Category Archives: Languages

Greek, Hebrew, Quenya, Sindarin, Aramaic, Ugaritic and their writing systems

Book Meme

Daniel and Tonya tagged me in the recent book meme that is making the rounds:

Name 5 books or scholars that had the most immediate and lasting influence on how you read the Bible.

In no particular order:
1. Mark Smith’s (peer-less) work on the Baal Cycle introduced me to the world of Ugaritic and all it has to offer (I would gratefully accept a gift of his latest book, since I cannot afford the $300+ pricetag) . His books (such as The Early History of God) piqued my appetite to understand the cultures surrounding ancient Israel and the text of Scripture.
2. Christo van der Merwe’s A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar. This book gave me a good foundation and also challenged me to think through the description of BH grammar by looking at the data myself.
3. The Art of Biblical Narrative (Robert Alter) and Narrative Art in the Bible (Shimon Bar-Efrat). I know, I’m cheating to list two here, but they both helped move me from an atomistic reading of Scripture and lifted my head up to see the discourse level and the art of Hebrew story-telling.
4. Sinai & Zion: An Entry into the Jewish Bible (Jon D. Levenson): “[M]yth does not mean ‘untruth’ or ‘falsehood,’ in spite of such usage in ordinary discourse. One should not allow this pejorative use of the word to prejudice oneself against the Aristotelian position that poetry is truer than history. One implication of this discussion will be that mythopoesis, ‘ the making of myth,’ is a means by which man discerns and conveys truths otherwise inexpressible. If this implication is correct, then the familiar interpretation of the religion of Israel as radically demythologized, besides being factually inaccurate, obscures great spiritual treasures” (104-105). That’s just one gem.
5. John Hobbins: his blog Ancient Hebrew Poetry continues to educate me, inspire me, challenge me, and give me cause to debate. He lives his life as husband, father, pastor, and scholar in a way that resonates with my own priorities.

I hereby tag: Art Boulet, Daniel Kirk, Ben Byerly, Brandon Withrow, and Ros Clark.

New Biblical Hebrew Syllabus Challenge

This is not a hypothetical situation. A friend (and former student) of mine will be traveling to China this summer to teach Biblical Hebrew to a group of about 50 students (who are mostly pastors). The facts (as I know them):

1. Number of students: 50 adults
2. Time frame: 10 class days (2 weeks), 6-8 hours per day
3. Cover the material for a “typical” first semester course (we can talk about what that “should” include)
4. Language of students: Mandarin (so that means limited instructional material that is published)

They do have access to a Mandarin version of Weingreen. How would you use that?

What would you include, exclude, simplify or condense? What about quizzes, exams? How many, when? What about homework?

What would you want these students to leave the two weeks being able to do?

And …. how much of that could you do with a communicative method?

Go.

COHELET Workshop Report: Communicative Method for Biblical Hebrew

Chris Heard of Higgaion is attending the week-long workshop for the COHELET Project. He’s posted the first of what will hopefully be daily updates.

Read the comments for some discussion about when to teach the aleph-bet.

UPDATES:
Here is the link for Chris’s second post about his participation in the workshop.
Final summary from Chris about the workshop is here.

Let’s talk content

Daniel & Tonya have posted the first installment of their “hypothetical” syllabus for teaching Biblical Hebrew to a group of adults. They describe the class (and participants) this way:

This hypothetical Hebrew class is offered through and meets at a hypothetical, local Baptist church. All the hypothetical students are members or attenders of the church. They all have hypothetical jobs, hypothetical families, and many other hypothetical obligations. The class will meet for two hypothetical hours in the evening once per week for twenty weeks.

An overview of the entire syllabus is here. It’s actually not completely hypothetical. They did teach this course a few times and the only thing that is hypothetical is that they combined the experiences of all the sections taught into one description.

I’ll be interested to read why they choose to include (or exclude) certain material. I hope we can then move on to define a hypothetical seminary course (for a particular student population) and discuss the content for that course. Along the way, we’ll probably talk about resources and methodology to implement these courses.

UPDATES:
B&T continue with Syllabus – Vol. 2 here.

Communicative Method for Ancient Language Learning = Misplaced Priority

[I’m being a bit antagonistic on purpose with that title to get some reactions, but only a bit!]

