Jerry I absolutely aggree with you, the correct grammatical approach
is number one, and yes I have no time for bible codes and that sort
of thing, neither for exhaustive rabbinical explanations that are
filled with theological turnings and subtle bitterness of thought and
weird grammatical twistings, I have artscroll torah studies of Ruth
and song of songs and am amazed at the incredible mutation of their
discussions for example. Nevertheless I have also listened to a lot
of wisdom from the rabbis and their perspectives on hebrew and its
text are quite sensible, lending a truthful dimension to the text
that is unheard of in the christian field. I agree that we should
not impinge any ideas on the text and have found myself doing that
sometimes, but I am glad that I did because now I know what to be
aware of. I would like to have gone to a college to study for a few
years but it was not possible, (I would have to leave Irelabnd for
that anyway) - but hebrew was never an academic choice for me, it was
just something in my heart that keeps leading me.
Thankyou for that book by the way, I'll look into it.