After finding and reading More details on ‘Hinneh’ , you will be able to compare its merits with the four Biblical Hebrew textbook reviewed below. The reviews are taken from my unpublished paper (2005) The Introduction to Biblical Hebrew the Practical Way
2.1. Review of Four Textbooks and One Program
2.1.1. (Lambdin, 1973)
2.1.2. (Kelley, 1992)
2.1.3. (Kittel, Hoffer & Wright, 1989)
2.1.4. (Simon, Resnikoff, Motzkin, 1992)
…..
2.1. Review of Four Textbooks and One Program
This sample of four BH textbooks and one program will be reviewed and compared in order to learn about major difficulties found in the teaching of the introductory course, and to evaluate the different ways taken to solve them.
2.1.1. The Introduction to Biblical Hebrew (Lambdin, 1973) is a comprehensive grammar textbook. It presents a very detailed picture of BH grammar, without exceeding a defined lexical body of about 900 most frequent words and verb roots. Concentrating students’ attention on this relatively small number is not unreasonable, as these words (occurring in the Bible more than 25 time each) account for more than 80% of the total word count of the Bible (Haramati, 1983. p. 121). This essential vocabulary could have allowed for a good choice of authentic verses to demonstrate the grammar taught, and hence to introduce the student to the real biblical text very early on. Unfortunately, the author chose to avoid this opportunity (requiring heavy use of the concordance), and instead, to offer only artificial BH sentences, and even when presenting biblical passages, to greatly simplify them.
Generally speaking this textbook is well structured. Conveniently, it introduces the Noun Sentence right in the first chapter. Although much less frequent than the verbal sentence, the noun sentence, for its simplicity, is a good vehicle for the delivery of most of the basics (nouns, adjectives, prepositions, construct chains, numbers and many others). But the author does not continue to take advantage of this efficient medium, as he rushes to start teaching the verb with all its complexities before completing the introduction of all the basics, not conditioned by the verb. The teaching of the verb, therefore, is interrupted by the teaching of more and more of the basics. This is unfortunate, as the Hebrew verb system, with its complex morphology and peculiar perception of time, so foreign to the student, whose first language is Indo-European, deserves an uninterrupted discussion. Also, with all the basics learned earlier, there could have been more opportunities to demonstrate the verb in fuller, more authentic excerpts.
The presentation of the verb itself is well organized for the most part. It starts with the first of the 7 stems (Qal), introducing gradually the conjugations of all the forms (tenses) through the strong roots, then moving on to the less simple root classes. Pedagogically, this is, therefore, a wise planning of the material as, indeed, much of the grammar learned through the Qal transfers well into the study of the remaining six verb stems. Laying a solid basis for the verb through a thorough study of the Qal first facilitates the understanding of identical (ie. affixes, tense interpretations) and similar (ie. behaviour of the various root classes) phenomena in the other stems, and thus, the completion of the verb system.
However, solid sequencing is not evident in teaching the Hebrew verb forms (tenses, aspects & moods) and their interpretations. For example, the wayiqtol and the qatal are the two most common ways to indicate the past. Considering that most of the verbs in the biblical text refer to the past, one would expect the introduction of both forms relatively early. While the qatal is indeed the first form to be taught right away with the introduction of the verb, it’s not less important (and may be more frequent) companion wayiqtol waits for 15 more chapters, before it is presented, with a few more, much less common, if not rare, tense/moods/aspects interpretations in between. Thus, frequency which was considered seriously when choosing the vocabulary used in this textbook, was unfortunately ignored altogether when introducing the array of interpretations of the verb forms. Finding the right balance between what might seem logically to be a gradual and easier teaching/learning sequence, on one hand, and what is very frequent (but not necessarily easy to learn) is certainly a challenge with which language instructors and authors of textbooks keep struggling.
