Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Survey Question about use of Biblical Hebrew in class

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Survey Question about use of Biblical Hebrew in class
  • Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:09:15 +0200

Dear Randall,

What actually is "Biblical Hebrew in a spoken BH classroom"? And what is its advantage? The reason why I ask is the following observation: I teach Norwegian speakers intermediate Biblical Hebrew, and also Hebrew on the MA and Ph.D levels. Some years ago a fleshly brother and a sister attended my course of intermediate Hebrew. Their parents were Norwegians, but they had grown up in Israel and were fluent both in Norwegian and modern Hebrew. This background evidently was a disadvantage for them. Because of their modern Hebrew background, it was not as easy for them to learn Biblical Hebrew (the subtleties of the language) as the Norwegian students, and their exam results were inferior to the results of the Norwegian students.

I tried to ascertain the reason for this situation, and one possibility I thought of was that the two did not work so hard because they thought they already mastered Hebrew. My impression, however, was that this was not the reason, because they both were diligent students. So my conclusion is that it is harder for a student with a background in the modern Hebrew tense system to understand the real nature of the Biblical Hebrew verb conjugations and the subtleties of Biblical Hebrew than a Norwegian student who is taught that we cannot understand the Hebrew conjugations in the light of the Norwegian tense system, and that Biblical Hebrew is very different from his or her mother tongue.

In my Hebrew lessons my students learn to read Biblical Hebrew in the way we find in the Masoretic text, and they also learn to transcribe what they read. This means that our focus is on the written Masoretic text and not on a different kind of spoken Hebrew. So again, what is the advantage of "learning Hebrew in a spoken BH classroom," and what is the relation between this "spoken BH Hebrew" and the Masoretic pronunciation of Hebrew?

Best regards,

Rolf Furuli Ph.D

University of Oslo



A survey question.

How many on this list are learning Biblical Hebrew in a spoken BH classroom?

If not, is this because

1. a belief that non-spoken methods are more efficient.

2. for practical reasons, a spoken BH class is not available for you.

3. a belief that BH is special/dead and shouldn't be spoken as a class language.

Thank you for your responses.
Randall

--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page