Customer Reviews

Learn Biblical Hebrew

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I first studied biblical Hebrew in college forty years ago. Hebrew is so very different from Western European languages that it was hard for me to wrap my mind around it. Dobson's book aims at making the study of Hebrew fun and at giving the student success each step of the way. He aims to get the student reading worthwhile sentences and many of them as soon as possible. It is still the learning of a language, so it is not a "for dummies" project. But, Dobson presents the most frequent verb forms first and gets those drilled into the student's mind so they become very familiar. He does this rather than the approach used by Weingreen in my college class in which the student memorizes all forms in a paradigm and then later tries to pull some meaning out of the paradigms in the experience of translating. I especially like the audio CD. It allows the student to engage hearing as well as seeing in fixing a lesson in the mind. Dobson attempts to use current understanding of how one learns in order to make the material familiar territory for the student. I think I might not have let my Hebrew lapse over the decades had I learned with an approach like Dobson's the first time.

I have the advantage of using this book for a review and refresher. I already remember some vocabulary and some grammar. I can tell that makes using Dobson's book easier than it might be for a newbie to Hebrew. I would be curious to observe someone with no Hebrew who learns it with Dobson's approach. Still, the results he describes in the introduction are impressive. He speaks of students who struggled with Hebrew winning awards for their progress when they began to use his approach.

Mr. Dobson teaches in a way that is both very informative, and often humorous. By the completion of this book, I had translated the book of Jonah, as well as passages from nearly every book in the Old Testament. I would highly recommend this book to someone who wants to learn Biblical Hebrew, even if you (as I did) already have some knowledge of the language. This is truly a profound book. I learned much more than I expected to learn when I bought this book. My only complaint, is that the meanings listed for words are in (abstract) english, such as the Hebrew word "chai" which Mr. Dobson says means "life" which it does, but the word actually means "stomach" and was a Hebrew sign of life. Though you would rarely even consider translating the word as "stomach" it is nice to know the ancient meanings behind the Hebrew your reading... still, a very good book.

The Dobson book takes more of an "immersion" approach to teaching Hebrew in that it jumps right into speaking and reading Hebrew, without making the distinctions in syntax and grammar. For me this has been a very helpful 2nd year Hebrew grammar book. I used Kelley's Biblical Hebrew for my first year. Dobson makes a lot of assumptions and glosses over a lot of things that, I think, would have been very confusing if I had used it in my introduction year to Hebrew. But, knowing what I now know about the Hebrew language (which is not a lot!), Dobson's book serves to get me going on actually reading and listening to Hebrew. The companion CD with this book is a MUST HAVE!!

Overall, it's a good book. But I would not recommend this for a solo beginning Hebrew grammar. It should be paired with a book like Kelley's Biblical Hebrew to give the best results.

I've been using this book for about 5 months now to learn Hebrew from scratch. Been going rather slowly through it (I'm in no hurry), and although the lessons do go at a fairly fast pace, you can take your time through them (I'm currently 1/3 through the book). There is some repetition of words, to help you review along the way. Having no prior knowledge of Hebrew (but having learned other languages), this book is wonderful. The CD is quite beneficial too. Writing Hebrew is not stressed much in this book--just learning to read and speak Hebrew, using passages from the Bible.

This review is based on my personal experience, I do not have the qualification for a technical rating of this work. Having this statement in mind I recommend other students John H. Dobson's "Learn Biblical Hebrew" as a rapid and efficacious method to grasp the essencials of this difficult, but rewarding language. An immersion in biblical hebrew is an irreplaceable tool to better enjoy and understand the Old Testament, the unfolding of the living message that came to us by means of the writings of many sons of Israel during centuries of agitated history. Dobson's system of learning, on the other hand, demands tough dedication from the student. The rapid pace of the work takes the learner's language skills for granted. If you are not skillful enough to catch the subject you would be stuck for weeks in the same lesson. Of great help is the CD provided with the book, it enables you to get the ear training on the unfamiliar sounds of this semitic tongue, so remote from our closer indo-european superfamily of languages. The presentation of the alphabet in the first chapter is a challenging but unavoidable step in the process of learning. Again, dedication and hard working are necessary to take the most from this work. Doing so is the key to a successful introduction to the amazing benefit of reading the word of God in the original language.

This is one of the best methods for introducing Hebrew I have found. Having taken several courses at a local seminary, I bought this to use as a reference. Then after reading the first few lessons, I really wished I'd had this book available when I first started. The author uses a type of immersion style that is really encouraging to new students especially when they start sounding out basic words in the first few pages.

I heard about this book from a fellow linguist who has been using this method to lead translation seminars overseas. I'm delighted with Dobson's approach. He lays out the course in a way similar to the best approaches to learning modern languages: slow immersion and lots of repeated, comprehensible input, with exercises that solidify the learning and allow the student to "think Hebrew".

My only complaint is that the initial introduction to reading and pronouncing Hebrew is terribly confusing. Most pronunciations described by comparison to English words, which vary by region, and the sounds that do not occur in English were confusingly described. An audio resource on the CD would have been more helpful to a general audience; an IPA chart or a straightforward phonetic description would have been more helpful to me. However, once I persevered beyond that first chapter, listening to the CD gave me a better sense of how to pronounce what I was reading. It is unfortunate that this frustrating chapter should be the first one a student encounters, though.

Overall, I would heartily recommend Learn Biblical Hebrew for newcomers to the language. Its approach, based on how human beings actually become proficient in language, is humane and not nearly as artificial as most introductions to ancient languages. It is practical to use this text for a solo study, though as with any language-learning endeavor, it would be best used with a mentor or with a group of fellow students.

Like the author's book on New Testament Greek, this book is pretty easy to get into. The CD is fun to listen to. I especially like the voice of the woman who does some of the narration. I feel, however, that some of the diphthongs should have been explained in more detail.

I was particularly interested in the CD, but found it extremely disappointing. The readers sounded bored and very American. There was no "teaching" attached to the CD, just reading words and paragraphs in uninspired voices.

The cover claims one could start reading meaningful verses after just 2 hours. After 2 hours I was still struggeling to decipher the differences in the Hebrew letters.

If someone wants a reference book to the language, this works fine. But it has a weakness in its teaching sequence. A lot of steps are missing.

As a Bible student, this has been a great help.