Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Life

The Genesis of the Tablet

Blogging about a new illustrated version of Genesis from graphic artist extraordinaire Robert Crumb, Sara Ivry of the online magazine Tablet displays some confusion about her own publication’s genesis.

Ivry writes:

Crumb relied on Robert Alter’s 2004 translated Five Books of Moses, but tweaked Alter’s prose to make it more colloquial. Alter’s translations have been criticized for a formality born of his desire to remain as true as possible to the Biblical syntax— an idea he discussed with Tablet in 2007. [Emphasis added.]

Ivry apparently subscribes to the dogma that the Tablet is more than two years old. Scientists, however, have unearthed evidence that the Tablet is, in fact, only three months old.

While the Tablet — at least of the genus judaica — was not yet wandering cyberspace two years ago, paleontologists have discovered the remains of a creature believed to have been an antecedent of the Tablet. It is thought that this extinct species — which has been dubbed the “Nextbook” — may have lived during the time period in which Alter elaborated upon his fealty to biblical syntax. Scientists suspect that the Tablet may have swallowed some remains from the Nextbook. It is further believed that while the Nextbook had mastered the use of fire and podcasts by the year 2007 C.E., this creature still lacked the Tablet’s knowledge of blogging, perhaps contributing to its extinction.

Temporal confusion is, of course, common in discussions of Genesis. Indeed, some persist in believing, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the earth is billions of years old. We, thankfully, know better.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.