Baby Steps: On Reading through the Bible in Hebrew and Greek

I first read through the Torah in Hebrew in 2001 (or thereabouts) thanks to my affiliation with the Bat Qol Institute and its encouragement for Christians to follow the Jewish annual Torah reading cycle known as Parashat ha-shavua. I re-read the Torah in Hebrew around the time I started teaching Hebrew (2013). The Greek Isaiah in a Year Facebook group provided a schedule and the incentive to tackle Isaiah in both Hebrew and Greek (2014), followed by Psalms (2015) and Job (2016). 

From there I made my way through the major prophets Ezekiel (2017) and Jeremiah (2018). Reading Daniel (2018) required taking another swing at Aramaic, so I turned next to Ezra, with its Aramaic sections, and Nehemiah (2019). That left the Pentateuch (in Greek), the Former Prophets, the remainder of the Writings (including Proverbs), and the Minor Prophets. 

Progress was slow over the next several years. I found I could make some headway during summers, but not during the school year when my day-job as a NT professor became all-consuming. To make a long story short, I finally completed a reading of the entire Hebrew Bible / Protestant Old Testament in Hebrew and Greek in June, almost 25 years after I began.

If there is a lesson here, it is the value of making a schedule and keeping to it. One of the great joys of last semester’s sabbatical was the chapter-a-day reading rhythm that, like a Duolingo streak, became a habit I didn’t want to break, and in due course brought me over the finish line.

I suspect reading the entire Bible in Hebrew or Greek is less common than it ought to be, even for those of us who teach the languages. But that doesn’t make it more than a baby step. I am well-aware that reading through texts just once is not the best way to build fluency or to retain new vocabulary. And I am nowhere near as literate or versed in Scripture (in any language) as I should be.

Consider John, a fourth-century Christian martyr, who, Eusebius says, 

“ ... had written whole books of the Divine Scriptures, ‘not in tables of stone’ as the divine apostle says, neither on skins of animals, nor on paper which moths and time destroy, but truly ‘in fleshy tables of the heart,’ in a transparent soul and most pure eye of the mind, so that whenever he wished he could repeat, as if from a treasury of words, any portion of the Scripture, whether in the law, or the prophets, or the historical books, or the gospels, or the writings of the apostles. I confess that I was astonished when I first saw the man as he was standing in the midst of a large congregation and repeating portions of the Divine Scripture. While I only heard his voice, I thought that, according to the custom in the meetings, he was reading. But when I came near and perceived what he was doing, and observed all the others standing around him with sound eyes while he was using only the eyes of his mind, and yet was speaking naturally like some prophet, and far excelling those who were sound in body, it was impossible for me not to glorify God and wonder. - Eusebius, “Martyrs of Palestine” ch. 13.6-8

In Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, Richard Hays asked:

“What would it mean to undertake the task of reading Scripture along with the Evangelists? First of all, it would mean cultivating a deep knowledge of the Old Testament texts, getting these texts into our blood and bones. It would mean learning the texts by heart in the fullest sense. The pervasive, complex, and multivalent uses of Scripture that we find in the Gospels could arise only in and for a community immersed in scriptural language and imagery. ... But alas, many Christian communities have lost touch with the sort of deep primary knowledge of Scripture—especially Israel’s Scripture—that would enable them even to perceive the messages conveyed by the Evangelists’ biblical allusions and echoes, let alone to employ Scripture with comparable facility in their own preaching and renarration of the gospel story.” - Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016), 357

So I celebrate baby steps, knowing that “the days of the years of my life ... have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.” (Gen 47:9 KJV)

On Reading Biblical Hebrew: Advice for Beginners

My advice for students with a year of Biblical Hebrew under their belts who want to launch out on their own:

(1) Read & listen through the passage at least once without stopping to identify forms and unfamiliar words.

• A high-quality recording produced by the Bible Society in Israel can be streamed or downloaded at Bible.is. (The recording is in a modern Israeli pronunciation, which means that distinctions between vocal and silent shewas are not always maintained, etc.)

• Another more traditional recording narrated by Abraham Shmueloff can be accessed here: https://www.torahclass.com/audio-bible-in-hebrew.

