Biblical Hebrew Forum

[John B Childs Jr <jchildsjr AT mmcable.com>]

Peter,

        Of course, everything you share about artificial constructions and 
"ancient wineskins" is absolutely true.  I can in no way claim that my 
experience was typical:  I learned BH first, translated some medieval 
documents and only THEN went to Ulpan at Hebrew U.

        Some for whom BH is the primary focus will, no doubt, be able to come 
to 
the text with the eye of the classicist.  As I keep telling my students, 
Biblical Hebrew was formulated not for speaking, but for singing. 
 Therefore, the poets and lyricists will have a perspective on the text 
that the linguists and classicists might not.  Have you checked out Bono's 
introduction to the selections from the Psalms?  I never in my life thought 
that the U2 fan and the Hebraist in me would be addressed at the same time. 
 Crazy world.

-----Original Message-----
From:   Peter E Scott [SMTP:peter.scott AT bell.ca]
Sent:   Tuesday, April 11, 2000 6:43 AM
To:     Biblical Hebrew
Subject:        RE: WHICH LEXICON???

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

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