A Poet's Bible: Rediscovering the Voices of the Original Text

by David Rosenberg (Translator)

In The Book of J, Rosenberg's translations from the ancient Hebrew audaciously and authoritatively reclaimed the Bible's first great writer. Now, with A Poet's Bible, Rosenberg presents a fresh retelling of the Bible's greatest tales, which introduces 15 new authors and reveals the imaginative power of the original verse.

Genres: Poetry, Religion, Literature

410 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

David Rosenberg is an American poet, biblical translator, editor, and educator. He is best known for The Book of J (with Harold Bloom) and A Poet's Bible, which earned PEN Translation Prize in 1992. The Book of J stayed on The New York Times bestseller list for many weeks.

Reviews

[allyson nordick]

vivifying, thoughtful, haunting! job was especially good, he truly does the wisdom books & poetry justice. very freeing to engage with the Bible through a poetic lens :)

will read again, entirely worth the $2.50.


“ I’d bear any day/ every day/ heavy as it it/ waiting/ for your call/ and i would answer/ you want to hear me again/ this creature you made with care/ to speak/ to you.”

[Arnie]

While I'm uncertain about the author bio claim of him as the most popular biblical translator, this work does a great job of taking biblical selections and retranslating and often reinventing them. Although he takes the approach that he is putting the poetry back into the texts, he also frequently uses contemporary references that make it not merely a translation but an update of the texts. In addition to biblical selections, the book also includes some selections from apocryphal works. Worth reading and worth putting some of his translations / commentaries side-by-side with the Hebrew text and with other translations for comparison purposes.