Pseudo-archaic poetry, foreign vocabulary, and webs of references.
Chaim Grade’s Christmas tree.
The Hexapla in the Genizah.
Lost in translation.
Isaiah’s puns.
Robert Alter himself conspicuously does not call his own version Jewish in any way. Can we?
Finished after decades of labor, this one-man English translation is a stupendous achievement. How does it hold up against the masterpieces (and follies) that have come before?
“Lava its seeds. Atoms/ Fermented forth primevally.”
Ancient Israelite authors “totally eclipsed their neighbors.”
But who wrote the Zohar?
With some rabbinic assistance.
A theory based on a mistranslation.
And what it’s like to translate it into English.
The most polished writing and
sharpest analysis in the Jewish world.