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by: Robert Alter  List Price: $35.00 Amazon.com's Price: $23.10 You Save: $11.90 (34%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Binding: HardcoverDewey Decimal Number: 223.2077 EAN: 9780393062267 ISBN: 0393062260 Label: W. W. Norton Manufacturer: W. W. Norton Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 560 Publication Date: September 10, 2007 Publisher: W. W. Norton Studio: W. W. Norton Related Items:
Browse for similar items by category: Click to Display Editorial Review: Product Description: A brilliant new translation and commentary of one of the Bible's most cherished and powerful books. Like the Five Books of Moses a cornerstone of the scriptural canon, the Book of Psalms has been a source of solace and joy for countless readers over millennia. The cleansing purity of its images invites reflection and supplication in times of sorrow. The musicality of its powerful rhythms moves readers to celebration of good tidings. So today as it has been throughout our past, this is a book to be cherished as the grounding for our daily lives. This timeless poetry is beautifully wrought by a scholar whose translation of the Five Books of Moses was hailed as a "godsend" by Seamus Heaney and a "masterpiece" by Robert Fagles. Robert Alter's The Book of Psalms captures the simplicity, the physicality, and the coiled rhythmic power of the Hebrew, restoring the remarkable eloquence of these ancient poems. His learned and insightful commentary shines a light on the obscurities of the text. Average Rating:
 Rating: - Five Stars for Content; Three Stars for the Kindle VersionAlter's translations and commentary are, not surprisingly, fascinating and artistically engaging. In this review, however, I just want to focus on the format of the Kindle edition. The Kindle format is problematic. First, the (translated) texts of the psalms themselves are reproduced as images rather than type. What this means is that you can't use the Kindle's type-size option to make the texts of the psalms any larger or smaller (although I can't imagine anyone wanting to make them ... Read More Rating: - A new view of an ancient bookI read this over the course of almost a year, one psalm a night just before bed. I found it illuminating and inspiring. Much has already been written about how Alter's translation of the Hebrew word "nefesh" or "nafesh" as "life's force" instead of the traditional "soul" changes the whole perspective. Ditto for "l'Hoshua" -- to rescue instead of to "save or redeem." Simply by doing this, Alter reorientates us away from a later Christian world view back to the original. The writers of these poems ... Read More Rating: - Scholar's Beautiful Translanslation of the PsalmsThe Psalms, often described as the Prayer Book of the Bible,has been translated by a scholar of Biblical texts, to produce not only, probably, the most accurate translation of the Hebrew Text, with detailed notes, but more importantly from a layman's point of view, the most beautiful poetically up-lifting hebrew poetry, and indeed,truly prayerful at that. Highly recmmended. Rating: - Let the afflicted read and be glad!Executive summary: Going back to oldest available texts, Hebrew scholar Robert Alter has produced an unbiased and accurate translation, with copious explanation and footnotes. While the prose is inelegant compared to the familiar KJV, it is beautiful in keeping the economy, syntax, reflected meanings, etc. of the ancient Hebrew. The author: Alter is a Professor at Berkley. His translations of the Pentateuch and other parts of the OT are also fabulous and noteworthy. Author's ... Read More Rating: - (you will) shout for joy, (you will) even sing (Ps 65)Not being a scholar, I cannot review this book appropriately. But I can tell you why I am enjoying it and why I recommend that you read it and use it for reference (or reverence) Alter writes, "What I have aimed at in this translation - inevitably, with imperfect success - is to represent Psalms in a kind of English verse that is readable as poetry yet sounds something like the Hebrew - emulating its rhythms wherever feasible, reproducing many of the effects of its expressive poetic syntax, ... Read More 
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