Free Ancient Israel: The Former Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, And Kings: A Translation With Commentary Ebooks Online
Robert Alter’s award-winning translation of the Hebrew Bible continues with the stirring narrative of Israel’s ancient history. To read the books of the Former Prophets in this riveting Robert Alter translation is to discover an entertaining amalgam of hair-raising action and high literary achievement. Samson, the vigilante superhero of Judges, slaughters thousands of Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. David, the Machiavellian prince of Samuel and Kings, is one of the great literary figures of antiquity. A ruthless monarch, David embodies a life in full dimension as it moves from brilliant youth through vigorous prime to failing old age. Samson and David play emblematic roles in the rise and fall of ancient Israel, a nation beset by internal divisions and external threats. A scattering of contentious desert tribes joined by faith in a special covenant with God, Israel emerges through the bloody massacres of Canaanite populations recounted in Joshua and the anarchic violence of Judges. The resourceful David consolidates national power, but it is power rooted in conspiracy, and David dies bitterly isolated in his court, surrounded by enemies. His successor, Solomon, maintains national unity through his legendary wisdom, wealth, and grand public vision, but after his death Israel succumbs to internal discord and foreign conquest. Near its end, the saga of ancient Israel returns to the supernatural. In Elijah’s fiery ascent to heaven many would find the harbinger of a messiah coming to save his people in their time of need. map
Hardcover: 880 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; TRA edition (April 1, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393082695
ISBN-13: 978-0393082692
Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 1.8 x 9.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #150,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #23 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Bible Study & Reference > Prophets #172 in Books > History > Middle East > Israel & Palestine #401 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Bible Study & Reference > Bible Study > Old Testament
By and large, Alter's work is a milestone in the art of translation and is in and of itself an instructive resource for students of the Bible in general, and students of Hebrew in particular. Typically, the practice of translation is viewed through the lens of a false dichotomy: either translations are mechanical, wooden, and "literal" or they are dynamic, thought-for-thought, or otherwise paraphrastic. Alter demonstrates cogently and forcefully that translation is not a game of viewing words as equations to be solved, nor is it the practice of grabbing what the author was trying to say and rendering it in an "abridged" kind of way (see his article in his "Five Books of Moses" entitled, "On the Heresy of Explanation").As a Hebraist I was immediately gripped by Alter's command of the Hebrew, and stunned by his grasp of the subtle distinctions between literary expressions in the Hebrew text. It goes without saying that what the author has done in this volume and the others of his series is to demonstrate that translation is as much of an art as it is a science; biblical literature often makes sudden and abrupt changes from prose to poetry, and not to mention careful and calculating choices in vocabulary and diction. Translation is just as much about translating art as it is about saying, "this word means this, and that word means that..." Unfortunately the artistry of the text is usually compromised in many English translations because of false assumptions about "literal" versus "dynamic" and paraphrastic translations of the text.In so many ways, Robert Alter is changing the way that scholars and layman alike are viewing the art of translation, especially among those that know Hebrew and Aramaic.
Ancient Israel: The Former Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings: A Translation with Commentary Handbook on the Historical Books: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Esther Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East (Ancient Israel and Its ... Literature Ancient Israel and Its Litera) The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East (Writings from the Ancient World) (Writings from the Ancient World) 1 Samuel: The Lives of Samuel and Saul (MacArthur Bible Studies) The Book of Judges: Word for Word Bible Comic: World English Bible Translation (The Word for Word Bible Comic) Judges, Ruth (The NIV Application Commentary) Prophets, Pitfalls and Principles: God's Prophetic People Today (Prophets (Christian International)) Interpreting the Prophets: Reading, Understanding and Preaching from the Worlds of the Prophets Jonah-In the Time of the Kings: A Novel (Famous Prophets of the Bible Book 1) Be Successful (1 Samuel): Attaining Wealth That Money Can't Buy (The BE Series Commentary) Joshua (NIV Application Commentary) Alexander: The Great Leader and Hero of Macedonia and Ancient Greece (European History, Ancient History, Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, Egyptian History, Roman Empire, Roman History) Israel ABCs: A Book About the People and Places of Israel (Country ABCs) Benjamin Netanyahu: Leading the Way for Israel (Voices from Israel: Set 1) A Restatement of Rabbinic Civil Law Volume 1 Laws of Judges and Laws of Evidence Guardianship: How Judges and Lawyers Steal Your Money Judges: Such a Great Salvation (Focus on the Bible) Are Judges Political?: An Empirical Analysis of the Federal Judiciary
