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Genesis 1-11: A New Old Translation For Readers, Scholars, and Translators

EWernst wendland · Aug 2, 2017, 4:56 PM · Last modified: Sep 28, 2026, 11:38 AM
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My apologies if this is "old [not 'fake'] news" to y'all!

Praise for Genesis 1-11: A New Old Translation for Readers, Scholars, and Translators

"Bray and Hobbins have themselves given us the best possible description of their Genesis 1-11 book. It is 'a new old translation' for everyone. They resist the temptation to innovate for innovation's sake. They do not fix what's not broken. And their lively writing mines the best of the ancient and the new to give us a dragon's hoard of learned enjoyment. The translation itself gives these famed biblical chapters a more lucid splendor. But more than that, their engaging notes and essay 'To the Persistent Reader' are a journey into the translator's world that will enrich lay-folk and scholar alike."--Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies, Eastern University, author of "The Book of Proverbs" in The New Interpreter's Bible

"Taking a fresh look at old words, Bray and Hobbins' new translation of Genesis reinvigorates some of the most important verses of Scripture for a new generation of readers. As a pastor, I was privileged to read and work with early versions of this manuscript as I preached on the first chapters of Genesis. I am excited that this important work will now be made more widely available so other readers and practitioners can benefit from its beauty and precision."--Eric Landry, senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church (Austin, TX) and executive editor of Modern Reformation

"Samuel L. Bray & John F. Hobbins' new translation of Genesis 1-11 is an amazing achievement, both stylistically and in terms of making the historical meaning come alive for the modern reader. Their notes at the end are especially helpful for anyone who wants to delve into this fundamental text of human culture."--Geoffrey Miller, Stuyvesant P. Comfort Professor of Law, NYU, author of The Ways of a King: Legal and Political Ideas in the Bible

"Lively and learned."--Michael V. Fox, Halls-Bascom Professor Emeritus of Hebrew, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and author of Proverbs 1-9 and Proverbs 10-31 (Yale Anchor Bible Commentary) and Ecclesiastes (Jewish Publication Society Bible Commentary)

"This is a wonderfully provocative exercise in translation, commentary, and book-making--certain to bring instruction and delight to any Persistent Reader, and to make this vital portion of the biblical text stand forth in a new light."--Alan Jacobs, Distinguished Professor of Humanities in the Honors Program at Baylor University, author of "The Book of Common Prayer": A Biography and a critical edition of W.H. Auden's The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue

"For anyone interested in the questions of language and interpretation, here is a translation of Genesis 1-11 that lovingly balances tradition and scholarship, ecclesiastical usage and (accessible) academic rigor."--Jennifer Agee, editor of A Witness: The Haiti Earthquake, a Song, Death, and Resurrection

"This striking presentation of the familiar first chapters of Genesis, from creation to the arrival of Abraham, seeks to render them even more familiar, by returning to a traditional biblical 'register': making the Bible sound like the Bible. The result is vintage wine in suitably old wineskins. Clear meanings become even clearer by means of abundant explanatory notes, to be read as needed or desired. The editors make allowances for both 'readers' and 'persistent readers.'"--Henry Ansgar Kelly, Distinguished Research Professor, Department of English, UCLA, editor of Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies and author of The Middle English Bible: A Reassessment

 It will be interesting to see what the scholars among us think of this new rendition of a most familiar passage!

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JJJoshua JensenAug 3, 2017, 1:16 AM

Coauthor Sam Bray has written several blog posts about the translation at the Washington Post's Volokh Conspiracy blog. (Bray is a law professor at UCLA, hence the unusual platform.) Each post considers a particular issue of translation and includes samples from Genesis 1-11, with commentary. Here are the posts published so far (forgive the opaque tinyurls: they go straight to the relevant posts at Washington Post): - Translating Genesis (https://tinyurl.com/y7njy3xa) - Translating Genesis: double translation (https://tinyurl.com/y8rp9dyc) - **Translating Genesis: Physicality (https://tinyurl.com/ybch8cx3) - **Translating Genesis: Physicality (continued) (https://tinyurl.com/y8jznss3) - **Translating Genesis: Repetition (https://tinyurl.com/ybr6qx2n) - Translating Genesis: figures of speech (https://tinyurl.com/ya2w5exw) **All the posts are quite good, but the starred ones will be especially helpful to translators in the field. These three posts—on physicality and repetition—are a strong plea to respect the text (and the reader) by representing the strongly physical flavor of the original and the various sorts of repetition artfully deployed in the text (Bray lists 5 or 6 different types of repetition).

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