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. Here’s his own description:

Every word of the Hebrew text is included in this Jonah comic in multiple scripts (square, cursive, paleo-Hebrew) and multiple forms (consonantal, pointed, cantillated). You can also listen to my slow, deliberate read of the Hebrew text, and pause or repeat at any time. At the bottom of the screen you’ll find ancient and modern translations that you can compare with the Hebrew text (Aramaic, Syriac, Greek, Latin, German, French, and 3 English translations). This comic is a great way to learn or practice your biblical Hebrew. It will help you develop an “ear” for the language and wean your dependence on pointed texts. For an extra challenge, use the ‘no text’ option to try memorizing the whole book. 🙂

You’ll need to install Shockwave in order to play the Jonah Comic. You can also download a zipped file of the pages (color or b/w) to make a comic or coloring book of your own.

His website animatedhebrew.com offers quite a few other helpful resources: an aleph-bet song, flashcards, audio lectures for Introducing Biblical Hebrew by Allen D. Ross, additional audio files, and of course, the infamous “learning Biblical Hebrew with Abbott & Costello.”

Next up are three comic books from EKS publishing.

    

These hard-copy comic books feature Og the Terrible. The vocabulary is very simple biblical Hebrew (but not biblical text). The three books include a running translation on each page, a full glossary and a page-by-page translation.