(2) Look up unfamiliar forms:

• StepBible provides parsing and an abridged lexicon. (You will want to switch the Bible from ESV to THOT. You can do that manually, or click here: https://www.stepbible.org/?q=version=THOT.)

• Full versions of the standard (dated but still valuable) Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon can be searched online here:

  • http://www.2letterlookup.com/

  • http://www.ericlevy.com/revel/bdb/bdb/main.htm

(3) Read and Re-read until you can understand the text without looking up forms. I recommend a 1-2-3 reading process. For example, read Genesis 1:1-2 on day 1, Genesis 1:1-2 + 1:3-4 on day 2, and Genesis 1:3-4 + 1:5-6 on day 3. This way each reading will include review and new material.

Finally, some general advice:

• Stay humble. You have learned enough Hebrew to be dangerous.
• Be patient with yourself. There is lots more to learn.
• Form a habit. Reading a little Hebrew regularly is much better than grand ambitions that never get off the ground.
• Don’t stop.
• Have fun!

Gary Anderson on Hebrew as the Language of Jesus

Reviewing the endnotes to Gary Anderson’s impressive history of sin (!), I came across this gem on New Testament scholars, Modern Hebrew and the language of Jesus:

Mishnaic Hebrew, in its limited sense, refers to the Hebrew of the Mishnah itself, a relatively early rabbinic work [ca. 200 CE] …. But when we speak of the dialect of Mishnaic Hebrew, we are talking about the living Hebrew language of the first couple of centuries of the Common Era, in other words, the language of Jesus himself.”

“Scholars vary in their opinions as to how fluent Jesus was in the various languages with which he was familiar (Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek). Most New Testament scholars assume that Aramaic was his mother tongue and that Hebrew was a secondary language. …. Part of the problem is that the best scholarship on the Hebrew of the late Second Temple period is being done at the Hebrew University and is written in modern Hebrew. Only a handful of New Testament scholars could follow this discussion, and I know of none who do. As a result, the case being made for Hebrew as a living language in the first and second centuries CE has gone unnoticed.” 

~ Gary A. Anderson, Sin: A History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), 95-6, 215 note 1 (emphasis added)

The book itself is a fascinating analysis of a shift from sin conceived as burden to sin conceived as debt, that ranges across the testaments, through rabbinic literature and Christian Syriac, concluding with a rousing defense of Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo? I wager that only a handful of Old Testament scholars could attempt such a feat.

Back to the topic of Hebrew as a living language during the Second Temple period: My posts on Jesus’ mother tongue from 15 years ago (!) are here:

Jesus’ Mother Tongue

Jesus' Mother Tongue Part 2: The Supposed Dominance of Aramaic in First Century Galilee

Aviya Kushner and the Grammar of God

“When I was a child I assumed that all families discussed the grammar of the Bible in Hebrew at the dining room table. When I entered kindergarten, I heard, to my shock, that most American-born children spoke English; I spoke only Hebrew then. On my first sleepover, I learned that many families did not discuss ancient grammar. Not over dinner, not at all. This struck me as a terrible shame, a missed opportunity, and it still does.”

So begins the Introduction to Aviya Kushner’s The Grammar of God, an enticing enough lede that it convinced me to read the whole book. The audiobook was all I could find for free through our public library system—not ideal because the reader didn’t know Hebrew—but I liked it well enough to order a paper copy. It is a quirky book, sort of a philologist’s memoir that combines reflections on texts and words from the Hebrew Bible with her own experience.

I thought Kushner’s comments about Hebrew, language, and translation worth returning to. Months later, however, what sticks in my head is her stories about her Jewish upbringing in the Hasidic neighbourhood of Monsey, NY, visiting her grandfather in Israel, and locating the house in Germany where he lived before the Shoah.

