Customer Reviews

Introducing Biblical Hebrew

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

 

 

This introductory grammar is one of the best yet written for Biblical Hebrew. It is more of traditional textbook in the sense of size and layout than most Hebrew Grammars. Overall it is well written, easy to understand, and for a introduction, it has a lot of useful information. His explanation of the rare stems (Poel, Poal, etc.) deserves praise as it is one of the best descriptions of the rare stems in any English Hebrew Grammar. The ending chapters also walk students through the use of the BHS, while analyzing sentences, thus teaching both intermediate grammar and also how to use the BHS apparatus. There are a few drawbacks to the book, it lacks any aesthetic value as there are no pictures or graphics, thus it is quite bland. Also, since it is a brand new book, inevitably there will be minor errors which will be corrected in later editions. Overall however, this book clearly raises the standard by which future Hebrew Grammars will be judged. For use within a classroom, it is a great choice and its readability makes it useful for independent study as well.

The book is clearly written and seems to contain all of the information necessary for a first-year grammar. My only complaint is that, to the best of my knowledge, there is no answer key for the book. So if you are planning on self-study, this would not be a good choice.

Ross' book is definitely one of the better books on the market. There are books that promise to teach BH quick and easy or "as you go", but the truth is that there isn't an easy way to do this. BH is a very different language and for most folks with an Indo-European native language is pretty tough to learn.

Moreover, it is important to remember that each BH book is written for a specific purpose, either self-study, in-class instruction or as a reference grammar. Most books, including this one, fall into the second category of being written for in-class instruction, although many of these can be used for self-study as well. But with the focus on the in-class instruction these books are formatted to fit a two semester course in first year BH. And you can only fit so much into the first year or you can only learn so much in two semesters. So they are not comprehensive as a reference grammar might be. So there will be things that the author simply doesn't have room to cover and will be left out. This one is no exception, but that is not a bad thing. Reference grammars are intended to be comprehensive and thorough, but on the other hand they're not very useful as a textbook for a first year student. On the contrary, they can be pretty overwhelming -- try showing Jouon, Gesenius or even Weingreen to a new student and you might scare them away.

This book is well structured and well laid out -- nice type-setting, which is very important especially in case of Hebrew fonts. Ross' introductory material is pretty good compared to most grammars, it's visual and well laid out. I like his section on vowels, it is often neglected and poorly done in other grammars. Likewise, his verbal summary tables at the end of the book are great and well laid out. They should be a standard part of every BH textbook. The answer key in not provided, which might make it challenging if used for self-study.

The individual lesson's are structured quite well, Ross is pretty clear on his grammatical principles, has good examples and exercises. He introduces you to verbal stems besides Qal pretty early on and then covers each stem separately with all the different patterns and variation for weak and doubly-weak verbs within each stem. I tend to think that this is a better approach then Lambdin's (although I like his book too for different reasons), where you spend an entire semester learning BH before learning another stem besides Qal. Ross also has pretty well structured discussion of the most important syntactical rules and examples which is very helpful. This comes after all the verbal stems are covered, that is after one has reasonably "mastered" BH grammar. I would think that introducing some syntax early on (like Lambdin does) would make learning BH more fun, but that's a matter of preference. This way one does not have to search through the book to find this or that syntactical rule.

Ross' book compares pretty well to other BH grammars, like An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew(see my review) or Seow in particular. It may not be as in-depth in some areas, but it is in others. And it's structure and layout are very good. Compared to Van Pelt/Pratico or Futato on the other hand, it's much more in depth and better organized than those two. But there probably isn't an ideal BH textbook out there -- once again it's a matter of preference. They all have their strengths and weaknesses and depending on the audience and the setting, each of them can be appropriate. But Ross is definitely one of the better ones out there and I do recommend this book.

This is an excellent grammar if you are after conciseness but enough depth to have a good grasp of the language.

The weakness is not enough exercises and no answer key (not in back of the book and no one has published one as yet).

A good compromise for those learning Hebrew on their own is to supplement with Page Kelley's Biblical Hebrew which has plenty of exercises and is very verbose.

If you intend to use this book for self-learning, it is best to have some previous experience in some other anicent language (e.g. Greek); this will reduce the steepness of the learning curve especially in dealing with grammatical terminology. If you have no previous experience there are books which are more 'user friendly' like Mansoor or Pratico. But of course you sacrifice depth for user-friendliness.

Oh, to be learning Hebrew for the first time! I wish this book had been around when I first learned my aleph, beth, gimel's. Ross has produced a triumph of an introductory textbook. Not only are the essentials of the language here, but much additional, yet useful information typically left for the student to dig out of reference grammars. Beyond the standard set of paradigms, basic syntax is covered well, and principles of word formation are treated with what I can only call elegance. Best of all, the final section teaches actual analysis of the BHS edition of the Hebrew Bible, including use of the critical apparatus. Let the spirit of prophecy come over me: Ross will become the standard for the next generation of seminary students!

I didn't undertake any of my language requirements until my third year in seminary. Now in my fourth year, I can look back on my first-year Hebrew experience fondly, thanks in large part to Ross's excellent text.

My Hebrew professor was a student of Ross's, which I think was helpful, as he was able to shed the light of firsthand experience with Ross in class; that may be why I think better of this text than some of the other reviewers here. Regardless, I am convinced that this text can greatly aid anyone looking to master the nuances of ancient Hebrew quickly.

