Authorship and Revelation: The Case of Robert Alter’s Book of Genesis

About the Event

This First Friday Lecture is supported by the Anastaplo Lecture Series Fund in memory of Basic Program Instructor George Anastaplo.

Lecture Description: 

In this First Friday Lecture, we will examine the ways in which Robert Alter’s project of translating the Hebrew Bible demonstrates how and why we are right to hold as an article of faith that the key works of the “tradition of Western literature” are anything but a dead letter. Through a close reading of choices that Alter makes regarding the translation of key episodes (such as the first murder, the binding of Isaac, and the Tower of Babel), read in connection with the overall framework he proposes for understanding the first book of the Pentateuch as a whole, we attempt to understand how working with the Hebrew Bible through the translation and interpretive understanding of a single author radically restructures our relationship to this work. This lecture, led by Basic Program Instructor Michael Weinman, reconstructs Alter’s understanding of Genesis as both a universalist and particularist project of world-building, as vital and original for us as for its first audience. 

About the Lecturer:

Michael Weinman is Senior Lecturer of Political Science and Jewish Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of seven books, most recently The Political Theology of Hannah Arendt (Edinburgh University Press, 2025), Hannah Arendt and Politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), co-authored with philosopher Maria Robaszkiewicz, and The Emergence of Illiberalism (Routledge, 2020), co-edited with political scientist Boris Vormann. He joined the Basic Program in Summer 2025. You can contact Michael at mdweinman@gmail.com.

Who's Speaking

Michael Weinman

Basic Program Instructor

Michael Weinman is Senior Lecturer of Political Science and Jewish Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of seven books, most recently The Political Theology of Hannah Arendt (Edinburgh University Press, 2025), Hannah Arendt and Politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), co-authored with philosopher Maria Robaszkiewicz, and The Emergence...

Michael Weinman is Senior Lecturer of Political Science and Jewish Studies at Indiana University Bloomington. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of seven books, most recently The Political Theology of Hannah Arendt (Edinburgh University Press, 2025), Hannah Arendt and Politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), co-authored with philosopher Maria Robaszkiewicz, and The Emergence of Illiberalism (Routledge, 2020), co-edited with political scientist Boris Vormann. He joined the Basic Program in Summer 2025.