On her mother, who sounds like a character right out of a Chaim Potok novel:

“My mother had a life of the night. After everyone else went to sleep, she would sit at the dining room table with a large milk-shake and several piles of dictionaries. She was reading Akkadian tablets—I know because I used to wake up at night and watch her, sitting in her nightgown with her very long hair pinned up, from the darkness of the kitchen. Piles of papers and pens before her, she’d talk to herself in some ancient language that she told me you could hear recorded at the Smithsonian Institution. From a room away, I heard the rhyme and rhythm of antiquity. … I thought that all mothers were like that—mothers in the daytime, and something secret between midnight and when everyone else woke up.” (17)

On her mathematician father:

“I got to know my father during Shabbat. Perhaps that is why, in the aseret hadibrot [the Ten Commandments], honoring our parents and keeping Shabbat are neighbors: because time allows us to know, and honor, our own family. Respecting a person requires time. Moreover, and more deeply, the day in which I got to know my father—Shabbat—allowed me to love what I have. … Shabbat was the only time that he was in my sight, not writing and not doing, for all three meals and all the hours in between. I think that in that long expanse, in the Shabbats and all the hours in them, I met him.” (132-3)

On arriving in Bremen, Germany:

“My mother and I are both silenced by what we see when we get out of the train. We are standing in the Hauptbahnhof, the central train station, the place my grandfather had described hundreds of times as the place he last saw his parents and his four brothers …. My grandfather was twenty-two. His youngest brother was thirteen. … I remember the way my grandfather said: ‘I was just a boy. I was so sure I would see them again. I don’t even think I turned around to wave, to say goodbye.” (172)

Using Anki to Review Biblical Hebrew and Ancient Greek Picture Flashcards

Anki is one of the most well-known and possibly the best available spaced repetition flashcard apps. It is free, it is powerful ... and it can be complicated to use. What follows is a brief set of instructions to help you get up and running with the app, and with a deck of Biblical Hebrew or Ancient Greek picture flashcards:

(1) Download, install, and load the computer version of Anki at https://apps.ankiweb.net/:

(2) Download the Biblical Hebrew Picture Flashcards or the Ancient Greek Picture Flashcard shared decks:

(a) Biblical Hebrew Picture Flashcards: For the Biblical Hebrew Picture Flashcards, click on "Get Shared" at the bottom of the main Anki screen:

This will take you to Ankiweb (https://ankiweb.net/), the free web-based version of the app, and Anki's repository of free shared decks. The first time you use Ankiweb you will need to create an account by clicking "signup" in the top right corner:

Once you have registered, click on "Get Shared Decks":

Search for "Biblical Hebrew Picture Flashcards" (or anything else you like). Scroll down to the bottom of the screen, and download the Flashcard deck(s):

(b) Ancient Greek Picture Flashcards: The Ancient Greek Picture Flashcard decks are too large for Anki's free hosting service, so you will need to download the files directly from my Google Drive account. You can do that here: https://tinyurl.com/yc2db6z6.   

(3) Back in the Anki computer program, click on "Import File" at the bottom right of the screen:

Navigate to your "download" folder and select the appropriate Anki deck file.

(4) Optional: Review Flashcards on the go with Ankidroid or Ankimobile

If you have not already done so in step 3, go to Ankiweb (https://ankiweb.net/), the free web-based version of the app, and create an account by clicking "signup" in the top right corner.

Now you can Sync your decks to Ankiweb, and then, if you like, install and review flashcards on-the-go with the free Android Ankidroid app or the not free iOS Ankimobile app. (Note: There are many knock-off apps that use the Anki name. My advice is to stick with Ankidroid or Ankimobile.)

(5) Begin to take advantage of Anki's spaced-repetition system: By default Anki selects 20 cards from each deck to learn or review each day. The system is designed to bring up cards that you have trouble with for review more often than cards you know well. For more information, see the manual or this handy tutorial. The system works automatically. All you need to do is click on the deck and then click on "Study Now":

(6) Learn to Cram: Unfortunately, Anki tries to force everyone into the same review system. I don't question the effectiveness of the spaced-repetition formula, but sometimes — for example, when you are studying for a quiz on words in chapter 4 or all Piel verbs in chapters 8-10 or all Greek verbs for days 5-7 — you need to cram. The next two videos demonstrate two ways of selecting specific chapters or tagged cards for review. (The videos use the Hebrew decks, but the same steps apply to Greek):

Video 1: Using Custom Study to review a single chapter or category:

Video 2: Using Custom Study and Browse to review multiple categories:

For more information on creating custom filtered decks, see the Anki Manual or this Anking YouTube video. For more on Anki deck organization, take a look at this Traverse.link post. I also found this Reddit post on Anki search syntax to be helpful.