Ross takes a somewhat immersive approach, challenging the student to quickly begin translating Hebrew phrases, and even to translate English words an phrases back into Hebrew. While some cite this as one of the curriculum's weaknesses, I found it to be very helpful in getting myself to 'think Hebraically,' so to speak. This, combined with the quick pace and thorough explanations of how the different parts of the language work, made me feel so comfortable with the material that by the end of my first semester, I greatly favored my Hebrew studies to my Greek ones (an experience I'm told is somewhat unusual).

One of my favorite features of Ross's book is the way he presents paradigms, which comprise a large part of first-year memorization. They're set up in such a way that if one wants to memorize and review all the principal parts, he can do so, but if he wants to dig deeper and quiz himself on the different conjugations of various principal parts of various stems, he can do that, too. (This is actually common in Hebrew grammars, I've since discovered, but I thought I'd mention it anyhow, since verb paradigms are so important to Hebrew students)
Some small issues keep this book from getting a five-star review:

- A few of the sections could be a little clearer. I had trouble ascertaining the comparative relationship between infinitives-in-construct and absolute infinitives, and had to re-read those sections a few times;

- As other reviewers have mentioned, an answer key would have been very, very helpful when doing the exercises(though my professor provided us with one);

- A few more exercises per chapter would have been nice, also (though the exercises presented did a great job of sampling new and previously learned material evenly).

All told, this is a great text for the Hebrew student who really wants to feel like he's digging into the language in all its nuanced splendor.

We used this as our first-year Hebrew text. The lack of an answer key makes it impractical for self-study, but I can't imagine learning Hebrew on my own. The paucity of exercises was a problem, but that is mitigated later on when you're able to actually translate text on your own if you want extra practice.

I loved the simplicity of the paradigms listed as well as the mechanical parsing method. I feel like this book gave me a much better foundation for Hebrew than Mounce did for Greek.

As a seminary student, I need to use many books to effectively understand the subject matter. I had difficulty with the CD and the lectures. The book was very helpful in tying the subject together by bridging more effectively the simpler things that were omitted. I found it to be of great importance and now use it at our church to help other beginners step into a world so important to who we are.

I am a second-year, first-time-with-Hebrew MDiv student with an A average overall, and one seminary instructor chose this book to teach us Hebrew, rather than the book our seminary traditionally usually uses. Here is why I think that a Hebrew first-timer and MDiv-er shouldn't buy this book -- and why, as a committed student who wants to master the material in it, I would ask profs to use different textbooks to teach other students like myself.

1. Most U.S. M.Div. people need to learn to translate from Hebrew into English, not the other way around. Far too many of Ross's exercises (in fact, the majority of them for the first 30 or so chapters) are about translating from English to Hebrew -- something we do not need facility in to do good jobs as pastors/preachers/exegetes. Better to see lots of Hebrew and translate it into English -- the skill to be mastered, after all.

2. Each of the first 40 or so chapter/lessons has a maximum of 10 phrases for the student to translate from Hebrew to English. This is insufficient to acquire mastery of any of the concepts, grammar, or vocabulary covered in any one of the chapters, especially without an answer key available, let alone to continually reinforce and build upon one's mastery of previous vocab/grammar. Also, one does not get to see what specific forms of verbs, constructs, etc. actually look like "in vivo" often enough to facilitate future translation.

3. In each chapter, the author introduces vocabulary that he does not then use in translation exercises until tens of chapters later. As the old saying goes, "Use it or lose it."

In short, I would never recommend this book as a textbook or study aid to students new to Hebrew. I have found it helpful to reference and use the abundant exercises and explanations in Kelley's "An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew," as well as the "Basics of Biblical Hebrew" book and workbook to gain mastery of the material.

I am using Ross' Introducing Biblical Hebrew for self-study. Having learned Greek on my own I felt confident approaching Hebrew in a similar way. I chose Ross' textbook because of the positive reviews here on Amazon and elsewhere, and because of the workbook 'Supplementary Exercises for Introducing Biblical Hebrew,' and because there are many excellent resources online that are keyed to IBH including the video lectures and flashcard at animatedhebrew.com and biblicallanguages.wordpress.com which provides an answer key, drill sheets and other hand-outs.

Ross takes a minimalist approach to his presentation, keeping his chapters brief and his examples relatively sparse. A quick glance at the book's table of contents will show that there is little room for superfluous information, and that the author moves through the material at a brisk clip. (This was quite a change of pace after studying Greek with the verbosity of Basics of Biblical Greek by William Mounce.)

I have found the arrangement of the material to be very well thought out, giving the student an opportunity to read and understand complete sentences from the beginning. Ross introduces various tenses, conjugations, constructions, etc. in such a way that the student is exposed to progressively more difficult exercises, but never sentence fragments or grammatically suspect examples.

The exercises are truly a great strength of this book. Ross begins each section of exercises with several sentences written in English for the student to translate into Hebrew. I have heard many complain that this is unnecessary for students simply hoping to read the Hebrew texts, but nothing could be further from the truth. Hebrew is a language, after all, and it is nearly impossible to understand and internalize a foreign language without some understanding of how to communicate in it. Reading comprehension may be the ultimate goal, but the ability to write and compose sentences of your own (even if just English-Hebrew translations in the beginning) is important. If you can complete the English-Hebrew exercises in this book you will know your stuff when you get through this book.

The English-Hebrew exercises are followed by Hebrew-English sentences along with some Biblical examples for translating. Ross includes a fair amount, and if you want more you can always pick up the supplemental workbook.

All in all, I highly recommend this textbook due to it's intelligent ordering of subjects, excellent exercises, and a wealth of quality supplemental materials both online and in print.