaders. The stories follow a consistent pattern: the people are unfaithful to Yahweh; he therefore delivers them into the hands of their enemies; the people repent and entreat Yahweh for mercy, which he sends in the form of a leader or champion ; the judge delivers the Israelites from oppression and they prosper, but soon they fall again into unfaithfulness and the cycle is repeated. Scholars consider many of the stories in Judges to be the oldest in the Deuteronomistic history, with their major redaction dated to the 8th century BCE and with materials such as the Song of Deborah dating from much earlier.
The Book of Esther, also known in Hebrew as "the Scroll", is a book in the third section of the Hebrew Bible. It is one of the five Scrolls in the Hebrew Bible and later became part of the Christian Old Testament. The book relates the story of a Jewish woman in Persia, born as Hadassah but known as Esther, who becomes queen of Persia and thwarts a genocide of her people.
The Book of Exodus is the second book of the Bible. It narrates the story of the Exodus, in which the Israelites leave slavery in Biblical Egypt through the strength of Yahweh, who has chosen them as his people. The Israelites then journey with the prophet Moses to Mount Sinai, where Yahweh gives the 10 commandments and they enter into a covenant with Yahweh, who promises to make them a "holy nation, and a kingdom of priests" on condition of their faithfulness. He gives them their laws and instructions to build the Tabernacle, the means by which he will come from heaven and dwell with them and lead them in a holy war to possess the land of Canaan, which has earlier, according to the story of Genesis, been promised to the seed of Abraham.
The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Israelites. The second division of Christian Bibles is the New Testament, written in the Koine Greek language.
The Torah is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. It is known as the Pentateuch or the Five Books of Moses by Christians. It is also known as the Written Torah in Jewish tradition. If meant for liturgic purposes, it takes the form of a Torah scroll. If in bound book form, it is called Chumash, and is usually printed with the rabbinic commentaries.
Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra was one of the most distinguished Jewish biblical commentators and philosophers of the Middle Ages. He was born in Tudela, Taifa of Zaragoza and present-day Navarre.
Hallelujah is an interjection from the Hebrew language, used as an expression of gratitude to God. The term is used 24 times in the Hebrew Bible, twice in deuterocanonical books, and four times in the Christian Book of Revelation.
Pseudo-Philo is the name commonly used for the unknown, anonymous author of Biblical Antiquities. This text is also commonly known today under the Latin title Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, a title that is not found on the Latin manuscripts of Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities. Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities is preserved today in 18 complete and 3 fragmentary Latin manuscripts that date between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries CE. In addition, portions of Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities parallel material also found in the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 14th-century Hebrew composition. The Latin text of Pseudo-Philo's Biblical Antiquities circulated in some Latin collections of writings by Philo of Alexandria. Scholars have long recognized the pseudonymous character of the text now known as the Biblical Antiquities. Primary in this regard is a vastly differing approach to and use of the Jewish Scriptures than that of Philo of Alexandria. For the sake of convenience and due to the lack of a better option, scholars continue to follow the lead of Philo scholar Leopold Cohn in calling the author “Pseudo-Philo.”
There are a number of passages in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament that have been interpreted as involving same-sex sexual activity and relationships. The passages about homosexual individuals and sexual relations in the Hebrew Bible are found primarily in the Torah. The book of Leviticus chapter 20 is more comprehensive on matters of detestable sexual acts. Some texts included in the New Testament also reference homosexual individuals and sexual relations, such as the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel of Luke, and various letters attributed to the Apostle Paul originally directed to the early Christian churches in Asia Minor. Both references in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament have been interpreted as referring primarily to male homosexual individuals and sexual practices.
Everett Fox is a scholar and translator of the Hebrew Bible. A graduate of Brandeis University, he is currently the Allen M. Glick Professor of Judaic and Biblical Studies and director of the program in Jewish Studies at Clark University.
Hebrew Bible English translations are English translations of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) according to the Masoretic Text, in the traditional division and order of Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim. Most Jewish translations appear in bilingual editions (Hebrew–English).
Harold William Attridge is an American New Testament scholar and historian of Christianity known for his work in New Testament exegesis, especially the Epistle to the Hebrews, the study of Hellenistic Judaism, and the history of early Christianity. He is a Sterling Professor of Divinity at Yale University, where he served as Dean of the Divinity School from 2002 to 2012, the first Roman Catholic to head that historically Protestant school.
Mark Stratton John Matthew Smith is an American biblical scholar, anthropologist, and professor.
Christine Hayes is an American academic and scholar of Jewish studies, currently serving as the Sterling Professor of Religious Studies in Classical Judaica at Yale University, specializing in Talmudic and Midrashic studies and Classical Judaica.
Adele Berlin is an American biblical scholar and Hebraist. Before her retirement, she was Robert H. Smith Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Maryland.
The daughters of the biblical patriarch Lot appear in chapter 19 of the Book of Genesis, in two connected stories. In the first, Lot offers his daughters to a Sodomite mob; in the second, his daughters have sex with Lot without his knowledge to bear him children.
David Rosenberg is an American poet, biblical translator, editor, and educator. He is best known for The Book of J and A Poet's Bible, which earned PEN Translation Prize in 1992. The Book of J stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for many weeks.
The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary is an English translation of the Hebrew Bible completed by Robert Alter in 2018. It was written over the course of two decades.
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