William Whitt

This translation of Numbers follows a similar approach to my translations of Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Samuel. In this, as in my other translations, my priority was always to express the ideas in the text in the most natural way in English, and at the same time to capture the energy and rhythm of the original Hebrew.

One unique aspect of all my translations is that they jettison the traditional chapter divisions and instead organize the material according to the Masoretic parashot. Organizing the text in this way, I believe, gets us closer to the ancient writers, and yields numerous insights into their composition approach.

The commentary accompanying the translation focuses primarily on issues of translation and language. After the commentary I provide an essay that summarizes my views on the composition history of Numbers and that assigns each of the parashot to one of the six major compositional stages that I identify, which span a period of nearly 300 years, from the early sixth century to the late fourth century BCE.

In my treatment of the composition history, I make a number of unusual proposals. Specifically, I argue that (1) the earliest version of Numbers was composed in the first decades of the sixth century as part of the original composition of the "Deuteronomistic History" (Exodus plus Numbers though Kings in my proposal), and that (2) the Yahwistic priesthoods in Yehud and Samaria were jointly responsible for all other additions and edits made to the book between the late sixth century and the late fourth century.

Links to my other translations (all of which are open access) can be found at my author page at the Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/@whittbill), and my author page at academia.edu (https://duke.academia.edu/WilliamWhitt).

This translation of Exodus follows a similar approach to my translations of Deuteronomy, Genesis and Samuel. In this, as in my other translations, my priority was always to express the ideas in the text in the most natural way in English, and at the same time to capture the energy and rhythm of the original Hebrew. In this book, my translation style has evolved further towards a true "functionally equivalent" approach. As a result, compared with my other translations, this translation is "freer" and departs further and more frequently from the literal meaning of the text.

One unique aspect of all my translations is that they jettison the traditional chapter divisions and instead organize the material according to the Masoretic parashot. Organizing the text in this way, I believe, gets us closer to the ancient writers, and yields numerous insights into their composition approach.

The commentary accompanying the translation focuses primarily on issues of translation and language. After the commentary I provide an essay that summarizes my views on the composition history of Exodus and that assigns each of the parashot to one of the four major compositional stages that I identify, which span a period of approximately 250 years, from the early sixth century to the mid fourth century BCE. In my treatment of the composition history, I make a number of unusual proposals. Specifically, I argue that (1) the earliest version of Exodus was composed in the first decades of the sixth century as part of the original composition of the "Deuteronomistic History" (Exodus plus Numbers though Kings in my proposal), and that (2) the Yahwistic priesthoods in Yehud and Samaria were jointly responsible for all other additions and edits made to the book between the late sixth century and the mid fourth century.

This translation of Deuteronomy follows a similar approach to my translations of Genesis and Samuel. In this, as in my other translations, my priority was always to express the ideas in the text in the most natural way in English, and at the same time to capture the energy and rhythm of the original Hebrew. Compared with my other translations, this translation is "freer" and departs further and more frequently from the literal meaning of the text. This is especially true for the many laws in the middle portions of the book, which are written in a legalistic prose style that I could only reproduce by employing a more formal semi-legalistic vocabulary and syntax.

One unique aspect of this translation is that it jettisons the traditional chapter divisions and instead organizes the material according to the Masoretic parashot. Organizing the text in this way gets us closer to the ancient writers, and yields numerous insights into their composition approach.

The commentary accompanying the translation focuses primarily on issues of translation and language. After the commentary I provide an essay that summarizes my views on the composition history of Deuteronomy and that assigns each of the parashot to one of the four major compositional stages that I identify, which span a period of nearly three hundred years, from the late seventh century to the mid fourth century BCE.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike International 4.0 license. The full text can also be downloaded at the Internet archive at https://archive.org/details/deuteronomy_202008/mode/2up.

