Daily Dose of Hebrew

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Ruminator
Posts: 52
Joined: Mon Dec 25, 2017 10:09 am

Daily Dose of Hebrew

Post by Ruminator »

I'm loving the Daily Dose of Greek (dailydoseofgreek.org) and it occurred to me that there might be a Hebrew version and sure enough there is:

http://dailydoseofhebrew.com/

These are two minute instructional videos by qualified instructors. You can optionally get a daily reminder email with a link to the latest video.
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William Ross
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Kirk Lowery
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Re: Daily Dose of Hebrew

Post by Kirk Lowery »

I watch both every day. They are well done and keeps one's brain into Hebrew. Highly recommended.
Kirk E. Lowery, PhD
B-Hebrew Site Administrator & Moderator
blog: https://blogs.emdros.org/eh
Schubert
Posts: 83
Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2013 2:05 pm
Location: Canada

Re: Daily Dose of Hebrew

Post by Schubert »

I also find the Daily Doses of Hebrew very helpful.
John McKinnon
kwrandolph
Posts: 1529
Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 12:51 am

Re: Daily Dose of Hebrew

Post by kwrandolph »

I decided to look into this daily dose of Hebrew. I see it’s based on a textbook by someone I’ve never heard of before, so anything I say is not personal against the author, rather commenting on what is said and written.

My fist question, what sort of Hebrew is being taught? Biblical? Tiberian? Modern questioning? In looking at the textbook’s table of contents, it starts with the vowels. “Oh oh, bad sign. Biblical Hebrew doesn’t have written vowels.” That means that what is taught is Tiberian Hebrew, a language that has a different grammar and different pronunciation from Biblical Hebrew.

I was taught Tiberian Hebrew when I studied Hebrew in class, and had to unlearn much when I read Tanakh through over and over again. I also found that sometimes a simple statement in Biblical Hebrew was made overly complex and even very difficult to understand because of the vowel points that come from Tiberian Hebrew. In other words, sometimes they indicate wrong meanings.

The author has not kept up with the latest research on Biblical Hebrew. One of the members on this list, Rolf Furuli, showed in his dissertation that the Biblical Hebrew conjugations do not conjugate for tense. In other words, there’s no “perfect” nor “imperfect/future” in Biblical Hebrew. Decades ago I came to the same realization but without the formal research to back up my findings. Yet these people are still teaching tense-based Tiberian Hebrew.

In closing, I found some of their teachings challenging with insights that I hadn’t heard before, but there are other times that I simply say “This are wrong.” I’m not saying to stay away from these videos, just remember that when they say “perfect” or “past”, or “imperfect” or “future”, that the actions could actually be present, or past, or future.

By the way, my daily dose of Hebrew that I aim for is an hour rereading Tanakh, which can cover anything from a couple of chapters to as many as ten chapters in Tanakh.
Ruminator
Posts: 52
Joined: Mon Dec 25, 2017 10:09 am

Re: Daily Dose of Hebrew

Post by Ruminator »

Thanks for the review! Can you please tell me whether or not your and Rolf's conclusions are controversial or not? Thanks.
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William Ross
kwrandolph
Posts: 1529
Joined: Sun Sep 29, 2013 12:51 am

Re: Daily Dose of Hebrew

Post by kwrandolph »

What part of studying Biblical Hebrew isn’t controversial?

I suppose that sticking with Tiberian Hebrew and calling it “Biblical’ is the least controversial, as that is a tradition that has been taught since the medieval age. But when I wrote “modern questioning”, that’s not a reference to modern Israeli Hebrew, rather modern scholars questioning the tradition that Tiberian Hebrew is the same as Biblical Hebrew. The following book gives a survey of many of the theories presented over the years.

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Bib ... nor+hebrew

I have been told, though I haven’t verified it for myself, that it is long tradition among Jewish rabbis to question the Masoretic points. When I was being taught Tiberian Hebrew, already other books were coming on the market questioning the equation that Tiberian Hebrew = Biblical Hebrew. Because most scholars come from a western tradition that verbal conjugations refer to some sort of time measurement, they assume Biblical Hebrew’s conjugations also refer to time, whether tense, aspect or a combination of the two. I’m not the first to suggest that the conjugations are modal, not time. Today it doesn’t matter which view you take, there are people who will disagree with you.

Karl W. Randolph.
Ruminator
Posts: 52
Joined: Mon Dec 25, 2017 10:09 am

Re: Daily Dose of Hebrew

Post by Ruminator »

I believe it was in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Story-Structure- ... ords=story that the author made the assertion that resonates with me... he said "Only conflict is interesting", which is one reason why studying the scriptures is so endlessly fascinating!
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William Ross
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