Robert Alter

And I mean, if you really want to know that you could read about it and.

The introduction to Robert Alter's classic book, like now it's almost 50 years old, but it's the art of biblical narrative.

He opens with that problem and shows that, oh no, there's a reason to think of these two stories as a piece as opposed to just this disjoined narrative.

They should come to the class though.

So that's kind of famous.

The human.

Robert Alter, we'll go back to him, he cleverly recognized that English actually has the same relationship between human and humus.

And so the human was created out of the humus.

So it's possible Shlomo was using this to reinforce the notion that there really is contingency and things are not predetermined.

And this is a thing that like, you know, I remember reading, I don't have this on my computer, but I'm pretty sure in Robert Alter's introduction to Mishle, he writes about how radical some of Shlomo's ideas were in his time that to us look normal.

So for example, there's so many people in Mishle that say that if you work hard, you could become wealthy.

And if you don't work hard, then you become poor.

But it doesn't come from nowhere.

And then I went to Robert Alter and his commentary on the book of Exodus, where he explains why he think Rashi made this connection.

And it's because there is one word in both of these stories.

And that word is quarrel or to fight or to argue.

She is more righteous than I.

The literary critic Robert Alter showed in The Art of Biblical Narrative back in 1981 how deliberately this chapter is woven into the Joseph story with the goat, the garment and the call to recognize all coming back in reverse.

The man who used evidence to deceive his father is now undone by evidence.

I want to be careful with this chapter because it's a hard text.

My co-host is Bruno Manette, and this is a podcast about taste and the creative side of AI.

Today's guest is Robert Alter, Emeritus Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley.

In the 1980s, he introduced a novel way to understand the Hebrew Bible through a literary lens.

He is also well known for his translation of the Hebrew Bible, on which he worked for 23 years.

And then finally, two translations from two scholars that we sometimes use.

One is Robert Alter, who is a Jewish scholar.

Compassionate and gracious the Lord, slow to anger and abounding in kindness.

That's Chesed.

I won't make my face fall against you because I am committed, hesed, Yahweh's declaration.

I don't hold on to things forever.

Then Robert Alter, go and call out these words to the north and say, turn back, rebel Israel, says the Lord, and I will not set my face against you, for I am faithful.

Hesed, says the Lord, I will not bear a grudge forever.

Surely you can see like two lines ahead that you literally said that.

But I have been introduced to the idea by an author called Robert Alter of biblical design patterns.

And he refers to these things.

I think they're called chiasms, maybe.

The concision of the Torah is really a wonder.

At the risk of taking us off topic, but I just want to say for people who, um, are interested in learning, Robert Alter is a great scholar of, of the Torah, and among other things is really great at drawing out the way that the Torah's terseness and concision adds to its power, and this story is really a great example of that.

One thing I just want to point out before we take it in a direction related to AI directly or maybe not, but the Book of Genesis is just failure after failure in terms of h- in, in terms of human beings.

That's one way, one way to look at it.