A commentary on the first book in the Old Testament - Genesis.

A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Studies, Vol. 6)

Religion & Spirituality

Sacks, Robert D.

Christian Books & Bibles

The Edwin Mellen Press

Robert Sacks entered his studies as a student of Jacob Klein and also of Leo Strauss. Throughout the last seven decades Mr. Sacks has devoted himself to Klein’s project of de-sedimentation of our inherited thought, which in more ordinary language means recovering the original questions and moments of insight of the great thinkers of Athens and of Jerusalem—not as intellectual or spiritual heroes, but has essentially human truth-seekers such as we ourselves might be. From Leo Strauss Mr. Sacks learned what close reading of a text means. The essays and lectures in this volume are an astonishing record of the fertile influence of these two mentors on the their author. 
In her Introduction to this collection of Robert Sacks’ works Janet Dougherty writes: “There is a kinship of themes among the writings collected here. The conflict between land and sea recurs persistently in the stories of the Israelites’ emergence from slavery and reappears in Shakespeare’s Tempest, in which Prospero almost explicitly takes on the task of reconciling sea and land, of making peace between the chaos of forces both human and non-human and the demands of political life. Sacks alerts the reader to the need for the solid ground defined by Euclid’s postulates by pretending to demonstrate the trisection of an angle. But we are reminded that ungrounded claims to understanding may represent a possibility of immediate and original knowing we would not want to dismiss. If there is a lesson to be gleaned from these readings taken together, it comes across as something like this: With no return to the sea, to whatever is at the origin of things, life and thought on the solid dry land becomes sterile and once-seen truths are sedimented into prejudice. But without the order of law and rationality, mere assertion—the more forceful the more successful—and even violence itself, rule. The sea and the land are not simply separable. They mutually define one another, not only in the opening Book of Genesis but in human experience.”

Three Wells: Essays and Lectures on the Biblical, Political, Geometrical Mind

Respondeo Books

With his characteristic perspicacity, subtlety, and wondering philosophic intelligence, Robert Sacks has produced a truly remarkable exploration of Hebrew grammar, not only illuminating for students of the Hebrew language but wonderfully suggestive for students of language and logos as such. An outstanding achievement. ―Leon R. Kass

Beginning Biblical Hebrew: Intentionality and grammar

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Green Lion Press

Robert D. Sacks has rendered the bold and vivid poetic imagery of the Hebrew original in English prose that is equally bold and equally vivid―while remaining solidly grounded in the nuances of meaning and diversity of resonances present in the Hebrew text. The result is a translation often startling in its power and insight, opening the way to a deeper undertanding of this profound and unsettling book. Numerous notes provide enlightening but unobtrusive explanation of many of the translator's choices. In a separate chapter-by-chapter commentary, Sacks offers sustained original reflection on the several characters, their intentions, and their core beliefs.

The Book of Job: A New Translation with In-Depth Commentary

With characteristic boldness, Robert Sacks offers a narrative path through themes, events, and actions in Genesis that repeatedly find their parallels and consequences in later books of the Torah and the Early Prophets. In light of the compelling unity these patterns convey, Sacks proposes to view Genesis not only as the first of the Five Books of Moses (the Torah), but as the opening work of a single composition consisting of Genesis through II Kings: the TANAR, whose name stems from a Hebrew acronym.  Sacks's thorough knowledge of the biblical text in Hebrew is brought to bear in his broad-ranging examination of key words and phrases in light of the way the Hebrew words are used elsewhere in the biblical text. When a lot is riding on a word, Sacks searches for the closest English meaning with full nuances and resonances: a worthwhile search when these may be clues to the biblical author's understanding of larger issues.  The Lion and the Ass are characters in I Kings Chapter 13. Sacks sees the Lion as typifying those towering biblical figures who “overturn in order to preserve”―figures like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, and Josiah. The Ass, also essential, typifies the many in-between individuals like Isaac, figures who resolutely carry on the burden of tradition.  Sacks argues that if we are to understand God's promise in the context of Israel's fall at the hands of Babylon, we must reinterpret the biblical author's intent. The promise must include Israel's ability to withstand years of captivity under foreign domination in Babylon.   Early versions of The Lion and the Ass first appeared serialized in the journal Interpretation, later under the title A Commentary on the Book of Genesis (Edwin Mellen Press, 1990). In the intervening years, sadly, pirated versions, at once sloppy and incomplete, have been circulating on the internet. Kafir Yaroq is greatly pleased to make this book, newly and extensively revised by Dr. Sacks, available in a form worthy of its author and its readers.

The Lion and the Ass: Reading Genesis after Babylon