Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Michael Hildenbrand <hildenbr AT Haas.Berkeley.EDU>]

Well, I expect I should keep out of this, but in the Hebrew seminar at
Berkeley (under Jacob Milgrom) we found quite a number of native modern
Hebrew speakers from other departments thought they could take one of the
undergrad upper division Bible courses and pass with ease, and at the same
time fulfill their breadth requirements for their degrees.  They found
quite the opposite.  Not that pronouncing the Hebrew was any difficulty,
but when it came to judgment regarding forms and meanigs of words, they
relied on their modern Hebrew background rather than doing their word
studies and knowing how biblical Hebrew grammar worked.  Very few were
able to complete the course.

On the other hand, I find that so much secondary literature is being
produced in modern Hebrew, one is greatly handicapped without at least an
ability to work through a modern Hebrew article or book.

As mentioned below, for the price BDB is on top, even though it is
terribly out of date, and the quality of the articles varies
condisiderably.  (Hint, the strength of that dictionary is the "D" in the
BDB!). However, the Sheffield dictionary is also helpful, fuller and
includes texts unavailable to the authors of BDB.  The new edition of K-B
includes etymological work as well.  I have just purchased the Sheffield
set and haven't had time to really go through it.  The real advantage to
me is the quotation of a lot of literature that BDB did not have.

Michael Hildenbrand

 On Tue, 11 Apr 2000, Peter E Scott wrote:

> 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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