A new Dutch translation from Hebrew of the five books of Moses, the Tora, provoked quite a few opposing commentaries. The translation by Buijs and Storm is considered to be highly literal, resulting in Dutch phrases which may sound unfamiliar in Dutch but which are meant to reflect the structures of the Hebrew source text. The ensuing discussion about the qualities of the translation together with the earlier publication of another Dutch translation of the Tora , lead Ton Naaijkens to reflect on translation, translation criticism, the (im)possibility of literal translation and the poetics of translation. Comparing different Dutch translations, in the Tora, the Koran and the official Dutch translation of the Bible and a children’s Bible, of the same biblical story, i.e. that of Josef and Suleika, Putifar’s wife, Naaijkens illustrates that each translation implies a difference in content.