This translation of the book of Genesis builds on my approach taken in my translation of Samuel published in 2018. The translation is unique in jettisoning the traditional chapter divisions and instead organizing the material according to the Masoretic parashot. Organizing the text in this way gets us closer to the ancient writers, and yields numerous insights into their composition approach. Two other characteristics that set this translation apart are my (fairly aggressive) adoption of functional (or dynamic) equivalence as a translation style, and my selection of Phoenician and Syrian ivories and Mesopotamian cylinder seals to illustrate the text.

The commentary includes an essay on the composition history of Genesis that views the entire book as the product of the Jerusalem priesthood, which I believe worked on the book nearly continuously from the mid- to late sixth century BCE down to early or mid-fourth century BCE. Finally, I also offer up a number of novel readings of historically prominent passages, including Gen 3.16, 4.7, and 15.6.

A pdf of the book with high-resolution images (the file size is 240MB) is available for free download at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/genesisonline

If you are interested in purchasing a physical copy of my book, please message me on academia.edu or email me at wm.whitt@gmail.com. I have some excellent cloth-bound copies printed by Edition One Books, a printing house specializing in art and photography books. I would be happy to sell you a copy for my cost of printing and shipping.

This translation is unique in a number of ways. First, it is the only English translation of which I am aware that respects the role of the ancient (and perhaps original) literary divisions—the parashot petuhot and parashot setumot. Removing the medieval chapter divisions as I have done and displaying the text according to the ancient literary divisions has a significant impact (for the better) on the narrative flow and reveals numerous dramatic effects that are invisible in translations which are organized according to the medieval chapter divisions.


Second, my translation prioritizes “dynamic equivalence” far more than other English translations. As a result, it does a better job than any other English translation of capturing the energy and vibrancy of the prose in Shmu'el. Uniquely among ancient Hebrew prose, the principal author of Shmu'el strove to represent the spoken Hebrew. Nearly all the dialogue is written in a colloquial style full of idiomatic language; a faithful translation then must reflect this with colloquial and idiomatic English.


Lastly, I have chosen to illustrate my translation with representations from the Megiddo Ivories. The use of ancient art to illustrate the text allows the modern reader to get closer to how the original audience might have imagined the action in the text as they were reading or hearing it for the first time.


A pdf of the book with high-resolution images (the file size is 117MB) is available for free download at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/TheBookOfShmuelANewTranslation_201811



In addition, if anyone is interested in purchasing a physical copy of the book, please message me on academia.edu. I have some nice copies (printed by Edition One Books), and I would be happy to sell you a copy for my cost of printing.

This article, from volume IV of Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, provides an overview of the history of the Semitic alphabet from the Middle Bronze Age through the Persian Period. It discusses the origins of alphabetic writing, the earliest alphabetic inscriptions, the cuneiform alphabet, the spread of the Phoenician alphabet, the alphabet in the Persian period, the adoption of the alphabet in the Greek world, and the South Semitic alphabet. The article also includes sections devoted to the technology of alphabetic writing, scribal composition, and the experience of writing in ancient society.

There are two problems to be considered prior to determining the relationship of the Jacob traditions in Hosea to Genesis: the date of Genesis and the possibility that some of the references to Jacob in Hosea 12 are late additions. Using the evolution in usage of the names Israel and Jacob as a dating tool, Genesis is dated to the late 7th - mid 6th century. It is argued that the material in Hos 12,4 - 5.13 is original; 12,6 - 7 is taken to be a gloss. The state of the Jacob traditions in Hosea's time is reconstructed as far as possible; this reconstruction gives us a glimpse of the relatively undeveloped state of the Jacob traditions in the mid 8th century. The implications that this reconstruction has for the tradition history and composition technique of the Jacob stories in Genesis are discussed in detail. It is argued that Hosea and the author of the Genesis stories share a common source -- traditional sayings about Jacob from the cult at Beth-el -- and that Hosea's references to Jacob are quotes or near-quotes of these sayings. Hosea's references to Jacob show that by the eighth century the Jacob stories existed in the form of a biographical cycle which contain three elements that later became important in "antiquarian" historiography -- genealogy, itinerary, and cult foundation.