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Product Description Everett Fox's translation of the biblical books from Genesis through Deuteronomy has been widely acclaimed as a scholarly, religious, and literary masterpiece. Praising its unique and authoritative approach, the New York Times Book Review said, "It makes it possible for us to take up the Scripture as if we had never seen it before." In Give Us a King! Fox turns to the two books of Samuel, which contain some of the Bible's most famous stories and most unforgettable personalities: the barren Hannah, who will be mother to the prophet Samuel; the tragic King Saul; Bathsheba, the object of King David's illicit desire and the future mother of King Solomon; and King David himself, the romantic hero who becomes a legendary but morally compromised monarch. Accompanied by illuminating commentary and notes, Fox's masterful translation re-creates the echoes, allusions, alliterations, and wordplays of the Hebrew original, so that the reader is finally able to experience in English the full power of the ancient saga of the original once and future king. Amazon.com Review Give Us a King! Samuel, Saul, and David is Everett Fox's new translation of Saul I and II. Fox, whose translation of The Five Books of Moses is by far the best contemporary rendering of Hebrew Scripture, has performed another literary miracle with Give Us a King!. His style presumes that "the reader of the Bible should ideally recite the text aloud, allowing himself or herself to be led by its sound rather than presupposing what is to be found there," as Fox explains in this book's introduction. Consequently, Fox's translation (which appears on the page in the form of free verse, not as prose) preserves the strangeness of the Hebrew text, rather than smoothing it over with English euphemisms and elegant transitions. The style of Fox's translation, one hopes, will bring new readers to consider the perennially urgent matters described by Samuel I and II. According to Fox, the central themes of these stories are personal responsibility and leadership--"a people's struggle with what it means to ask for leadership, how the leaders measure up to the task, and how the ideals of a culture fare in that process." This book might be most productively read along with Robert Alter's very different but equally impressive translation of the same texts, The David Story. --Michael Joseph Gross From Library Journal Following up on his popular and acclaimed Five Books of Moses, Fox (biblical studies, Clark Univ.) again uses his skills as a Scriptural translator. This book is a real achievement and certainly does much to strip away many centuries of cultural accretion around the great narratives found here--even if his scrupulously literal rendering of Hebrew is at times surprisingly awkward ("Now David sang-dirge (with) this dirge..."). This volume will be much in demand where the first book was popular; for most collections. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. Review The Five Books of Moses translated by Everett Fox "A binding religious text, a historical document of the first importance, and a work of great literary imagination." -- Edward Hirsch, New York Times Book Review "Startling. . . . Those who have been looking for an English translation of the Hebrew Bible that will, at last, let them glimpse the vitality of the Hebrew text will treasure this new translation and will wait expectantly for more translations from Everett Fox." -- Edward Mark, Boston Globe "Fox's translation has the rare virtue of making constantly visible in English the Hebraic quality of the original, challenging preconceptions of what the Bible is really like. It is a bracing protest against the bland modernity of all the recent English versions of the Bible." -- Robert Alter, professor of comparative literature, University of California, Berkeley "No serious Bible reader--whether Jewish, Christian, or secular--can afford to ignore this volum