Translations matter. Oddly, to recognize this fact, you have to reread a book. If the first time you ever read The Odyssey was the Fagles translation, you would have no idea how much the translator was important in making the book come alive. Now imagine a book you have read many times in many different translations. A new translation comes along. Same story that you have read many, many, many times. But, suddenly in this new translation, the book pops alive in new ways. The story feels fresh and exciting and like something you have never read before. That would be a good translation.
Enter Robert Alter, who has been praised many times before
in this space and is hereby praised again.
I recently finished his latest Old Testament translations. This set has a curious title: Ancient Israel: The Former Prophets: Joshua,
Judges, Samuel, and Kings. (The
Former Prophets is an odd moniker, but it fits.) I’ve read all those books before Alter came
along. Many times. But, rereading each of the four books contained
herein was a surprising experience.
As a book, this is an interesting history. Coupled with the Books of Moses, we now have Alter’s
translation of the complete story of Israel from Creation to Captivity. It is not a pretty tale—one long descent of
mankind.
Of the four books contained in this newest translation,
there is no doubt that Samuel is the best.
Indeed, it is cheating a bit to have included it here—Alter had
previously published his translation of Samuel, so a good chunk of this book is
simply the inclusion of a previously published stand-alone book. It makes sense to include it for the sake of completeness,
but not all of this material is new. The
Samuel narrative is beautifully written, a marvelous story—surely one of the Greats
in World Literature. Indeed, I assigned Samuel
in my Leadership and the Liberal Arts class last semester. David and Lincoln made an interesting pairing
of biographies.
Kings, which I finally just got around to reading, was as
tedious as I expected it to be. The
Samuel narrative is beautiful literature.
Joshua was a crisp tale followed by some legalese. Judges is replete with good stories. But Kings?
It is so clearly a mishmash, a cobbling together of assorted stories,
most of which are ripped out of some Court records chronicling the Civil War
and long aftermath of Israel. The narrative
high points are the antics of Elijah and Elisha—trickster prophets who relieve
us from the tedium of yet another king who worshipped idols and displeased the
Lord. Wash, Rise, Repeat. Quite honestly, by the end of Kings, I was
glad the Babylonians came along and put us all out of our misery. Which, now that I think about it, is a rather
interesting take on the point of Kings—maybe I was supposed to be glad that God
finally put an end to the tedious nonsense.
Maybe I am supposed to cheer for the Babylonians here. I don’t think that is heretical.
Writing a review of the Bible seems odd, by the way. It is
also oddly difficult. What comes
next? Here are some lessons I learned from
the Bible? Here are some surprising
tidbits from the Bible? Here are my
favorite characters from the Bible? Here
is the main point of the Bible? Here are
the boring parts of the Bible? Here are
some suggestions for improving the Bible so that it would be a better
book? (OK, that one is heretical.) Why has nobody ever made a good movie of the
material in Joshua, Judges, Samuel or Kings?
(That question kind of interests me.
There is surely a great movie, maybe even Peter Jackson trilogy, based
on Samuel just waiting to be made. ( I
saw the Richard Gere movie when I was in high school; I wish I could erase all
memory of it.) Samson is another obvious
movie waiting to be made. Action-hero
Samson!)
There is already a noteworthy movie about Elijah. You can watch it here. It will be more entertaining than anything else
I could add at this point.
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