I think this is very interesting and reading the slight passages are intriging. I find the critism leveled at it in the article from John Updike weak because he is , in my opinion, critizing it like a novel, which it is of course not. It is a religious text and I have always believed that the human nature to control and confine things has altered the content and context. It sounds to me like a true effort was put into as close a translation as the limitations of language would allow along with providing historial reference.

• CNN: Getting the Bible back to its roots
• Amazon: The Five Books of Moses by Robert Alter