Robert Alter
American professor
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.
Biography
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 .
Biblical studies
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]
Honors
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 .
Awards
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]
Berkeley Citation (2010)[ 12]
Selected works
Translations of the Hebrew Bible
The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel , 1999, W.W. Norton , ISBN 0-393-32077-4
The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary , 2004, W.W. Norton, ISBN 0-393-01955-1
The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary , 2007, W.W. Norton, ISBN 978-0-393-06226-7
The Book of Genesis , translation by Robert Alter, illustrated by R. Crumb , 2009, W.W. Norton (first edition, 1996), ISBN 0-393-06102-7
The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes: A Translation with Commentary , 2010, W.W. Norton, ISBN 0-393-06812-9
Ancient Israel: The Former Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings: A Translation with Commentary , 2013, W.W. Norton, ISBN 0-393-08269-5
Strong As Death Is Love: Song of Songs Ruth Esther Jonah And Daniel: A Translation with Commentary , 2015, W.W. Norton, ISBN 0-393-24304-4
The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary , 2018, W.W. Norton, ISBN 0-393-29249-5
Other works
Rogue's Progress: Studies in the Picaresque Novel , 1965, Harvard University Press
Partial Magic: The Novel as a Self-Conscious Genre , 1975, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-02755-8
A Lion for Love: A Critical Biography of Stendhal , in collaboration with Carol Cosman, 1979, Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-04124-8
The Art of Biblical Narrative , 1981, Basic Books , ISBN 0-465-00427-X
Motives for Fiction , 1984, Harvard University Press , ISBN 978-0-674-58762-5
The Art of Biblical Poetry , 1985, Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-00431-8
The Literary Guide to the Bible Edited by Alter and Frank Kermode , 1987, Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-87531-9
The Invention of Hebrew Prose: Modern Fiction and the Language Revolution , 1988, University of Washington Press.
Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age , 1990, W.W. Norton, ISBN 0-393-31499-5
Necessary Angels: Tradition and Modernity in Kafka, Benjamin, and Scholem , 1991, Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-60663-0
Imagined Cities: Urban Experience and the Novel , 2005, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-10802-8
Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible , 2010, Princeton University Press , ISBN 0-691-12881-2
The Art of Bible Translation , 2019, Princeton University Press, ISBN 978-0691181493
Nabokov and the Real World: Between Appreciation and Defense , 2021, Princeton University Press , ISBN 0-691-21193-0
Amos Oz: Writer, Activist, Icon , 2023, Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-25017-7
References
External links
International National Academics People Other