Customer Reviews

Student's Vocabulary for Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, A

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This book is a great list for those students who wish to build their vocabulary in order to gain a greater understanding to the bible. This book is not a dictionary and don't try to use it as such. The words are broken into sections according to the frequency in which they occur in the bible. The more frequent a word occurs the closer to the front they will appear. The words are not in alphabetic order. However, if you wish to improve your vocabulary quickly by learning the most useful words than this book is for you.

The interesting thing about learning Biblical Hebrew is that there is a definite limit to how much vocabulary you need to learn (about 8700 words, and many are cognates of each other). This booklet arranges all words together by frequency, without having to switch between a verb and a noun section. This book gives the frequencies of each word so that you can basically calculate how much of the Hebrew Bible you will be able to read as you learn. Its one downfall is that it doesn't give accurate frequencies on words over 5000 occurrences--it just says 5000. Well, that's very inadequate considering that Vav/"V" (and) occurs 50,303 times, not only 5,000. For the definite article Heh (H), it states 5000, but the actual number is 30,393. It would not have been difficult to find these numbers and publish them in the book.

There are 474,365 morphemic occurrences in the Hebrew OT. By only learning to recognize the initial Vav, one has reduced the occurrences to learn to 424,062. By learning one letter/word out of 8700, one can recognize over 10% of the morphemic occurrences in the OT (this book indicates that one has learn 1.6%). Learn the first 25 words that are most frequent, and one has learned to recognize almost 43% (over 200,000) of all morphemic occurrences (assuming one learns a little about how these words change appearance in actual use). This text does not give completely accurate frequencies on the first 25 words. This shouldn't stop one from buying it. Just know that having learned the first 25, you're almost 43% there; and if you know all the attached and unattached pronouns, add over another 10% to your recognition bank.

I find it very easy to carry around, and I've added my notes to it. This has been my primary quick-learning guide.

As others have said, this is a terrific vocabulary builder, containing both Hebrew and Aramaic words. The back contains an index which I have found wonderfully helpful as an aid to finding the root in drop-letter or hollow verbs. Sometimes BDB gives far too much information. The one minor flaw is that feminine nouns aren't identified as such

I was in the middle of taking a class in Elementary Hebrew. Part of the class requires learning vast amounts of vocabulary. I was struggling with learning the vocabulary as English has little roots to Hebrew. I found this little book in our library at school and it has helped to save my life! I just ordered it today to keep with me when I take Hebrew again in seminary! Thanks for the help Dr. Mitchel.

-Jason

This is a good book for the money. It has good transliteration, and it gives a short definition of the word. You will not find every word in the Bible in this book because of its size, but the book is well worth the money. It is a little tricky trying using the index if you are not familiar with the Hebrew alphabet.

Life is triage. We all must choose how to do the most in a short amount of time. A Student's Vocabulary for Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic helps by presenting the words used most frequently in the Hebrew Bible. Using this book, students of Biblical Hebrew can learn first the words that they most need to learn. If only other tasks in life came so splendidly prioritized!

If you are interested in a similarly prioritized audio vocabulary builder for Biblical Hebrew, consider Old Testament Hebrew Vocabulary: Learn on the Go. Learning by reading differs from learning by hearing, so you may find it most productive to use both products concurrently. For a somewhat prioritized audio vocabulary for Modern Hebrew, consider Vocabulearn Hebrew: Level 1 (Language Power), Hebrew/English: Level 1: VocabuLearn: Original Format, Vocabulearn Hebrew Level 1 (VocabuLearn), or VocabuLearn: Hebrew, Level 1 (all four different formats of the same basic product).

All these products are variations on flashcards. For more conventional paper flashcards (also prioritized), consider Old Testament Hebrew Vocabulary Cards (ZONDERVAN VOCABULARY BUILDER SERIES) or Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary Cards or Modern Hebrew Vocabulary Cards: Academic Study Card Set.

If you are a student of Biblical Hebrew, this book will help you increase your vocabulary base -- intelligently. Based on frequency, this small handy guide will help you pick and learn the words that occur with the greatest frequency, which yields the best results for time invested as opposed to randomly picking and choosing Hebrew vocabulary vocab.

This is a compact and invaluable resource for students. In addition to this handy little book,Biblical Hebrew: Vocabulary Made Easy!will help you to actually memorize the vocabulary with a minimum of fuss. These two books, along with a Hebrew Lexicon, will rapidly increase your Hebrew vocabulary.

Here is a book that requires ones full attention, which in and of itself is not a bad thing, If you are completely committed to taking your study to the next level then this is your treasure.

This is a very helpful, well organized, easy to use resource to help get your Hebrew vocabulary up to speed. If you want to use the various "readers" guides and running dictionaries you need to know the most basic Hebrew words. This helps organize that task for you.

If you've gotten the flash cards for Biblical Hebrew from VisEd or Pratico's version of flash cards, this book can help you with your plan of attack in using them. Pull the cards dealing with a particular frequency and you are on your way. Or, make up your own cards based on this book's frequency counts.

I got this back in the 1980s at seminary and have enjoyed it since. My Hebrew "comes and goes" over the years, and this gets me back on track in a short amount of time.

Excellent book, exactly what someone interested in biblical hebrew should have as an aid for self study.
Very satisfied.
The book arrived in excellent condition.

Montevideo, Uruguay