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Biblical Hebrew: A Text and Workbook

Yale Language Series

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 stars - Great for inductive learners, but know the alphabet first!, March 27, 2000

By PJ Barnes (USA)

Here is what I liked about this book: (1) It is aimed at people who like inductive learning, which specifically means this: It doesn't teach all the exceptions to the rules and stuff at first, nor does it overwhelm you with huge complete charts of grammar rules. Instead it teaches the rules and patterns that are most commonly found in the Biblical texts first (which are incomplete but easy), then it gradually expands to fill in the gaps. (2) It has a great vocabulary list in the back that lists the Hebrew words in order according to how frequently they appear in the Old Testament. Great! (3) Each lesson, on average, focuses on only one or two new concepts, and applies it to a Scripture, so that after each lesson you will be able to translate that much more Scripture.

Here are several things to be careful about, though: (1) You should be comfortable with the Hebrew alphabet before even starting the lessons, or else you might be frustrated and feel like your progress is slow. (2) It teaches inductively and gradually, exposing rules little by little. If you are dependent on seeing all pertinent rules about a given aspect of a language at once, then it might be confusing. (3) The content may seem dry and technical if you can't concentrate without being entertained. Any excitement you experience will be from personal discoveries through the lesson, and not from induced humor from the authors themselves.

Most importantly: Know the Hebrew alphabet first! I hated this book before I knew it, but once I got past that, I started over and saw the genius of its presentation. :) I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because it's not for everyone.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5 stars - an excellent text for learning, September 3, 2003

By David C. Pecot "David C Pecot" (Cleveland, OH USA)

Being primarily a self-taught student, I really liked this grammar. It has a few drawbacks that would apply to other independent learners like me (unfortunately it seems there is no escaping this no matter where you turn). But on the whole it measures up to the highest standards, and somehow even possesses a kind of gracefulness, which is a strange thing to say about a grammar. I imagine the author as a charming and extremely intelligent and gifted teacher, if her book has anything to say about her.

This grammar begins with the most frequent verbal constructions and provides useful clues for recognizing and analyzing them. Each chapter ("lesson") is taught through a real phrase or sentence from Scripture, illustrating the grammatical form of the lesson. Basically this is an "inductive" or "tutorial" approach. I think it is appealing to students who are in danger of being bored to death by exercises and charts. She has a nice way of finding helpful clues to get you thinking your way through trouble spots, mostly in terms of recognizing so-called weak letters ("missing letter rules"; "footprint dagesh"; "traveling dagesh"; "dot vowel" characteristics, etc.), and offers useful grammatical tips that make a big difference (this is where she really seems like a teacher who is "with you" while you study). Later lessons reinforce earlier ones. by the end you will have worked through, word by word and verse by verse, all these passages: Gen 22:1-14; Gen 28:10-29:11; Ex 3:1-17; Gen 37:1-24; Deut 6:1-25; 1 Kgs 17:1-24; 1 Kgs 18:20-46; 1 Kgs 19:1-21; Ps 24; and Ps 100. Quite an accomplishment!

a negative is that the book seems to presuppose a classroom setting (even though it is very thorough in its explanations -- almost as if it were a transcript of an actual class). Therefore, in cases where Kittel provides a paradigm for you, often you need to "fill it out" yourself, and this can leave you with an uneasy feeling since you probably (at least once) would like to "see" it. There are full paradigms in the back of the book but they are always confusing to beginning students. It would help to have another grammar for an occasional take on the "complete" picture of a certain stem (Qal, Piel, Nifal, etc.). With this book, you may find you need to stop every now and then and just practice a single verb construction for a few days.

One tip: if you are a complete beginner without a teacher and tutor and you find Hebrew completely frightening, work through "The First Hebrew Primer" by Simon et al. It will open all the doors for you, and you'll be able to tackle the other grammars from there. And finally, I can say that I've used about four or five Hebrew grammars to help me learn and get practice, but this one by Kittel is the only one I've worked through page by page, learning all she has to teach and doing all the translation work and exercises. I hope some other students will be inspired to do the same, as this is what it is really designed to do.

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