Robert Alter and the Art of Bible Translation

The success of a translation, in my view, is defined by the extent to which it is able to move an audience closer to its source text. The integrity of a trans-lation, on the other hand, lies in the faithfulness with which the translator adheres to his or her particular principles. Since these principles—especially in the case of English translations of the Bible—are usually spelled out, seri-ous readers are able to gauge just what a translator has accomplished. In robert Alter’s case, he has made his goal clear in the articulate introduc-tions to his Bible translations. In one passage, he characterizes his work as “an experiment in re-presenting the Bible—and, above all, biblical narrative prose—in a language that conveys with some precision the semantic nuances and the lively orchestration of literary effects of the Hebrew and at the same time has stylistic and rhythmic integrity as literary English ” (Alter 2004, xvi). Alter has long demonstrated that he is a perceptive reader of the Hebrew text, and his explanatory notes are often illuminating in their discussion of the text’s rhetoric, style, and tone. But literary criticism is not the same as transla