Give Us a King! : Samuel, Saul, and David

Rating:
Summary: Authoritative
Review: Hebrew is a famously difficult language to translate. Multiple meanings and a tendency towards non-humerous revealing puns add to the richness of ancient jewish texts that is rarely found in english versions. Like with Fox's Five Books, Give Us a King, brings his enromous ability to bear and gives the reader a window into the hebrew. Not only does he point out where words can have multiple meansing, he keeps the names in the hebrew form with a definition of the names meaning. This adds greatly to the text.

Another reviewer said that this is begging to be read aloud. He or she is absolutely correct. The translation is lyrical, maintaining a 3000 year old jewish tradition of chanting these works. Many of the english translations attempt to turn these texts into thick prose, which goes directly against the way they are treated in the Hebrew.

Fox plans on releasing a translation of everything from Joshua through Kings. This is a wonderful apetizer for what is destined to be one of history's great works of biblical scholarship.

Rating:
Summary: The Stories of Saul, Samuel and David Spring to Life
Review: I am not a Hebrew Scholar; I do not even qualify as a Hebrew Student. Yet this Biblical translation infuses new life into the Old Testament books of I and II Samuel. The meter, the poetry, the nuisances lost in other English translations have been magically restored by Everett Fox.

Mix in an insightful commentary and you have what is rapidly becoming the translation I reach for when I read or study the stories of Saul, Samuel and David. Hopefully Fox is fast at work on a translation of David's poetry - The Psalms.

Rating:
Summary: The Stories of Saul, Samuel and David Spring to Life
Review: I am not a Hebrew Scholar; I do not even qualify as a Hebrew Student. Yet this Biblical translation infuses new life into the Old Testament books of I and II Samuel. The meter, the poetry, the nuisances lost in other English translations have been magically restored by Everett Fox.

Mix in an insightful commentary and you have what is rapidly becoming the translation I reach for when I read or study the stories of Saul, Samuel and David. Hopefully Fox is fast at work on a translation of David's poetry - The Psalms.

Rating:
Summary: Another fine work from a master translator.
Review: In my very positive review of Everett Fox's _The Five Books of Moses_, I wrote in an affectionate parody of his style that not all readers seem to have found "helpful." So here I'll play it straight.

This translation lives up to every standard Fox set in his earlier work. As with _The Five Books_, the text begs to be read aloud -- the more so as it deals with a crucial moment in the history of Israel and includes some of the Bible's most memorable characters.

A sample may be in order. From 1 Samuel 17:45-47: "But David said to the Philistine: You come at me with a sword and a scimitar and a spear, but I come at you with the name of YHWH of the Heavenly-Armies, the God of the ranks of Israel, whom you have mocked! This day, YHWH will turn you over to my hand, so that I will strike-you-down and will remove your head from you; I will give your carcass and the carcass of the Philistine camp this day to the fowl of the heavens and to the wildlife of the earth, so that all the earth may know that Israel has a God, and that all this assembly may know that it is not with a sword or with a spear that YHWH delivers -- for the battle is YHWH'S, and he will give (all of) you into our hand!"

Go ahead. _Try_ reading that without at least moving your lips. Can't do it, can you?

Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig, by whose principles of translation Fox is inspired, would have been delighted with this work. And -- not incidentally -- the paintings, etchings, and drawings by American-Israeli artist Schwebel are lovely too.

You will love, yes, love this way-cool-book. Even if the use-of-hyphens (is) a little-funny! (Sorry -- I know I said I'd play it straight. And, darn, I almost made it, too.)

Rating:
Summary: Careful what you wish for...
Review: Perhaps the phrase, be careful what you ask for, should have been coined for this early story. In the books of Samuel, the nation of Israel essentially 'comes of age', and enters the arena of other nations by forming a central hierarchical structure.

The politics of Israel was interesting at this point. From the time of the Exodus (after Moses and Joshua) to the time of Samuel (some 400+ years later, if the Biblical account of years can be trusted -- the exact meaning of some time phrasings is still in doubt), Israel had no central authority, no hierarchy. The people lived in a mostly agrarian culture, with small farming, flocks and herds as the norm. Cities were rare, and generally despised. For instance, the Philistines and the Egyptians were both known primarily as city-dwellers, and both were considered enemies in many respects.

Israel was guided by judges, who recognised God as King. This, however, was unsatisfactory to the people of Israel. The other nations had kings, to lead the battles and to rule and adjudicate. Samuel (and God, through Samuel) warned against having kings, but (interestingly) did not forbid the institution of a kingly dynasty to the people of Israel. Samuel selected Saul to be king. Of course, his kingship was a rocky one, and ended badly, not least of which because David was a challenger to the throne through most of Saul's reign, presumably based upon Samuel's (and God's) decision to take legitimacy away from Saul.

Finally, David succeeds to the kingship, and has a rather stormy reign himself, made however into the glorious reign that is still considered the model of God-sanctioned kingship under God by many Jews and Christians.

Everet Fox, who did a remarkable job at translating 'The Five Books of Moses' a few years ago (please see my review of that), turned next to the stories in the books of Samuel, and retranslated them as part of the new Schocken Bible Series, which his book entitled 'Give Us A King! Samuel, Saul, and David'. Fox had as one of his intentions in the retranslation of the Torah, which carries forward as a theme in this work, the adherence to the oral and aural aspects of the original Hebrew, sacrificing the scholarly-clarity issues that guide translations such as the New Revised Standard Version and others that are meant to be read, for this that is meant to be read aloud. One gets a greater sense of the way in which the Hebrew stories would have been conveyed.

Now David sand-dirge (with) this dirge
over Sha'ul and over Yehonatan his son,
he said:
To teach the Children of Judah the Bow,
here, it is written in the Book of the Upright:
O beauty of Israel, on your heights are the slain:
how have the mighty fallen!
Tell it not in Gat,
spread not the news in Ashkelon's streets,
lest they rejoice, the daughters of the Philistines,
lest they exult, the daughters of the foreskinned-ones!
Ohills of Gilbo'a, let there be no dew, no rain upon you,
or surging of the (watery) deeps,
for there lies-soiled the shield of the mighty, the shield of Sha'ul,
no more anointed with oil.

Fox accompanies his new translation with an interesting introductory essay setting context and meanings in place, as well as notes that explain both translation textual issues as well as interpretive issues in the text.

Included in this volume are drawings, paintings and etchings by the artist Schwebel. While these works are intriguing and inspired works of modern art with an influence from various historical patterns and themes, I found some of the art work, having modern settings in high streets with cars, shop signs, etc., hard to merge thematically with the ancient texts sometimes.

This is a fascinating text, a wonderful new translation, which gives new insight and fresh meaning to an ancient story.

Rating:
Summary: Don't miss it!
Review: You have NEVER read the old testament till you read Everett Fox's translations of it. It is a veritable revelation to see whole new meanings in the words, phraseology, and syntax. Now, Mr. Fox, how 'bout the rest of the OT. After teasing us with the Pentateuch and 1 & 2 Samuel, I am ITCHING to read the Psalms this way, as well as Isaiah, Ezra-Nehemiah, etc.