Customer Reviews

A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Andrews University Monographs)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have just started to take a serious look at the Aramaic language and have used this book as a starting point. I have not actually bought the book, but am working from a xerox copy of it that I made when I found it in the University of Heidelberg's library a few years ago. I have just now gotten to working through the grammar, and I am quite impressed. I will probably end up buying it on my next book binge, as the photocopy left a few parts difficult to read.

This grammar is set up in a traditional graduated learning format, with a particular grammatical concept and/or set of paradigms assigned to each chapter, with vocabulary lists and translation excercises at the end of the chapter. A glossary is found at the end of the book accompanied by a section of several tables of paradigms. The grammatical concepts assigned to each chapter are well defined, and the book is sufficiently indexed, allowing it to be a useful reference. Issues of Aramaic syntax are treated only superficially, but sufficiently to gain a passive understanding of the language of the Aramaic portions of Daniel and Ezra.

My only complaint is that the translation excercises are not accompanied by any explanatory notes. I have had to do some guessing as to why certain passages are translated the way they are. This book does assume knowledge of Biblical Hebrew, but stands more or less on its own. One could theoretically use it without knowledge of Hebrew, though such a person would have to somehow learn the Hebrew/Aramaic alphabet. He would also find discussions of syntax painfully brief and cryptic. This grammar is lightyears ahead of other Aramaic grammars, Namely Stevensons' Grammar of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic, which really seeks only to teach the particular idiosyncracies of the Palestinian Jewish dialects. It was totally incomprehensible to me, even as someone who already knew Hebrew. I can't understand how it got good reviews. Johns' book is a great first look at Aramaic.

This Grammar is apparently quite good as it is still used after so many years in print. It is especially useful in seminary courses or for individual study because of the exercises which follow each chapter. My only criticism is that the grammar does not provide answers for those exercises. Thankfully, an annotated answer key has finally been produced, so the two volumes together are an excellent resource.

This book is a wonderful introductory grammar for Biblical Aramaic. It gives you everything you need to know, and doesn't overwhelm the reader. Charts, vocab, grammar, all in one very small book at a great price! Any Biblical Hebrew student should get this book to strengthen their understanding of Hebrew and semetic languages.

This is positively the worst grammar I have ever seen for any language. SO MUCH is left unexplained and I'm not talking about background info to the language which is, at any rate, laid out in the most cryptic and needlessly abbreviated format as possible, with few examples. His sample sentences require definitions of words that he has not provided and at least in one case I remember a grammatical concept which had not yet been explained. He leaves room for inference all over the place which really just leaves one to guessing about why something is the case or if something is the case (like the pathach under the first root consonant of the imperfect of 'bd on p. 41 - is the deviation with that form only, with the other plurals or only for that person and number? who knows?!!). Then there is the format. Not only does he not give examples for tons of stuff he should be on nearly every page he doesn't stick to a single format for the verb charts (minor sure but it just goes to show how little thought went into organizing this grammar). He goes off on these asides which are irrelevant to the lesson and just make for confusion (ex. talking about infinitive endings for the derived conjugations in ch. 6 before he gets to them - why? - this reads like someone rambling in class or conversation, not an organized grammar). There is other non-sense which will reveal itself if you use the accompanying answer key.

Do yourself a favor and get Greenspahn's "An Introduction to Aramaic." I just picked it up after previewing it online and its already helping a ton. While I have not used it enough to note any major or minor faults, after going through a couple of chapters I can confidently say it is infinitely better. Charts are given for everything (not just strong verbs as with John's) Everything is given plenary explanation and there is no rambling. It contains parsing, translation, Hebrew cognate and composition exercises and full answer key in the back.

This book assumes that one trying to study Aramaic already knows Hebrew. If you know Hebrew then this book is pretty easy to follow. The one thing that is lacking is an answer key for the assignments. James N. Jumper has an annotated key that makes up for this deficiency and I strongly recommend it.

The only book to get at this time if you are a serious student of Aramaic. It supports rigorous, authoritative grammatical and linguistic explorations of the subject.

Yes, you should have a course ,or be self taught,in modern or biblical hebrew before tackling this or any other Aramaic grammer I've encountered. Fortunately a matching answer key book is now available.I personally spent 5 years as a part time student of biblical and modern hebrew and found this particular study sequence helpful. First I studied "An introduction to Aramaic-second edition-by Frederick Greenspahn" (available from Amazon)using this book as a companion/advanced study tool. Greenspahn's book seemed more accessalble and user friendly but this book has important classical lessons and info. I would not want to be without. As a side note I wish someone would put out a book for the study of the Aramaic of the Zohar which has nuances and vocabulary beyond the 33 some verses in the bible written in Aramaic.

This is a good book for studying Biblical Aramaic. If you're ultimately interested in other phases of the language, it would be a good way to start. It's short, compact, reasonably challenging, and pretty serious. The only reason why I didn't give it five stars is because I find the author's style quite dull, and it really requires prior knowledge of Hebrew (or another Semitic language) to begin reading -- since the prerequisites aren't mentioned anywhere besides one of the first pages, I consider it a drawback.

It does not cover all territories, but to a certain degree, it could be useful. Bad reviews do not help. If you don't like a book, keep your mouth shut. The world is already full of hatred, and more nasty words show the low character of a person. Go after criminals, not writers, poets and educators!
I like the book. It is a good addition to my library. Of course, it needs a a major linguistic face-lift, nevertheless, it is a good product!

i was glad to discover this book at such a great price.

i'm sure it's a valuable collection to one's semetic languages library.

however, it uses Hebrew Script when i was hoping for Syriac, and skips over grammatical constructions one should have learned in Biblical Hebrew class.

i'll need this someday, but - for now - i'm going looking for a syriac text, or something that starts with the alphabet... any suggestions?