Everett Fox

I spend a lot of time in the book of Genesis and this is one of my favorite translations. I just appreciate the variety this book provides. Overall well written with valuable references and commentary. I go back to it time and again.

This translation of the first book of the bible is based on the Buber-Rosenzweig version in German. Fox is more concerned with capturing the voice of the original than making a smooth, flowing English version. So, for example, when the Creation story repeats "God" many times, Fox also repeats it.

A translation of the Pentateuch that rivals the brilliant achievement of Franz Rosenweig and Martin Buber. Fox restores the cadences of the original Hebrew, explicates the puns, and returns biblical names to their Hebrew equivalents. The result is an earthy, pungent, vital, breathing, truly Hebrew Hebrew Bible.

This heavy book contains Fox's translation, with notes and commentary, of all five books of the Torah. He had previously published a translation of Genesis and one of Exodus and a book with both of these. (I own the first and last of these, which I think I'll keep, because this current translation is heavy! Even so, i wish that he had included the Hebrew.) I heard him speak many years ago; he explained that he wanted his translation to be faithful to the Hebrew rather than beautiful in English.