Biblical Hebrew Picture Flashcards in Anki

Update: See links to the corrected Flashcard files below.

Last summer I made a set of 270 Biblical Hebrew picture flashcards for our introductory Hebrew students:

The images help create a direct link between Hebrew words and their meaning. There is no English on the cards because our goal is reading fluency in Hebrew. Bypassing English wherever possible — and avoiding the habit of mentally translating as one reads — speeds up the reading (and language learning) process. 

The cards are designed to be accessible to beginners and still useful to more advanced students. Students who have learned the alphabet can practice reading words they have already been introduced to in class, and ignore the smaller print around the borders of the cards. Some cards appear twice, first in the participle / qotel form (the normal Biblical Hebrew way of conveying present time):

After the qatal / perfect form has been introduced in class, the same picture can be reintroduced with the standard dictionary form and more grammatical information in small print:

In the top right corner, we learn that the word is a verb (פֹּעַל) that occurs in the Qal Binyan (קַל) and belongs to a class of weak verbs with an aleph in the first root letter (פ׳א). 

The bottom right corner draws on the method Randall Buth uses in his 500 Friends Hebrew word list to indicate succinctly what the verb looks like in a variety of verb patterns. (If you have studied Hebrew, you will see what I mean.)

The bottom left corner classifies the word in one of several semantic domains—in this case, food (מַאֲכָל). 

The cards can, of course, be sorted and reviewed in categories (e.g., all words in the piel Binyan or all words in a particular semantic domain).

 

Noun cards are similar:

In the top right corner we learn that the word is a feminine (נְקֵבָה) noun (שֵׁם עֶצֶם). The bottom right corner provides singular and plural absolute and construct noun forms.

Now that the school year is over, I have had time to complete a digital version of the flashcards for use in Anki's spaced repetition flashcard app. Here is an example:

The back looks like this:

Among other benefits, the digital version makes it far easier to sort and review specific kinds of cards. The digital version also makes it possible for me to share the cards freely online. You can download them here:

Biblical Hebrew Picture Flashcards 

Biblical Hebrew Picture Flashcards (Reversed)  

Update: This post now links to a corrected version of the Anki Flashcard files. (Due to an error in my Excel spreadsheet, the tags on the original card decks were misaligned; the image filenames have also been simplified in this version.)

In this follow-up post I provide a brief set of instructions for those who are new to Anki: https://gervatoshav.blogspot.com/2023/06/using-anki-to-review-biblical-hebrew.html

A Few of My Favourite Things: Hebrew Music

I have been listening to Israeli music for two decades now, starting with the first four-disc Avodah Ivrit collection--picked up in 2001 from a vendor in Tel Aviv's old bus terminal--and moving on to Ahinoam Nini, Shlomo Artzi, David Broza, Ofra Haza, and the fabulous Idan Raichel Project. 

Although I seldom sit down to try to make out the meaning of an entire song, bits and pieces of familiar words and phrases have helped me retain more Modern Hebrew than I otherwise would have.

I often play Israeli music in class, normally as unintelligible ambient noise during small group discussions--though in Hebrew language classes it contributes more directly to an immersive environment and I actually hope my students will be distracted by what they hear. But my aims are not simply utilitarian: I enjoy listening to Israeli music, and I hope my students do too.  

Here are a few favourite artists and songs, arranged more-or-less in chronological order:

Ofra Haza, the "Israeli Madonna," recorded מישהו הולך תמיד איתי ("Someone always walks with me") in 1985: 

(hebrewsongs.com has a transliteration and English translation.)

David Broza also made it big in the 1980's, but my favourite David Broza recording is his 1998 cover of אצלך כמו תמיד on Avodah Ivrit:

Shlomo Artzi has been performing since the 1970's too. Like David Broza, he is still at it. This duet is from Artzi's 2000 album, אהבתיהם:

Ahinoam Nini performs internationally as Noa, often in collaboration with Gil Dor. Here is a live recording of בואי כלה, a Leah Goldberg poem that Noa and Dor put to music and recorded in 1993 on their first studio album: 

(studio version)

Last but not least, Idan Raichel and the Idan Raichel Project have received the most airtime since I first discovered Idan Raichel's music ten or twelve years ago. Check out last year's socially-distanced Independence Day concert to see why: 

My latest favourite Israeli singer is Etti Ankri, but her biblically-inflected music deserves a post of its own.

