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
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