Editing Robert Alter (section)

==Biography==
Robert Alter was born in a Jewish American family, and first learned [[Hebrew]] as part of his religious upbringing.<ref>{{cite news |last1=York |first1=Hershael |title=Robert Alter's Landmark Work Sheds Fresh Light on Old Testament |url=https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/hebrew-bible-robert-alter/ |access-date=6 February 2025 |work=The Gospel Coalition |date=13 March 2019}}</ref> earned his bachelor's degree in English ([[Columbia University]], 1957) and his master's degree (1958) and doctorate (1962) from [[Harvard University]] in [[comparative literature]]. He started his career as a writer at ''[[Commentary Magazine|Commentary]]'', where he was for many years a contributing editor. He has written twenty-four books, including his three-thousand-page<ref name="Alter 2018">{{cite book|title=[[The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary]]|last=Alter|first=Robert|year=2018|publisher=WW Norton & Co|location=New York|isbn=978-0-393-29249-7}}</ref> translation of the entire [[Hebrew Bible]].<ref name="Alter 2018"/> He lectures on topics ranging from biblical episodes{{vague|date=August 2023}} to [[Kafka]]'s [[modernism]] and [[Hebrew literature]].

===Biblical studies===
One of Alter's contributions is the introduction of the [[type scene]] into contemporary [[scholar]]ly [[Hebrew Bible]] studies. An example of a type scene is that of a man meeting a young woman at a well, whom he goes on to marry; this scene occurs twice in [[Book of Genesis|Genesis]] and once in [[Book of Exodus|Exodus]], and, according to Alter, distortedly{{clarify|date=August 2023}} in [[1 Samuel]] and the [[Book of Ruth]].<ref>{{cite book|title=[[The Art of Biblical Narrative]]|last=Alter|first=Robert|year=1981|publisher=Basic Books|location=New York|isbn=0-465-00427-X|page=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780465004270/page/60 60]}}</ref>

===Honors===
Alter has served as an active member of the Council of Scholars of the [[Library of Congress]] and as the president of the [[Association of Literary Scholars and Critics]]. He was a [[Guggenheim fellow]] in 1966 and 1978.<ref>{{cite web|title=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation A Fellows Page|url=http://www.gf.org/afellow.html|access-date=2008-02-09 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071120102550/http://www.gf.org/afellow.html <!-- Bot retrieved archive --> |archive-date = 2007-11-20}}</ref> He was elected a fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1986.<ref name=AAAS /> In 2001, he was elected a member of the [[American Philosophical Society]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Robert+Alter&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-10-19|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> He was a senior fellow of the [[National Endowment for the Humanities]], a fellow at the [[Israel Institute for Advanced Studies]] in [[Jerusalem]], and [[Andrew W. Mellon Foundation|Old Dominion]] fellow at [[Princeton University]]. He is a member of the [[editorial board]] of the ''[[Jewish Review of Books]]''.