Resources for Teaching Biblical Hebrew with Cantillation Marks

I’ve added the following two items to my Hebrew Resources page.

The British Foreign Bible Society has a terrific article, “The Masoretes and the Punctuation of Biblical Hebrew” which explains the cantillation marks and how they can be used to help identify syntax.

Naama Zahavi-Ely, who teaches at William & Mary, has a very helpful handout on cantillation marks, “Using cantillation marks to break Biblical verses into units for teaching purposes” (from her presentation at SBL).

(right-click on the titles to download the PDF documents)

I’ve used both of these resources in my classes and found them to be helpful. The first article is more than most beginning students are interested in (they are confused enough), but inquisitive students appreciate getting additional reading material to supplement the class lectures. I use Naama’s handout to point out the major teamim to all first semester students as a supplemental tool to help find clause boundaries in biblical texts more easily.