Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Chris:

On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 5:39 AM, Chris Watts <dekruidnootjes AT eircom.net> wrote:

So may I ask then for your thougts and other peoples' thoughts on this article
http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?articleId=675

Chris Watts
Ireland

This article was referenced before on this list, and at that time I endorsed its conclusions—all of them, because I had come to many of the same conclusions before reading the article.

As a learner, I fall into his third category—one who merely wants to read the text of Tanakh. In fact, I never intended to learn Hebrew, but found myself in a college level Hebrew class as a result of a class mix-up, and stayed (Curiosity killed the cat). I never intended on writing a dictionary, but as I read Tanakh through time after time, I noticed more and more cases where the dictionaries I had available to me at that time (Gesenius, Davidson, occasional references to BDB, Lisowski, this last one being a concordance) didn’t always match what I found in the text and/or lexicographic methods I found useful for understanding modern languages. I never intended to write a grammar, but again much of the grammar I was taught, mostly as it pertains to verbs, doesn’t fit the text I read, so now I have a rudimentary grammar that covers the most important aspects of the language. And to think that all started because I found myself in a beginning Hebrew class instead of the class I wanted to attend.

If I were to get an opportunity to teach Hebrew, I think I’d follow much the same as he outlined in his article—teach the points and the modern pronunciation (I might even include the Yemenite pronunciation that I was taught)—but emphasize reading the text, and that unpointed. For extra credit, I may include teaching the archaic Hebrew script that I have used for years to read Tanakh.

Karl W. Randolph.