Robert Alter on translating the Hebrew Bible [MIPodcast #115]

Maxwell Institute Podcast

Christianity, Education, Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 809 Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2020

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It isn’t every day that a scholar publishes a book that changes the entire landscape of a field of study, but that’s exactly what Robert Alter did in 1981 with his book, The Art of biblical Narrative. For centuries and more, scholars had meticulously studied the Bible to tease out the voices those who compiled it, but Robert Alter paid attention to the finished product to see what the stories had to say in their completed form. It’s hard to overestimate Alter’s influence on literary studies of the Bible—looking at plot, genre, character, and more. And now Alter has finished his own complete translation of the Hebrew Bible—a mammoth task that took quarter of a century.

In this episode, Robert Alter joins us to talk about the challenges and surprises of biblical translation. He visited the Maxwell Institute earlier this year to deliver a set of guest lectures which you can watch here.

About the Guest

Robert Alter is Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967. He has written widely on the European novel from the eighteenth century to the present, on contemporary American fiction, and on modern Hebrew literature. He is especially well-known for his work on the literary aspects of the Bible. His twenty-two published books include two prize-winning volumes on biblical narrative and poetry, and award-winning translations of the Five Books of Moses. In 2019 he published The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, and The Art of Biblical Translation.

The post Robert Alter on translating the Hebrew Bible [MIPodcast #115] appeared first on Neal A. Maxwell Institute | BYU.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's the Maxwell Institute podcast. I'm Blair Hodges. It's not every day that a scholar
0:05.2	publishes a book that changes the entire landscape of a field of study, but that's exactly
0:09.6	what Robert Alter did in 1981 with his book, The Art of Biblical Narrative. For centuries
0:15.0	and more, scholars had meticulously studied the biblical text to tease out the voices of those who
0:19.8	compiled it, but Robert Alter paid attention to the finished product to see what the biblical text to tease out the voices of those who compiled it, but Robert Alter
0:21.4	paid attention to the finished product to see what the stories had to say. It's hard to
0:26.1	overestimate Alter's influence on literary studies of the Bible, looking at plot, genre,
0:30.9	character, and more. Alter recently finished his own complete translation of the Hebrew Bible,
0:36.1	a mammoth task that took quarter of a century. In this episode, Robert Alter joins us to talk about the challenges
0:41.6	and surprises of biblical translation. He visited the Maxwell Institute earlier this year to deliver
0:46.4	a set of guest lectures, which you can find right now on our YouTube channel. Questions and comments
0:51.2	about this and other episodes can be sent to me at MIPodcast at
0:54.7	BYU.edu.
0:56.9	Robert Alter joins us here at the Maxwell Institute.
0:59.8	Thank you for doing the interview.
1:01.0	We're glad to have you.
1:02.0	Let's start off here.
1:02.8	The first English Bible translation was done by William Tyndale in the 1520s, and he did
1:08.2	the New Testament, but only some of what Christians call the Old Testament.
1:12.3	And it's been centuries since his book appeared.
1:14.8	But did you feel any kinship with him as a translator?
1:17.6	Well, yes.
	...

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