The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes: A Translation with Commentary

Here in Robert Alter's bold new translation are some of the most magnificent works in world literature. The astounding poetry in the Book of Job is restored to its powerful ancient meanings and rhythms. The creation account in its Voice from the Whirlwind is beautiful and incendiary. By contrast, a serene fatalism suffuses Ecclesiastes with a quiet beauty, and the pithy maxims of Proverbs impart a worldly wisdom that is satirically shrewd. Each of these books addresses the universal wisdom that the righteous thrive and the wicked suffer in a rational moral order; together they are essential to the ancient canon that is the Hebrew Bible.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 10/03/2011
ISBN: 9780393340532
Pages: 394
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.50w x 1.60d

Review Citations: New York Times Book Review 10/30/2011 pg. 32
New York Review of Books 02/09/2012 pg. 40