Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

tony wrote:
> Greetings, Can anyone out there outline a comprehensive course of study  
> for myself and others interested in mastering *Biblical Hebrew*, i.e.
from 
> first year hebrew to maybe one of the reference grammars like *waltke* or

> *gesenius*? For example, what books to get,exercises to do,and maybe
tapes 
>  to purchase? Thanks to all who respond.
                                   Tony

i would recommend a course that drills a student orally and intensively in
biblical hebrew from the beginning.
a 16-cassette course will be available next month. it is the revision of
the beta version. the artist is on the last two hundred pictures this week.
re-taping will continue into may. the course covers jonah with guided
readings in ruth. the tapes allow an oral intergration of all the material.
a student ends up with about a 700-1000 word vocabulary with about half the
total study hours of "grammar-translation" methods. added benefits include
longer retention and a more seamless transfer to the orality of modern
hebrew.

*****news*****
while the above materials are being designed for self-study, they will be
utilized in a 6-week, 7-credit "ulpan" this summer in jerusalem, 27 june-6
aug. instructors: dr. randall buth and miss sharona bitan. for details you
may contact yochanan ronen, Home for Bible Translators, by email, at: 
BibleTranslators AT JerusalemSchool.org

for potential university students on this list i would add: 
plan on spending 1-2 years in israel speaking modern hebrew if you want to
internalize biblical hebrew and carry it inside you for the rest of your
life. 
such functional acquisition is also better before academic and
methodological studies, rather than after. firstly, for efficiency and ease
in handling the old texts in grad school. and especially secondly:  because
of the psycholinguistics of language learning and reformatting the brain.
i've seen many a monolingual BH student struggle and distance themselves
from spoken hebrew while trying to make the transfer. [on the other hand,
i've also seen several make rapid progress through israeli ulpans knowing
the structural gridwork behind the language.] bottom line: learn the whole
language as soon as possible and in as oral a setting as possible.

finally, "mastering" biblical hebrew probably means controlling a
vocabulary of about 5000+ BH words. (count 'gala', 'gilla', 'higla' as
three words, 'rama', 'rimma' as two words, not one etymological root.)
that's not so bad when compared to what people do when learning russian or
german. mastering "hebrew" would need a 10000+ vocab.

shabbat shalom
randall buth
jerusalem university college