On Learning Biblical Hebrew as a Living Language

After a week to catch our breath, term two of Briercrest College's modified fall semester begins tomorrow. For me and my students this means a full semester of Introductory Hebrew compressed into 6.5 weeks. Because I want to reserve class time for Hebrew learning, I made a short video to explain in advance why we are going to study a “dead” language like Hebrew as one would a living language:

I am reproducing the first part of what I say in the video, for those like me, who prefer reading to watching:

This course takes a “Living Language” approach to learning Biblical Hebrew. Among other things, this means the course will be conducted, as far as possible, in Biblical Hebrew. You are going to spend a lot of time in this class listening to Biblical Hebrew. You will be learning to speak Biblical Hebrew as well as to read and write Biblical Hebrew.

This is different from how Biblical Hebrew has traditionally been taught in North America. In a traditional language classroom you would spend most of your time in class listening to your teacher talk about Hebrew in English. Homework would consist of painfully trying to memorize English glosses for Hebrew words, and translating Hebrew sentences into English.

Now, the goal of any Introductory Biblical Hebrew course is to help students learn to read and understand an ancient text. The traditional approach takes for granted that the easiest, quickest way to learn to read Hebrew is to focus on grammar and translation. There are no native Biblical Hebrew speakers. You don't need to know how to buy food in the market or how to hire a taxi in Biblical Hebrew. Why bother making the extra effort to speak Hebrew? Why emphasize hearing when all you really need to do is read letters on a page? 

But if your goal is to internalize the language so that you can read with understanding, and if you want long-term retention—not just passing a test, but being able to continue to read 10 years down the road—the traditional approach turns out to be neither efficient nor particularly effective.

For one thing, I can say from experience that memorizing lists of vocabulary words is very time consuming ... and doesn't work very well. More importantly, the preoccupation with translation—as if Hebrew must be turned into English to be understood—actually gets in the way of internalizing the language.

For more detail, as well as a few comments about what motivates me to teach Hebrew, you will need to watch the video itself. It's only five minutes long. 

I have never taught Biblical Hebrew using a fully communicative approach before, and the pressure to prepare for daily classes will be intense. But I am grateful to be able to ply my trade in a context where face-to-face teaching is still an option, even if it means I need to learn how to say ‘put on your masks’* in Biblical Hebrew.

*I've settled on עֲטוּ עַל־פְּנֵיכֶם, which uses Leviticus 13:45 as a model. My thanks to Aaron Eby for the suggestion.

Fish out of Water: A Parable for the End of Hebrew

Source

Imagine a fish swimming in a sea of Hebrew. The sea is rough, it takes a lot of hard swimming to get to the other side, and the fish can’t wait to get there. Finally, there is land in sight. The fish leaves the deep water, races through the shallows, and with a flying leap lands on a nice sandy beach. The fish lies there, gills flapping contentedly. In a short while, the fish is dead. Don’t be that fish. Stay in the water.

Greek (and Hebrew) Job and Ezekiel in a Year

Two years ago I read through Isaiah in Greek (and Hebrew), thanks to the Greek Isaiah in a Year Facebook group. In 2015 I followed a schedule produced by the Greek Psalms Facebook group, and spent the year making my way through the Psalms in Greek (and Hebrew). When I got to the end, I wanted to start over again at the beginning. (I probably should: The 1662 Book of Common Prayer states that the Psalms should be read through each month.)

The schedule and minimal peer pressure work for me: There is still a lot of the Old Testament that I have yet to read in Hebrew (or Greek), and I am ashamed to say that, judging from past experience, I would not have succeeded in reading through these rich texts on my own.

I aim to participate in the group's latest iteration again this year, even though Job and Ezekiel--why this combination?--would not have been my first choice. If you care to join me in the foreign language of your preference, there is still time to add Job and Ezekiel to your New Year's Revolutions (as my daughter put it). The reading schedule begins on January 4. More information may be found at the Greek Job and Ezekiel group here.