2.1.2. Biblical Hebrew, an Introductory Grammar (Kelley, 1992) uses about 1300 frequent words and verb roots as its basic vocabulary. As the author is careful to use only authentic material drawn from the actual biblical text, without any modification, this textbook allows for a good inventory of verses demonstrating what is taught. Due to this consistency, the student is introduced and becomes accustomed to the original biblical style without it becoming distorted by simplification and adaptation. A variety of exercises, all based on actual biblical phrases and verses are offered, always with their translations and exact references. This is certainly an advantage for the students who can experience, at any level, a real contact with the biblical text and the rewarding feeling of being able to interpret it. The role of the translation offered here, as in other textbooks (Lambdin 1973; Kittel, Hoffer, Wright, 1989), is important as it provides the students with a schema (Hadley, 2001, chapter 4) to the Hebrew text. Such schema is usually helpful in providing a general idea about the content of the text. Together with a serious analysis of Hebrew terms, and the help of a lexicon and grammar, these translations can facilitate comprehension. In many cases, the striking difference between the solid conclusions reached by the student through careful analysis, and the translation offered (literary but not necessarily literal) is an important lesson by itself.
Almost all of the basics, not conditioned by the verb, are taught in this textbook before the introduction of the verb. The Noun Sentence is introduced early, and allows the demonstration of all that is taught before the verbal sentence in actual authentic verse.
However, there seems to be a problem with the organization of the chapters dealing with the verb. The author chose to treat every verb form separately, starting with the suffix form qatal in the Qal with all its possible meanings (in terms of tense, aspect and mood). He continues by presenting very briefly that same suffix form in all of the remaining 6 stems. Throughout, the suffix form is demonstrated by verbs of the strong roots only. The prefix form yiqtol follows the same pattern, as well as the remaining forms: the imperative, the infinitives and the participle (and again all through the strong roots only). The introduction of the other root classes (gezarot) is postponed until after the completion of all the verb forms in all 7 verb stems.
Pedagogically this kind of cross section is problematic, as it strings together in much too fast a pace, too many grammatical concepts foreign to the students (ie. one verb form which can be interpreted into different tenses, or one root which translates into different English verbs when appearing in different stems). As discussed in 2.1.1 there is also a serious problem with the delay of the teaching of wayiqtol this time, due to the comprehensive teaching of the qatal and its application to all the verb stems, before proceeding to the next forms. Moreover, while preferring to teach all the verb forms and all the stems through the strong roots first, students’ encounter with some of the 50(!!) most frequent verbs (of theQal stem), which happen to be of the weak roots, is postponed to the last third of the textbook. Postponing important verbs such as ידע, בוא, עשה, היה, הלך, לקח, נתן (give, take, go, be, do, come, know…) naturally limits the choice of verses offered throughout the textbook. This is certainly an unfortunate weakness of a textbook which has other significant strengths. The author has put much work into searching the concordance for the appropriate authentic biblical passages to demonstrate what is taught and drilled. His choice though would have been much larger earlier on, if he sequenced the grammatical subjects imparted with more consideration to both frequency and learnability.
2.1.3. Biblical Hebrew, a Text and Workbook (Kittel, Hoffer & Wright, 1989) is certainly an innovative textbook. As indicated by its subtitle, it is designed as a workbook emphasizing inductive learning. The student is expected to apply the newly acquired analytic skills right from the beginning, and when reading biblical verses, to parse their verbs and then interpret them. This might sound too technical, but the authors mention in their introduction, that they see as their main objectives the transmitting of “an appreciation for the structure and beauty of the Hebrew text,” while “alerting the students to the fact that we are reading this text in a time and culture far removed from its origins, and that we are working with a language which is built quite differently from English.” These intentions are commendable, especially in a textbook which uses only authentic texts to demonstrate all that is taught. Unfortunately, it seems that the strong emphasis on the technical and the inductive overshadows the possibility of attaining these goals. The instruction in every chapter, which is based on one specific verse, does not expand readily from the particular to the general, and does not usually present the whole ‘picture’ with a paradigm following the encounter of the various grammatical items. Moreover, particular grammatical items of various systems are introduced one after the other, before each complete system is explained and understood on its own and with relation to the others.
