Customer Reviews

Readings in Biblical Hebrew: An Intermediate Textbook (Yale Language Series)

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I teach classical Hebrew, in a four-semester program at the undergraduate level. So, I'm always looking for excellent teaching materials to help my students read and comprehend the beautiful language of the ancient Biblical texts. There are plenty of introductory grammars, many of them very good. But there are not many textbooks available to help the second year reader.

It is this unreached audience that Ben Zvi,Hancock and Beinert target so well in this book. I'll hazard the guess that even if there were half a dozen or more such texts readily available, this one would still surpass them all in usefulness to the student.

As the sages and rabbis are wont to say, "baruch hashem."

BG Curtis/Geneva College

This intermediate level Hebrew reader inductively introduces the student who has just completed an elementary level Hebrew grammar to actually reading extended passages of the Hebrew Bible. The student of Hebrew is introduced to historical narratives, legal texts, wisdom literature, and Hebrew poetry--which many elementary grammars shy away from to the detriment of the student. Zvi introduces the student to the important sigla of the massoretic text. Because the textbook inductively introduces the student to Hebrew syntax, it would be a good idea to use A.B. Davidson's Introduction to Hebrew: Syntax or Ronald J. Williams Hebrew Syntax: An Outline as an aid along with the textbook.