2 Kings Hebrew Reading Group

A public service announcement for people in the Caronport area who have taken a year or two of Hebrew: We will be hosting a Hebrew reading group on Monday evenings this semester from 6:00-7:00 p.m. at the Miller residence.

We often run a Hebrew reading group in the summer for fun--and it really is fun: What could be more exciting than sitting in a circle, reading and translating an unfamiliar passage from the Hebrew Bible? Anyway, we thought it would work to start in January this year.

As usual, the goal for the group is to create a supportive, non-intimidating, and enjoyable environment that will help us maintain and refresh our Hebrew. Some sort of advance preparation is typically a good idea, though people are welcome to come and listen in even if they aren’t ready to translate. I’ll have some lexical aids handy in case we get stuck.

Since I don't do this in my official capacity as a teacher, I make a point of choosing a passage that I have not read before in Hebrew, and try to minimize my own advance preparation. Why 2 Kings? We read through the Elijah narratives in 1 Kings a few years ago, and thought that Elisha deserved his due. Also narrative generally makes for nice, straightforward reading.

If you are interested in attending, please let me know. If you would like to join a Hebrew reading group but are not in the Caronport area, I highly recommend Charles Grebe's online reading group.

Greek (and Hebrew) Psalms in a Year

I made it through Isaiah in Greek (and Hebrew) this year, thanks to the "Greek Isaiah in a Year" reading group. When I joined, the group was in its second year, and so there weren't very many of us who stuck it through to the end, but the list was discipline enough to keep me on track, and the experience was one of the highlights of 2014.

Russell Beatty has now started a spin-off "Greek Psalms in a Year" Facebook group, with a schedule (looks like 5-10 verses / day) that begins on January 1, 2015. For more information, check out the Facebook group or Abram K-J's blog (here and here).

It's a great opportunity to maintain and develop a biblical language*, and to spend time each day in the Psalms. Anyone care to join me?

* Don't be put off by the group name: As far as I am concerned, there is no need to read in Greek if you prefer Hebrew, Syriac or Latin (or some combination). Select your preferred ancient language, and follow along.

Randall Buth on a Living Approach to the Biblical Languages

When I joined what is now the Biblical Greek Forum in the late 1990's, Randall Buth was a lonely voice in the wilderness, calling for an approach to teaching the biblical languages that draws on best practices in second language acquisition. The effect, in my case, was to sow the seeds of dissatisfaction with the traditional grammar-translation method of learning Hebrew and Greek. Now, almost 20 years later, there is a (small and diverse) movement of people committed to recovering and developing a living approach to teaching and learning the biblical languages.

In a recent interview with Seumas Macdonald, Randall talks about why he moved to a living approach. Here are a few excerpts:

Both Greek and Hebrew were first introduced to me as “grammar translation” languages....Things changed when I went to Israel and learned to speak Hebrew fluently. In the process, I noticed that my reading of biblical Hebrew changed. ...Basically, Hebrew changed from being very fast, instantaneous crossword puzzles to a real language, to reading a language for content from within the language. I was young, early 20’s, and naively assumed that the field would gradually move in this direction over the coming decades. I could not imagine a program ignoring the benefits involved, nor had I ever met anyone who had gone through this process up to a fluent level that regretted the time spent or did not see it as qualitatively improving one’s reading and access to the text.

Reading theory linguists attribute these outcomes to automaticity where the morphological nuts and bolts of the language are backgrounded and dropped below conscious focus, which allows more of one’s working memory to focus on interpretation and content. In a word, spoken fluency remarkably improves one’s reading skills.

During the 1980's Randall spent time in Africa working with Bible translators (my claim to fame: I went to boarding school with the Buth children):

In Africa I was responsible for recommending training programs for occasional translation projects. One of the discoveries was finding out that there were no Christian institutions or seminaries to send students where optimal language learning methods were being taken seriously. African translators were multilingual and good language learners but intuitively they were often puzzled and frustrated by what would take place in “biblical language” classes. My sensitivity to the need of a radical, paradigmatic change in biblical studies was reinforced by watching Bible translators from Africa go off for two or more years of training in biblical language(s) and returning with skills far below what is possible, for example, in programs like Goethe Institute for German and German literature. 

As with Seumas's other interviews, the whole interview (here or here) is well worth your time.


