Ancient Israel: The Former Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings: A Translation with Commentary
“One of the most ambitious literary projects of this or any age.” (Adam Kirsch - Tablet)“Alter’s translation can be fairly described as a godsend…Immediately readable, immensely learned, an education and a restitution.” (Seamus Heaney - Times Literary Supplement)“The poets will rejoice. Alter’s language ascends to a rare purity through a plainness that equals the plainness of the Hebrew.” (Cynthia Ozick - New Republic)“Alter takes us back to the essence of the meaning…Everything is clearer, seeming to have been rinsed not in the baptismal waters of the New Testament but in the life-giving water of the desert.” (James Wood - The New Yorker)“A considerable achievement…Alter holds me to his darkly economical texts.” (Harold Bloom - New York Review of Books)“You think you know these texts, or you do until you read Alter, who reignites their beauty in bracing and unexpected ways.” (Malcolm Jones - Newsweek)“Thrilling and constantly illuminating. After the still, small voices of so many tepid modern translations, here is a whirlwind.” (Michael Dirda - Washington Post)“Alter has achieved the significant feat of refreshing English by taking it back to one of its sources of strength.” (Peter Ackroyd - Times (London))“Alter the commentator deserves as much attention as Alter the translator… The strengths of his commentary are its wealth of short, pithy formulations, rich descriptions of translation issues, and historical and literary discussions… Alter is an eloquent popularizer.” (John Hobbins - Los Angeles Review of Books)