The authors consider frequency very seriously, and organize the textbook material accordingly, as they continue to explain in their introduction: “…we take an uncommon approach by teaching (in descending order of frequency) the most common constructions, the most common verbs, the most common grammar and syntax.” The vocabulary used consists of the most frequent 400 words and roots (a useful list in descending order of frequency is provided as an appendix).
While in the previous two textbooks reviewed, frequency of forms and vocabulary was not taken into consideration in sequencing what is taught, this textbook carries frequency too far the other way. Frequency is indeed of utmost importance while sequencing the grammar to be imparted, but here it is taken to a great extreme, unbalanced with other considerations. The pedagogical issue of learnability seems to have been completely ignored. Questions such as, how foreign a system is to the learner, how it relates to other systems taught, and what the optimal timing and extent are for its teaching, could not have been weighed seriously enough. For example, while introducing the most frequent verbs שמע, וילך, וידבר, ויאמר (he said, he spoke, he went, he heard) as the main (but not only!) lexical and grammatical items dealt with in the first 4 chapters all of the following grammatical items are introduced: 2 stems (Qal & Pi’el), 2 verb forms (yiqtol & qatal), strong roots as well as the irregular root ה.ל.ך with its first letter not apparent, VavConversive, and of course more grammar and vocabulary not relating to the verb. Pedagogically this seems to be an unreasonable concentration of new developmental (see 2.4 below), still unrelated information, especially as there is no attempt made to go beyond every item and make sense of it within the wider paradigm and system. This approach might work for students who have had previous non-academic exposure to Hebrew (ie. modern Hebrew speakers, Jewish upbringing), and who through such a method can understand the grammar beyond the body of language already familiar to them. However, for students who are using this textbook to facilitate their first encounter with BH, this is undoubtedly a very confusing and intimidating way to study the language. Toning down the extreme frequency approach combined with other pedagogical considerations, could have resulted in a better language learning program and could provide for a better chance for the attainment of its objectives.
2.1.4. The First Hebrew Primer (Simon, Resnikoff, Motzkin, 1992) is a user friendly popular textbook not meant for academia, but in fact used in some universities for the introductory level. It uses a controlled list of the approximately 350 most common words and roots. The authors do not assume that the readers are competent in the grammar of their own first language, English. They are careful to explain every grammatical term (subject, definite article, adjective, etc.). In order to describe Hebrew grammatical phenomena existent or nonexistent in English, simple descriptive terms are used, instead of the accepted linguistic ones (‘word pair’ instead of ‘construct chain,’ ‘clipped form’ instead of ‘apocopated form,’ etc.). These sensible terms serve as scaffolding for the introductory stage, leading to more scholarly stages to follow after completion of the Primer. At the end of the book, readers are provided with a comparative list of the Primer friendly terms against the scholarly terms, as well as with a suggested bibliography for further study.
Bright verb paradigm charts of the various forms, stems, and root classes are provided with large fonts and distinguishable hollow fonts for prefixes and suffixes. These kinds of organizers, uncommon in academic textbooks, are in fact very helpful aids for the beginner, as they help them visualize patterns very clearly. Other very helpful aids are comprehensive inflection charts of common nouns, and common prepositions, as well as common verbs in the 7 stems.
Unfortunately, these very effective organizers and aids are not matched with a well designed program. The spread of one paradigm through several chapters (qatal in Qal), the delay of the introduction to the most common past tense form (wayiqtol, discussed in 2.1.1), and the interruption in the teaching of the verb with many other grammatical items are obvious weaknesses.
The structure of the Primer seems to lean too much towards ascending difficulty rather than to descending frequency, thus delaying the access to the actual biblical text. This approach forces the authors to demonstrate what is taught through artificial sentences rather than actual verses. Therefore, they cannot avoid producing forced or convoluted prose in both form and content. This happens even in the guided reading of Ruth which, even though it approaches the authentic prose towards the last chapters, produces a strange hybrid of ‘biblical’ style. The above is in contradiction with the declared aim which is to help the student “discover and delight in the clear, strong rhythms of original Hebrew – a joy unattainable through reading even the best of translations” (Simon et al., 1992, p. i).