I have written about my reasons for working toward a living language approach in previous posts (here, here, and here).

Learn Biblical Hebrew in a live online classroom

If you want to learn Biblical Hebrew but don't live near a school that offers it, you now have the option of taking Introductory Hebrew for credit while attending weekly classes in the comfort of your home (or dorm room):

I am happy to report that Charles Grebe will be teaching Introductory Hebrew I and II at Briercrest College and Seminary this year, in a live on-line virtual classroom. Charles is an excellent and well-qualified Hebrew teacher: He taught Hebrew at Briercrest while serving as our director of Distance Learning in class and on-line, he is the creator of the outstanding animatedhebrew.com website, and he runs a weekly on-line Hebrew reading group in the virtual classroom he created. Since Charles now lives in Quebec, both on-campus and distance students will meet for classes on-line this year, with each student accessing the course via computer (and Skype) independently during class time. (The plan is for on-campus students also to attend a weekly tutorial, which will provide face-to-face interaction with each other and a chance to interact in-person with a tutorial leader.)

If you are interested, check out the college or seminary syllabi, and email for more details. I highly recommend it!

Which morphologically-tagged Hebrew Bible is most accurate?

Technical post alert: While looking around for a free on-line Hebrew Bible concordance to recommend to my Hebrew students, I noticed that different electronic concordances produce different results. Here, for example, is what you get if you search for the Hebrew verb אָהַב ("to love"):

Online sources that use Strong's KJV:
209 results in 195 verses (Biblearc.com; Crosswire's Bible Tool)
208 results in 195 verses (Blue Letter Bible)

The Grove's Center's Westminster Hebrew Morphology
215 results in 200 verses (WTM 4.2, 4.14, 4.18 in Bibleworks* and Logos)
(*Bibleworks originally gave me 217 results in 200 verses because I had selected both Ketiv and Qere readings.)

Other Logos Tagged Texts
BHS/WIVU (Werkgroep Informatica): 210 results in 197 verses
Lexham Hebrew-English Interlinear: 210 results in 196 verses

Observations:

1. I assume that the Westminster Hebrew Morphology is the most accurate. 
2. All the online sources I have tried that give frequency information are based on Strong's concordance, which is too bad for anyone looking for decent quality, free resources. (I'm disappointed that Biblearc.com fares no better, as its Greek New Testament resources are outstanding.)
3. There is currently no online resource that provides full parsing information for the Hebrew Bible. 
4. Tyndale House's Step Bible may be out to change 2. and 3., but it is not there yet. (A search for אָהַב gave me 196 verses, but no occurrence list.) 
5. We need to remember that our digital tools still have mistakes.
6. Please let me know if there are other resources I should be looking at.

Update: Andy from Biblearc emailed (back in January!) to let me know that the discrepancy between Biblearc and other tagged databases of the Hebrew Bible can be explained:

I would challenge the conclusion you make in your blog post that the lemma data we use for the Hebrew searches is not "decent quality". I took a look at the example you give of אהב in your blog post for instance. The verses where the lemma data differs are found in the following verses:Gen 29:20; 1 King 10:9, 11:2; 2Chr 2:10; 2Chr 9:8; Hos 3:1, 9:15; Mic 6:8.

Taking a look at these, you will discover that the issue is whether to take the appearance of "אהבת + noun" as an infinitive construct of the verb "to love" (אהב) with object or as the noun "love" (אהבה) in construct form. In most all (if not all) of these cases an argument could be made for both of the options as there is no difference in how they are written. Perhaps there is another example besides אהב where the discrepancy is more significant, but if not I would encourage you to reconsider your judgment of the Hebrew lemma data that we use.

The Essentials of Biblical Hebrew Syntax

Technical post alert: I am interested in feedback from Hebrew-savy readers, and don't know where else to put my query.

As I began reading the Hebrew syntax textbook I assigned for this fall's "Hebrew Syntax and Exegesis I" course, it quickly became apparent to me that requiring students to read the whole thing carefully, or spending most of the semester talking about syntax as I have done in the past with Greek, would be cruel and unusual punishment.

