Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Edward:

On 11/30/06, Edward Andrews <edandrews AT roadrunner.com> wrote:
> To all:
>
> William Sanford LaSor's "Handbook of Biblical Hebrew, vol.1(Grand Rapids: 
> Errdmans, 1978, p.3:
>
> "All learning is in context. The context, however, is not artificial, composed 
> perchance by one who does not use the language naturally, but rather it is the actual 
> language of those who used it as their mother-tongue. For this reason, I refuse to ask 
> students to compose sentences in Hebrew. To do so is to impress errors on the student's 
> mind. And, frankly, most of us who teach Biblical hebrew do not have sufficient fluency 
> in the language to speak or write it."
>
> I have noticed that most grammars I have used, work from Hebrew to English, 
> not English to Hebrew.  However, Menahem Mansoor goes both ways.  Would the 
> members of b-hebrew agree that, in general, most Hebrew scholars do not speak 
> Biblical Hebrew or are able to take an English paragraph and translate it 
> into Hebrew (at least not very easily)?
>
> Edward Andrews

This is true not only of English, but of any modern language including
Israeli Hebrew. An example of the latter can be seen in the Josiah
temple stone forgery, where there are a lot of little errors that add
up to forgery.

Karl W. Randolph.