Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

shalom Bryan,

Methodologically, I would agree with you in the following. 
In fact it has already been done.

>(BR)
>In addition to his ulpan, I
>believe Randy recommends a year or two in Israel.  Ahh...  A
>year or two in Israel...  Let me keep dreaming...
>
>...we need a special secluded language camp.  At the camp
>will ONLY be allowed biblical culture, biblical technology,
>and biblical Hebrew.  It doesn't even need to be in Israel,
>because the students will have to stay in the camp 24/7.
>(O.K., we will let them out for a few hours after shabbat on
>Saturday night.)  Students have to survive there for six
>months with a population of residents who are already fluent
>in BH.  The students will end up pretty fluent in not only
>biblical Hebrew but with a life-changing experience as well.
>
>Of course the expense of such a project in time and money is
>pretty much prohibitive.

(RB)
The US Department of Defense already started doing these things 
long ago for any language that they really wanted their people 
to learn. Yes, it is expensive. But the US government was 
committed. 

Now believing communitities . . . committment, funding? 
All of a sudden a two-year substitute in Israel looks pretty 
inexpensive.

RElated projects on the table? I know of a project to reconstruct a 1st c.
'fishing' village near kefarNaHum on the north side of the Kinneret. It 
has some support from Parks and influential people, but it only takes one 
or two against the project to keep it snafu-ed in committees, et al.
Anyway,
the "williamsburgesque" center would be open to having mishnaic Hebrew 
speakers working 'on scene'. Nice, huh? Great place for a language school
nearby.

blessings,

Randall Buth
Jerusalem