 Little is known of this period of Alkan 's life , other than that apart from composing he was immersed in the study of the Bible and the Talmud . Throughout this period Alkan continued his correspondence with Ferdinand Hiller , whom he had probably met in Paris in the 1830s , and with Masarnau , from which some insights can be gained . It appears that Alkan completed a full translation into French , now lost , of both the Old Testament and the New Testament , from their original languages . In 1865 , he wrote to Hiller : " Having translated a good deal of the <unk> , I 'm now onto the second Gospel which I am translating from the Syriac ... In starting to translate the New Testament , I was suddenly struck by a singular idea – that you have to be Jewish to be able to do it . " 
