After toiling for 30 years, a local author and biblical scholar finally published his literary version of the Bible, aptly called A Literary Bible.

Pinecrest's David Rosenberg who has written other books on religion and poetry, will speak about his new book at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Miami International Book Fair at Miami Dade College's Wolfson Campus in downtown Miami.

Writing A Literary Bible ($35, Counterpoint) wasn't easy, he said.

``As a biblical scholar, I always had a unique problem with biblical scholarship. That problem has to do with the fact that I'm also a poet,'' Rosenberg said. ``I've published many books of poetry, and it's very hard to be a poet and a biblical scholar at the same time, because the two fields know or care little about each other.''

He said most biblical scholars don't have a feeling for the poetics in the Bible and vice versa: Poets don't have a feel for the biblical text.

``My solution to it was to make my own translation,'' Rosenberg said. ``And the translations were based on research into the poet-authors -- often there was more than one -- who wrote each particular literary book among the many books that make up the Hebrew Bible.''

The lack of understanding from biblical scholars wasn't the only problem he ran into. It was also tough because his friends and colleagues who are poets ``often do not have any feeling or care about the Bible,'' something that at times discouraged him from continuing the book.

``What kept me going was the art, the incredible art of the biblical poet-authors that I was working to rediscover and restore,'' Rosenberg said.

He hopes readers will not only appreciate his variation of the Bible but also understand it a bit better. He said he'd rewritten one of the better known psalms from the Bible, Psalm 23, and made it more understandable.

``Most people have no feeling for the imagery of `The Lord is my shepherd,' and the second they get to that second line about `wanting,' they're lost, because they're not used to the poetic risk of imagining themselves as a sheep,'' he said.

The book already seems to have at least one fan -- Mark Gardner, the manager of Hotel St. Michel of Coral Gables.

Rosenberg and his wife, FIU professor Rhonda Rosenberg, used to stay at the St. Michel in the '90s before they moved to Miami.

One night, Rosenberg said his wife noticed the room they were staying in didn't have a Bible.

``We thought that was funny,'' he said.

Rosenberg said he always remembered that, and when A Literary Bible was published, he gave Gardner an advance copy.

``It's a new take on an old story and it's perfect for this hotel,'' Gardner said.

``It's off the beaten path like this hotel is. It's more literary, and we deal a lot with authors who come in from Books & Books [the Coral Gables bookstore].''

Gardner liked it enough that he decided to place copies of the book in all the hotel rooms.

Each book will have a letter inside of it, directing readers around the corner to Books & Books to buy their own copy.

Copies of the book will be at the Miami International Book Fair when Rosenberg speaks.

``What I'm going to do is dramatize the book by telling a little about myself and a little about why the Bible is still so necessary a book to the nonreligious reader,'' he said.

``Then I'm going to read a few short parts from the book, so people can understand what I'm getting at about why it's crucial to read the Bible for yourself.''

Rosenberg will be on the first floor of MDC Wolfson's Batten building at 4 p.m. along with Mary Gordon, author of Reading Jesus: A Writer's Encounter With the Gospels.

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