Thursday, September 13, 2007

ROBERT ALTER'S TRANSLATION OF THE PSALMS is reviewed in the Jewish Exponent:
'The Lord Is My Light and My Rescue'
September 13, 2007 - Robert Leiter, Literary Editor

What Jew or Christian -- in fact, what feeling person -- has not turned to the psalms for a bit of comfort at times of stress or need? These verses have soothed countless souls over the millennia, a task which they were so obviously created to accomplish.

The centrality that the Book of Psalms holds in Jewish culture -- for believers and nonbelievers alike -- is what has motivated the great scholar Robert Alter to rethink and refashion these splendid works of liturgical art, just as he has done in the recent past for the Five Books of Moses and the story of David. His new translation of The Book of Psalms, published recently by W.W. Norton, is a major endeavor, and comes just in time to be of real use and solace to readers during the High Holiday period.

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