Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter E Scott" <peter.scott AT bell.ca>]

On 03/31/00, "John B Childs Jr <jchildsjr AT mmcable.com>" wrote:
> Achim,
> 
> This discussion only highlights the value of learning Modern Israeli 
> Hebrew, thereby becoming familiar with 'Ivrit as a "lashon rechovit"
> as well "HaLashon HaQodesh."  I'm not trying to brag, but only giving 
> thanks that eight out of my ten Hebrew teachers have been Israelis who have
> given me a wonderfully broad, as well as deep, understanding of their 
> precious language.  I would encourage everyone who is able to do at least
> one summer ulpan in Israel so that all of your "qatals" and "yiqtols" may
> become real past and future verb tenses again.  This is to say nothing of
> your "present" relationship with the hebrew active participles.
> 
> I, for one, could not consider my vocabulary work complete if I did not go
> "beyond BDB" to at least Alcalay and maybe even Even-Shoshan.
> 
> Peace!
> 
> Jay

Jay,

Learning and knowning modern Hebrew does give a very strong advantage in 
the rapid reading and writing (in cursive rather than block script) of 
Biblical Hebrew.  There is great delight to simply see a word and know its 
meaning without having to think about vowels and accent.  Of course, there 
is the mark of sophistication to pronounce that certain consonant as a V 
rather than a W (as is typical of the older academic pronunciation.)

The disadvantage which I have observed is that modern Hebrew is an 
artificial language fitted for modern communication.  The modern meaning 
assigned to words does not necessarily correspond to the Biblical.  
Further, the verb forms of MH were made to function in a way similar to 
other modern western languages.  It is not all clear that your "qatals" and 
"yiqtols" are in fact "real past and future verb tenses."

As a student, a few of my classmates along with me came to Hebrew as a new 
language.  Most came from Hebrew high schools or from homes where Hebrew 
was spoken.  Those from a Hebrew backgound struggled with verbs as they 
tried to push modern verb concepts into ancient wineskins.  And not only 
verbs, these same students often had trouble with nouns as well.  Our class 
average and individual marks tells the tale.  Prof. Revell was so very 
patient with all of us!

Now, to lexicons, for the non-specalist the BDB, as an exceptional glossary 
at a good price, will meet most needs.  For the researcher, I would think a 
good concordance (eg., Evan-Shoshan), a handle on Ugaratic and the 
associated tools is a necessity, Greek and several good Greek dictionaries 
and concordances (among them the new ed. of Hatch & Redpath) and whatever 
of the new LXX critical texts that have been published, etc.  But for the 
average reader of the Hebrew Bible the BDB should work just fine.

Peter