The Grammar of God - 9780385520829

For readers of Bruce Feiler’s Walking the Bible and Kathleen Norris’sThe Cloister Walk comes a powerful exploration of the Bible in translation.

Aviya Kushner grew up in a Hebrew-speaking family, reading the Bible in the original Hebrew and debating its meaning over the dinner table. She knew much of it by heart—and was therefore surprised when, while getting her MFA at the University of Iowa, she took the novelist Marilynne Robinson’s class on the Old Testament and discovered she barely recognized the text she thought she knew so well. From differences in the Ten Commandments to a less ambiguous reading of the creation story to a new emphasis on the topic of slavery, the English translation often felt like another book entirely from the one she had grown up with.

Kushner began discussing the experience with Robinson, who became a mentor, and her interest in the differences between the ancient language and the modern one gradually became an obsession. She began what became a ten-year project of reading different versions of the Hebrew Bible in English and traveling the world in the footsteps of the great biblical translators, trying to understand what compelled them to take on a lifetime project that was often considered heretical and in some cases resulted in their deaths.

In this eye-opening chronicle, Kushner tells the story of her vibrant relationship to the Bible, and along the way illustrates how the differences in translation affect our understanding of our culture’s most important written work. A fascinating look at language and the beliefs we hold most dear, The Grammar of God is also a moving tale about leaving home and returning to it, both literally and through reading.

Praise for The Grammar of God

“Aviya Kushner has written a passionate, illuminating essay about meaning itself.The Grammar of God is also a unique personal narrative, a family story with the Bible and its languages as central characters.”—Robert Pinsky

“Kushner is principally interested in the meanings and translations of key Biblical passages, and she pursues this interest with a fierce passion. . . . A paean, in a way, to the rigors and frustrations—and ultimate joys—of trying to comprehend the unfathomable.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A remarkable and passionately original book of meditation, exegesis, and memoir. The biblical passages are of a piece with stories of Kushner’s childhood, her quest to become a writer, and commemoration of her Israeli grandfather, the only one of his German family to escape extinction at the hands of the Nazis. In Kushner’s redemptive vision, the Bible in its many translations is a Noah’s ark, and her book, too, does a work of saving. When I put it down, I wept.”—Rosanna Warren, author ofStained Glass

“What a glorious book! From Sarah’s laughter to the idea of Jewish law being a dialogue and not a rigid set of rules, this is a book not only to learn from but to savor.”—Peter Orner, author ofLove and Shame and Love

“In this splendid book, each page is a wonder.”—Willis Barnstone, author of The Restored New Testament

“Kushner reminds us in The Grammar of God that in Hebrew beautiful things are also beautiful words. Her gift as a writer is to take us very near to the text, breathe into it, and give it a new life.”—Rodger Kamenetz, author ofThe Jew in the Lotus