Don't get me wrong, John C. Beckman's, Williams' Hebrew Syntax (3rd ed.; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007) is fine for what it does. As a "traditional, sentence-level syntax that concentrates on the meanings of morphological categories" rather than "discourse-level analysis," the book is a clear, succinct and remarkably comprehensive resource (although its 19 categories for the [non-existent] Hebrew genitive is dwarfed by Wallace's 33 categories for the Greek genitive case). But most of the book describes what can happen in Hebrew; its main value is in explaining difficult and unusual constructions and linking to reference grammars. As with most syntaxes, long lists of categories threaten to drown the reader in second-order linguistic jargon instead of helping them learn to follow the linguistic cues of Hebrew.

Rather than reading about all the different possibilities, it is better by far to read Hebrew, and discuss unusual constructions as they surface in the Biblical text (where one can draw on a syntax as a resource). After all, the whole point is to help students learn to love reading Hebrew over the long term, and to read it well.

As I finalize my syllabus, then, I need to decide which elements of Hebrew syntax are essential for second-year students to learn because they can transform the way we read the text or because they are debated--or as is normally the case, both. While we will spend most of our class time reading Hebrew, there are a few places where it is helpful to stop and talk syntax because of its potential exegetical pay-off. Here is my list:

• Subjects, complements and adjuncts
• Construct relationships - We don't need a gazillion categories; it does help to be aware of the possibilities.
• Word order, topic and focus
• Narrative sequence and discourse analysis
• The tense vs. aspect debate in connection with the Hebrew verb system.

Questions: What else am I missing? What are the essentials of Greek syntax, and why is it so much easier to make a short list of the essentials of Hebrew syntax?

Logos 5: Is an upgrade worth it?

Technical, first-world problem alert: This post assumes familiarity with the major Bible software programs (Logos, Bibleworks and Accordance), and an interest in electronic resources for the study of Greek and Hebrew.

Despite the incessant advertising, I haven't been able to convince myself that shelling out 100's of $ for an upgrade from Logos 3 (Gold) to Logos 5 is worth it. Special upgrade prices expired last month, but I have an offer of academic pricing at 50% off until mid-May, so I can still think about it. What am I missing?

Let me explain my situation in a bit more detail, and then I'll look forward to suggestions:

• I use Bibleworks all the time. It is always open on my desktop. I consult it regularly in preparation for teaching, in general Bible reading, and in research. Bibleworks comes standard with morphologically tagged Greek texts of the New Testament, LXX, Apostolic Fathers, Philo and Josephus, as well as a morphologically tagged Hebrew Bible and morphologically tagged Aramaic Targumim. It also has more translations in more languages than you can shake a stick at. The best Greek and Hebrew dictionaries and Marty Abegg's tagged sectarian DSS (to name a few of interest to me), are available as add-on modules. I hesitate to pay good money to duplicate what I already have. 
• I do not require a library of commentaries or other resources on the whole Bible since I teach and research in a more limited area. When I start to teach a new biblical book, I will build up my library accordingly. No doubt a complete set of good commentaries would come in handy from time-to-time, but not often enough to justify paying for a set that will sit mostly unused on my virtual shelves.
• I am interested in more sophisticated ways to analyse and perform original-language grammatical searches on the Bible and related literature.

Questions about Logos 5:

• A minimal cross-grade would give me access to a few new Lexham tagged texts and reverse interlinears, some pictures, and a few new datasets that would allow me to search by phrases instead of words. I'm just not sure I would do this kind of search enough to make it worth $130. (The Logos sales rep I talked to actually said the cross-grade isn't worth it. What I should really do, he said, is shell out $1,000+ for one of the larger packages.)
• The Biblical Languages Upgrade looks more up my alley, except that I already have at least one morphologically-tagged database of everything in the package. What is the value of having multiple tagged texts of the same corpus? What is the benefit of reverse interlinears when any searches I do would be in the original language? I am open to being persuaded here. I'm just not seeing it. (If they threw in Moulton-Howard-Turner or the Lexham Discourse Greek New Testament Bundle as part of the package, it would suddenly look a lot more attractive.)
• Which of these modules is worth the asking price?

How about independent resources: The Göttingen Septuagint, for example, is very tempting, and--as far as I know--not available on any other platform. If you were to purchase specialized resources geared towards work in the original languages, what would you recommend?