Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

Dear Dewayne,

Welcome aboard!  We look forward to your participation in our discussions.



Yigal Levin

Co-Moderator, B-Hebrew

-----Original Message-----
From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org 
[mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Dewayne Dulaney
Sent: Friday, October 15, 2010 9:21 PM
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [b-hebrew] Hello, everyone!-שלום עליכם׃

Hello, everyone!-שלום עליכם׃

I joined B-Hebrew a few days ago and wanted to introduce myself. I am
an adult Bible class teacher for the Palm Street Church of Christ in
Lonoke, Arkansas, USA (east of Little Rock). Currently we are studying
the lives of non-writing prophets of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament)
such as Elijah and Elisha from the books of Kings and Chronicles.

I first began teaching myself a little Biblical Hebrew in the 1980's
while I was a preaching student in Dallas, Texas. In 1990 I took an
extension course of beginning BH using Menachem Mansoor's textbook
(vol. 1). Over the next 2 years, I had 4 reading courses in BH in a
small group where the professor of the intro course led us in reading
and translating portions of Genesis, Ruth, 1-2 Samuel, Psalms, and
Jeremiah. I have continued to study on my own since then. My reading
skills are at the intermediate-advanced level, though I am more at
ease reading prose than poetry, except for the Psalms. I do need to
review my grammar, especially paradigms, and learn idioms better.
Right now I can read pointed text better than unpointed, but want to
improve my skills so I can do better at reading inscriptions and other
unvocalized texts such as the Qumran materials, Talmud, targums, etc.
I also am spending more time reading the Hebrew aloud. Overall I know
more BH than I do Aramaic, but want to learn more. I desire to also
learn more Aramaic both to aid in reading the Jewish Scriptures and
related materials, and because of my interest in the Aramaic
background of early Christian writings. I also have begun learning
some Syriac and its scripts. (BTW, does B-Hebrew also discuss Aramaic?
Or is there a B-Aramaic list?) I also would like to learn Modern
Hebrew. I only know a little now.

My interest in BH includes practically all aspects of its language and
literature, including aids to learning the language better (especially
any aids that take a "living language" approach), translation
questions, textual criticism, idioms, grammar, figures of speech,
insights from archaeology, customs, etc. I welcome all help in better
appreciating the Tanakh in its own right, as well as aid in utilizing
it to shed light on the Semitic background of the Greek Bible. I have
a couple of Bible blogs in which I sometimes deal with the Biblical
languages as they bear on exegesis and translation (if you want to
visit them, the links are in my email signature section). I am
currently revising my translation of the Gospel of John and will soon
start putting it and some ancillary materials on one of my blogs. As
part of this process I am looking further at the bearing of the
Semitic background on the language and thought of John and am
commenting on various Hebrew and Aramaic words/phrases that relate to
the thought expressed by the Greek. (While I am sure that Jesus and
the earliest Christians did a great deal of teaching and conversing in
Aramaic, and perhaps some Hebrew, I don't see that this demands that
the Gospels were written first in Aramaic. Even the Aramaic-speaking
Jews certainly could have, and probably did, learn to speak and write
in Greek.)

I am glad to know about B-Hebrew; it will be a useful companion to my
memberships in the B-Greek and B-Latin lists. I look forward to
continuing to learn with you and to getting to know you.

Dewayne Dulaney-דוין דולני



-- 
"From the world you will have trouble. But, be brave! I have defeated
the world!"—John 16:33, DDV (Dewayne Dulaney Version)

My Bible blogs: http://my.opera.com/Loquor/blog/ and
http://hasopher.preachersfiles.com/
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