Robert Alter’s Translation of the Hebrew Bible: A Response to Lénart de Regt

1. De Regt on Alter's translation

This is not the first time de Regt has engaged with Alter's work. In 2006, he published an article entitled “Hebrew Syntactic Inversions and Their Literary Equivalence in English: Robert Alter's Translation of Genesis and 1 and 2 Samuel” (de Regt 2006; see also Alter 1996, 1999; de Regt 2003). In this discussion of Alter's latest translation (2019), de Regt explores Alter's norms for translation and how he has applied them in his own translation, with special emphasis on Hebrew versus English word order. De Regt also extracts from Alter's approach those elements that are helpful for Bible translators in general.

De Regt starts by pointing out that Alter is not very positive about most modern English translations, with the exception of Everett Fox's highly formal translation. Alter clearly supports the idea of keeping what he describes as the “strangeness of the Hebrew original” but aims at the same time at a translation that is “a fluently readable version that conveys the stylistic poise and power of the Hebrew.” This is de Regt's starting point: Does Alter reach this aim? De Regt focuses on a few particular areas as examples: parallel syntax, language level (elevated or plain spoken), repetition, wordplay, word order and inversion, poetry in prose, rhythm, names of God, textual criticism, chapter divisions and textual structure, and finally, the commentary and introductions. De Regt quotes Alter's summary of his goal:

The present translation is an experiment in re-presenting the Bible 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 2019, xiii)

How does this statement work out in the specific areas de Regt mentions? According to de Regt, Alter's more formal translation approach certainly keeps, and even highlights, certain connections in the Hebrew texts that may be missed in other translation strategies. But at the same time, he shows that Alter sometimes overstates the positive effect of such a formal approach. For instance, in the case of keeping the paratactic sentence structure in Gen 24.16b-20, de Regt wonders, and rightfully so, whether this sufficiently brings out the surprising effect of Rebekah's actions. Alter also emphasizes the importance of keeping word repetition in the translation and therefore strongly opposes the use of synonyms, but de Regt shows several cases where even Alter cannot avoid variation because of shifts of semantic fields. However, de Regt acknowledges that Alter's approach to word play is helpful and instructive.

De Regt also gives some interesting examples of instances where Alter claims to be close to the Hebrew, but may have missed the essence of the Hebrew text. A good example is Gen 16.8, where Alter's word order (“From Sarai my mistress I am fleeing”) seems to say, “The person I am fleeing from is Sarai,” while de Regt claims the emphasis is on the fleeing, and not on the person from whom Hagar is fleeing. According to de Regt, the text is actually saying, “I am running away from Sarai, my mistress.”

But despite his objections at the level of details, de Regt is positive about Alter's approach, especially in that it reminds translators about artistry that might be missed in other approaches. De Regt clearly notes that the translation is intended for a very specific readership that, as de Regt says, “is open to foreignization in a translation.” My question to de Regt would be where exactly we should locate this readership. And only in passing does de Regt raise the important question of what should be done in languages whose structure and idiom differ much more from the Hebrew than do those of English. There are indeed many languages in which Alter's norms may not so easily be implemented. But, as de Regt suggests, if not for the translation strategy itself, at least for the commentary, Alter's translation can function as a welcome resource for translators worldwide.

2. Robert Alter's theory of literature

Alter's norms for reading the Bible as literature appear already in his book The World of Biblical Literature (1992), which brings together two earlier publications, The Art of Biblical Narrative (1981) and The Art of Biblical Poetry (1985). According to Alter, these earlier books focus more on “defining the formal means of the two major literary genres in the Bible, [while] The World of Biblical Literature tries to move from the specific texts to an apprehension of that world of writing … how and why it is literary” (1992, xii).

Alter describes the Bible as a “peculiar literature” (1992, ch. 1), first, because of the peculiar circumstances of the composition and evolution of the biblical text, and second, because of its peculiar aims, even the peculiar objects of representation, toward which the literary art of the Bible is directed. According to him,

The text as we have it represents something like a collage. The writer … assumed that the act of literary composition involved, or at least could freely avail itself of, all sorts of texts—historiographical, etiological, genealogical, legal, legendary—circulating in the national tradition. The way the assembled textual collage works would suggest that the audience was conscious of its composite nature, and accepted it as a matter of standard literary procedure. (Alter 1992, 16)

A good example is allusion. All literature is necessarily allusive: Writers are compelled in one way or another to make their text out of antecedent texts (oral or written). Typically, writers compose a hymn, a love poem, or a story on the basis of models available to them. Even innovative literature builds on what already exists. In the Hebrew Bible, it is evident that later authors “respond through incorporation, elaboration, debate, or parody” to “the abundance of authoritative national traditions, fixed in particular verbal formulations” (1992, 50). As for the question of the relation between the Bible as literature and as texts meant to convey facts, Alter admits that the Hebrew Bible is not just literature. For him “the Hebrew Bible quite frequently incorporates as integral elements of its literary structures kinds of writing that, according to most modern preconceptions, have nothing to do with ‘literature’” (55). In this respect he mentions genealogies, etiological tales, laws, lists of tribal borders, and details of historical itineraries (55). As for the link between literature and religion, Alter states that,

