Robert Alter
Robert Bernard Alter is an American professor emeritus of Hebrew and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1967. He has published two dozen books, including an award-winning translation of the Hebrew Bible in 2018, which was twenty-four years in the making.
Biography
Robert Alter was born in a Jewish American family, and first learned Hebrew as part of his religious upbringing. He earned his bachelor's degree in English and his master's degree and doctorate from Harvard University in comparative literature. He started his career as a writer at Commentary, where he was for many years a contributing editor. He has written twenty-four books, including his three-thousand-page translation of the entire Hebrew Bible. He lectures on topics ranging from biblical episodes to Kafka's modernism and Hebrew literature.Biblical studies
One of Alter's contributions is the introduction of the type scene into contemporary scholarly Hebrew Bible studies. An example of a type scene is that of a man meeting a young woman at a well, whom he goes on to marry; this scene occurs twice in Genesis and once in Exodus, and, according to Alter, with meaningful variations in 1 Samuel and the Book of Ruth. Alter demonstrates how changes in the familiar type scene carry meaning to readers familiar with the anticipated pattern.Honors
Alter has served as an active member of the Council of Scholars of the Library of Congress and as the president of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics. He was a Guggenheim fellow in 1966 and 1978. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1986. In 2001, he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. He was a senior fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, a fellow at the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, and Old Dominion fellow at Princeton University. He is a member of the editorial board of the Jewish Review of Books.Selected Awards
Alter is the recipient of numerous awards and honors. In 2009, he received the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime contribution to American letters. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree by Yale University in 2010. He is a Doctor Honoris Causa of Hebrew University.His book The Art of Biblical Narrative won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish Thought. In 2005, his translation of the five Books of Moses won the PEN Literary Award for Translation.
- Berkeley Citation
Selected works
;Translations of the Hebrew BibleThe David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel, 1999, W.W. Norton, The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary, 2004, W.W. Norton, The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary, 2007, W.W. Norton, The Book of Genesis, translation by Robert Alter, illustrated by R. Crumb, 2009, W.W. Norton, The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes: A Translation with Commentary, 2010, W.W. Norton, Ancient Israel: The Former Prophets: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings: A Translation with Commentary, 2013, W.W. Norton, Strong As Death Is Love: Song of Songs Ruth Esther Jonah And Daniel: A Translation with Commentary, 2015, W.W. Norton, Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary">Hebrew language">Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary, 2018, W.W. Norton,;Other worksRogue's Progress: Studies in the Picaresque Novel, 1965, Harvard University Press
- , 1975, University of California Press,
- , in collaboration with Carol Cosman, 1979, Basic Books, The Art of Biblical Narrative, 1981, Basic Books,
- , 1984, Harvard University Press, The Art of Biblical Poetry, 1985, Basic Books,
- Edited by Alter and Frank Kermode, 1987, Harvard University Press, The Invention of Hebrew Prose: Modern Fiction and the Language Revolution, 1988, University of Washington Press.Pleasures of Reading in an Ideological Age, 1990, W.W. Norton,
- , 1991, Harvard University Press, Imagined Cities: Urban Experience and the Novel, 2005, Yale University Press, Pen of Iron: American Prose and the King James Bible, 2010, Princeton University Press, The Art of Bible Translation, 2019, Princeton University Press, Nabokov and the Real World: Between Appreciation and Defense, 2021, Princeton University Press, Amos Oz: Writer, Activist, Icon, 2023, Yale University Press,