A Literary Bible Quotes

“Freud hypothesizes the Egyptian influence at the Davidic court, and in an earlier book of my own, The Lost Book of Paradise (1993), I followed his hint in imagining the Hebraic scholar Devorah Bat-David. She was integral to a court culture made up of hundreds of translators and writers—especially translators, since the dominant activity in building the Hebraic culture was translating the cuneiform classics (including Mosaic writings and oral tradition) into the new Hebrew alphabet. I did not speculate about its origins, but I find now, as I reread Freud, that he conjectures “that early Israelites, the scribes of Moses, had a hand in the invention of the first alphabet.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“The image of Yahweh in S’s court history is an image suggestive of J herself, a powerful presence largely in the background, great enough to forgive David his flaws with a constant belovedness, a “lovingkindness”—in Hebrew, the word chesed, which weds love to ethics. David was beloved, loved as no man before him—by Yahweh.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“Yahweh will deliver your flesh, for you to eat. “‘And not for just a day or two days, not even for five or ten days, even twenty days—but for a whole month, until it comes out from your nostrils, until you loathe the smell of it. “‘For you have denied Yahweh, who is in the midst of you, wailing in his ears, “Why did we ever come out from Egypt?”’” But Moses responded: “I stand in the midst of six hundred thousand wanderers—and you want me to say you will have meat for them—enough for eating a whole month of days? “If all the cattle and sheep were slaughtered, could that begin to be enough? Could all the fish in the sea be caught for them?” Now Yahweh answered Moses: “Is the arm of Yahweh too short? Soon you will see what becomes of my words.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke. Yahweh had come down in fire, the smoke climbing skyward like smoke from a kiln. The mountain, enveloped, greatly trembled.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“The pillar of cloud moved from in front to the rear of them. It comes between the two camps, Egypt and Israel; a spell of darkness is cast, the two lose touch through the night.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“They moved on from Sukkot, marked out their camp at Eitam, at the border of the desert. Yahweh walks ahead of them each day in a pillar of cloud, marking the way: at night, in a pillar of fire.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“Moses called together the elders of Israel: “Choose sheep for your families, and slaughter them for the Pesach offering. You will dip a bunch of marjoram into the blood now in the basin, and brush the lintel and the two doorposts, so they are marked from the blood in the basin. You will not go out again—not even one man—through the opening of your house, until morning. Yahweh will pass through, striking Egypt; when the blood on the lintel and doorposts is seen, Yahweh will not pass over the opening without holding back the Slaughterer—who enters to deal death in your home.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“Again you play with my people, resist sending them. Listen: tomorrow at this time a hard hailstorm falls, as has never been in Egypt, not from the day of its founding. Send out your word: the cattle, all that belongs to you in the field, all man and beast not in houses—if not brought into your house they will die as the hail falls.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“Resist letting go—tighten your grasp again—and listen: Yahweh’s hand will grasp your cattle in the field, your horses, donkeys, camels, oxen, sheep—a hard thing, a stiff plague. Yahweh will mark out boundaries around the flocks of Israel, distinguish them from the flocks of Egypt, and among the Israelites not one thing will die.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“Now, Yahweh did so: powerful droves of flies entered Pharaoh’s palace, his officers’ houses; through all the land of Egypt land was ruined under the flies. Now, Pharaoh called for Moses: “Go sacrifice to your god, but in our country—”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“You will come to Pharaoh and say, ‘Yahweh speaks so: “Send me my people, to serve me. If you resist letting go, look: I strike down all your borders with frogs. The Nile will be pregnant with frogs; they will go out, out into your palace, your bedroom, onto your bed and into your servants’ house and all the houses of your people, into your ovens and dough pans. The frogs will go upon you, upon your people, upon all your officers.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“Pharaoh’s heart is rigid,” Yahweh said to Moses,“he resists sending the people; but you will go to him. Wait, and meet him by the way: it is the morning he goes down to the riverbank. ‘Yahweh, God of the Hebrews, sent me’—you will say this to him—‘“Send me my people, to serve me in the desert. Until now you have not really heard—Yahweh speaks so—but in this it will be revealed to you: I am Yahweh. The fish in the Nile will die, the river will be a stench: it will be impossible for Egypt to drink from the Nile.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“Let me go, day is breaking,” he said. “I won’t let go of you,” said the other, “until I have your blessing.” Now he asked him:“What is your name?” “Jacob,” he said. “Not anymore Jacob, heel-clutcher, will be said in your name; instead, Israel, God-clutcher, because you have held on among gods unnamed as well as men, and you have overcome.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“From there Yahweh scattered them over the whole face of earth; the city there came unbound. That is why they named the place Bavel: their tongues were baffled there by Yahweh. Scattered by Yahweh from there, they arrived at the ends of the earth.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“I address J as a living writer in greater detail, as well as the Hebraic culture in which she attained her scholarship, in my previous books appearing after The Book of J (in particular, Abraham: The First Historical Biography, The Book of David, and The Lost Book of Paradise). And in the The Book of J, coauthored with Harold Bloom, I began to describe the textuality of J’s narrative, while both Bloom and I first addressed the likelihood of J being a woman.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“Modern biblical scholarship arose in European universities, yet in religion departments from Geneva to Oxford, Jews were prohibited. The professors of Bible were of Christian belief or education.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation

“Genesis contains two major literary sources—J from the ninth century BCE in Jerusalem, and E from the eighth century BCE in Samaria—and the minor source, P from the sixth century BCE in Jerusalem. J and E narrate roughly the same stories and histories, and have been interwoven in later times, along with P and fragments of other sources. One of the latter, which tells of Abraham as a warrior, is designated X—although it appears to be a translation from Akkadian, the language that Abraham would have spoken, and written close to his lifetime.”
― David Rosenberg, A Literary Bible: An Original Translation