In all biblical narrative and in a good deal of biblical poetry as well, the domain in which literary invention and religious imagination are joined is history, for all these narratives, with the exception of Job and possibly Jonah, purport to be true accounts of things that have occurred in historical time. (Alter 1992, 56)

3. Application of Alter's norms to translation

So how does one approach the literary texts of the Bible as a translator? It is clear that even if all these literary features are taken seriously, there is no single methodology in translating Scripture, whether into English or any other language. Maybe it is for this reason that Alter does not provide clear guiding principles to translators in general. He merely explains why he made particular translation decisions in his own translation, and his commentary can be read as background information for his translation decisions. Perhaps one guiding translation principle can be taken away from Alter's translation and from his literary analysis, and that is the principle of repetition. Identifying repetitions in the Hebrew Bible and handling them as part of narrative or poetry can be of key importance to translation.

Before I discuss this principle of repetition, I first would like to offer some background against which this principle should be seen. Alter's translation originated from a dissatisfaction with existing modern English Bible versions. For him, modern versions fall short in conveying the most prominent features of biblical literature, adapting themselves instead to modern standards. But as Alter states,

One has only to scan the history of a recent literary genre, the novel, to see how rapidly formal conventions shift, and to realize that elements like disjunction, interpolation, repetition, and contrastive styles, which in biblical scholarship were long deemed sure signs of a defective text, may be perfectly deliberate components of the literary artwork, and recognized as such by the audience for which it is intended. There is a distinctive poetics informing both biblical narrative and biblical poetry, and an understanding of it will help us in many instances to make plain sense of a puzzling text instead of exercising that loose and derivative mode of literary invention that goes under the scholarly name of emendation. (Alter 1992, 72)

For Alter, key to a correct understanding of the biblical text is to understand that it should be open to “multiple ‘levels’ of interpretation, for inviting readers to turn it into a figure or allegory of something other than what meets the eye” (87), and that retaining the literal force of the narrative details is crucial in the experience of reading. Alter states that the Bible

provides particularly fertile ground for a consideration of narrative specification and literal meaning because, by the standard of later European narrative, it is so parsimonious in specification: Abraham may mention a sandal latch in his parlay with Melchisedek as an idiomatic token for something of minimal material value, but no one in the whole biblical corpus is ever described as having a frayed or missing or dangling or firmly tied sandal latch. When a detail of dress, or physical appearance, or cuisine, or agency and action, is introduced in ancient Hebrew narrative, one can reasonably assume that it is there for a special purpose of thematic assertion or concatenation of plot, though this is not always self-evidently so. (Alter 1992, 92–93)

The notion of allusion too should be seen as another level of interpretation that enriches the texts—and the corpus of ancient Hebrew literature that has come down to us in the Bible exhibits a remarkable density of allusions. Translation often stands in the way of these multiple layers of interpretation.

Coming back to the feature of repetition, this is exactly where, in Alter's view, modern translations tend to reduce the levels of multiple interpretation. In general, he argues, modern Bible translations do not give sufficient attention to the feature of repetition. Instead of respecting it, translations often reduce it. In Alter's eyes, translations then become more like “explanations,” for instance where translators use for one Hebrew word different terms for each particular context, instead of keeping the repetition. For Alter, repetition is not a shortcoming of the text, but on the contrary, it is a very specific literary device that is used to make an idea clearer and more memorable. It is used, for example, for emphasis, clarity, to highlight the obvious, to express annoyance, persuasion, or surprise; it can be used to give instructions, or sometimes simply as a device to gain time, for instance when a speaker is searching for what to say.

Alter, then, clearly prefers a foreignizing translation method over a more domesticating one, as de Regt mentions. It is clear that Alter's viewpoints help us in building awareness of the particular features of the Hebrew texts. But the realities in which most Bible translation takes place are not always built for foreignizing translation methods, however fruitful these methods may be.

I close with a few examples and observations:

1. The use of na‘ar in the binding of Isaac. In Gen 22, na‘ar is used to refer to the servants of Abraham, but the term is also used for Isaac. Personally, I think the author of Genesis uses the term to construct an emotional play through the discourse of this event. At some moments Isaac is referred to as a na‘ar, which puts him at the same level as the servants, thereby creating emotional distance. At other moments he is called a bēn of Abraham, which evokes emotional attachment. In this passage, translating na‘ar as “lad” would take away the emotional levels in the story. This is a case where Alter's method can deepen the meaning of the translated text.

4. Conclusion

Can Alter's translation be recommended as an English base text for new translations? A more general question is perhaps, Can a translation carried out by one individual even be used as a model translation for Bible translation projects? Maybe Alter's text can help translators discover the text at a more literal level and maybe his commentary can be seen as another helpful resource, but it should be remembered that the foreignizing approach Alter advocates cannot simply be imitated in the world of Bible translation. This would contradict the very essence of the variety and diversity among translation projects. Finally, it should be remembered that the main purpose of Bible translation in the Bible Society context is to make the word of God available and accessible to a community. In this context, literature is a tool, and not the goal of translation.