Tonya & Daniel (bloggers at Hebrew & Greek Reader) asked me a question about communicative methodology in learning Hebrew when they interviewed me. After that, Seumas MacDonald wrote a four-piece essay (here, here, here, and here) on “Conversational” “Dead” languages which generated some good comments and led me to Daniel Streett’s work. Rather than bog down Seumas’ blog with a lengthy response, I’ve decided to bring my further comments here to my own blog. Mike Aubrey also has a lot to say (here and here) in response to Daniel & Tonya’s own posts on their blog (here and here) in response to Seumas. I know I’m missing some other contributors to this current discussion (but I’m not leaving them out intentionally)! I think we need a flow-chart to follow the conversations.

For those who may not be familiar with the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), you can read about the work of the Cohelet Project here. They have provided a very good summary of the goals and methodology of CLT. Paul Overland and his team have been working very hard to integrate SLA research into a program that is primarily driven by the communicative approach to language learning. Randall Buth has been running Biblical Hebrew ulpans for years (and is now also offering Greek ulpans). Randall is also part of the design team for the Cohelet Project.

Bottom line? Continue reading →

If you are interested

This is a semi-shameless plug about the interview that Daniel & Tonya (of the Hebrew & Greek Reader blog) conducted with me. It’s in a 20 Question format. I figured that since I agreed to the interview, I might as well let my readers know about it. You may even learn something new about me. But please, don’t go on a crusade to get me to like sweet potatoes. I assure you, you will utterly fail.

Compass Confusion (Directions in BH)

For those of you struggling to retain some of your BH vocabulary, let me give you a little hint for how to remember compass directions and physical orientation.

First, remember that the BH words for “east,” “west,” “north,” and “south” are also used for “before” (“in front of”), “behind” (“after”), “left,” and “right.” In other words, you learn two English glosses for each Hebrew word.

directions BH


Can’t remember which direction goes with the other vocab meaning? Continue reading →

Karyn’s Essential Digital tools

Want to know what my Mac computer and I can’t live without? Here’s the short list of my essential digital tools. Later I’ll give you a list of my essential non-digital tools.

Mellel
The absolute best Mac word processor for incorporating both left-to-right and right-to-left (i.e., Hebrew) writing systems into your documents. Very active and helpful user forum (which the developers contribute to frequently). A reasonable price at $49 ($35 educational rate). You can buy Mellel and Bookends together (see next item in my list) at a 40% discount. That’s just $109 for both (only $89 if you are a university student!)

Bookends
This reference management and bibliography application works seamlessly with Mellel. Keeps track of all your citations and will build a bibliography for you that is customized to whatever standards you have to follow.

Accordance
What can I say? I use this bible software every single day. Powerful searches, great modules, and attentive support (blog and forum). It can be intimidating to know where to begin (as you build your own set of modules), but the staff will be very helpful. If you are studying biblical languages, start with the Scholars Collection. Module I could not live without: HALOT.

Things
A GTD program (see “Getting Things Done” for more generic info on GTD ) you have to love. I no longer keep paper lists. That says it all. Download the free trial for a month. You’ll probably have to buy it before the month is over, you’ll be hooked.
Continue reading →

Finding the Missing Root

Here’s a quick way to find the missing root for a BH weak verb:
Grammar Flash Cards

NOTE: the term “prefix pronoun” is what I would call a preformative. The term “pronoun” may be confusing but he is using it because the verb form indicates the implicit subject pronoun for the verb. This doesn’t cover every situation, but it is a nice little tool to keep in mind. I am still running possible verbs through this method to see how well it works. If you find one that does NOT work, please leave a comment.

This is just one Hebrew Grammar flashcard from the Hebrew course at the Free Church Seminary in Scotland. David Murray (now at Puritan Reformed Seminary in Grand Rapids, MI) developed a full set of video lectures and resources based on Bonnie Kittel’s Biblical Hebrew textbook. At the bottom of the page of lecture links, there is a link to download a set of grammar flashcards (PDF format). Not everyone will find Kittel’s method to their liking, but this website certainly complements the book nicely.

The website also has a useful set of vocabulary resources which I will highlight tomorrow.

Comic books to learn by

Do you ever wish that “grown-up” books still had pictures to make reading more fun? If so, you can practice your Hebrew reading with these comics! But don’t keep this fun to yourself. The young kids in your life will enjoy looking at the illustrations while you read to them in Hebrew. You can practice your understanding by translating and explaining the story as you go along.


The first resource is an online offering from Charles Grebe, (Briercrest Seminary, Saskatchewan, Canada). He has created an “animated” comic of the book of Jonah. Continue reading →