שָׁלוֹם from Atlantic Canada!

[Thomas Dolhanty]

Greetings B-Hebrew members. I’m new here and looking forward to asking some questions and perhaps sharing some of my own discoveries in learning and interacting with the Hebrew Scriptures.

Before this century was very old, my wife and I decided to take an early retirement from my career in post secondary education in order to devote our time to a thorough study of our Christian faith. And that, of course, involved a thorough study of the Scriptures. Within two or three years of setting out on that journey, I included the study of Biblical Greek, and then of Biblical Hebrew as a part of my mission. And within about a half dozen years of setting out on our own journey we began to help others travelling a similar path.

I took courses in intermediate and advanced Biblical Hebrew at the University of British Columbia in 2010/11 and taught intro Hebrew to a small group of lay folks in Vancouver BC the following year. However, I discovered that to gain real fluency I was going to have to devote all my attention to just one language at a time. As I was asked to teach a course in intro Biblical Greek the following year I decided to set Hebrew aside for a season and focus my attention on becoming fluent in the Greek text of the New Testament. Over the past decade plus, most of my time learning, and helping others to learn, Biblical languages has been focused on Greek.

Recently, however, as my fluency in Biblical Greek is now quite well established, I turned my attention once again to Hebrew. Quite early on in my study of the languages I discovered the same thing that Dewayne Dulaney talks about in his 2024 review of the Aleph with Beth video series – that the grammar/translation/analysis method of studying a language – by itself – does not tend to bring you to a place of fluency. In those early years I also came across, and was arrested by, the comments of Randall Buth on the failure of typical Biblical Language programs to achieve fluency in its students. I had also met and got to know Dr. Martin Culy, a recognized authority in Biblical Greek and himself a very competent teacher, who encouraged me along the same path that I will call ‘real language acquisition’. I began to spend more time listening to audio narrations of the Greek text, and interacting with it in a real language setting.

Also, like Dewayne Dulaney, I found the Aleph with Beth videos to be a truly excellent and unique contribution to the study of Biblical Hebrew - and especially for lay folks. I have become a big fan of Andrew and Beth Case and of their personal dedication to the task of helping others learn Biblical languages. I found Beth to be an excellent language teacher and I can easily believe her when she reports that she spends about 30 hours of preparation for every 15-20 minute video! Though the videos may seem very simple at first, they are very well planned and executed. Beth clearly has a master plan in her mix of repetition and introducing new language elements. If you know Hebrew it soon becomes apparent that she's skillfully building toward an end. This was my chosen vehicle to kick off the revival of my Biblical Hebrew studies. I covered all 151 videos and 56 “Biblical Hebrew Easy Stories” over a period of about 3 or 4 months. I look back on it as an excellent choice of vehicles!

Nowadays, I am working on a project to produce a teaching manual (for want of a better term) to help students of Biblical Hebrew move from the basics into actually reading and interacting with the Hebrew text of the Tanakh. I am also acting as a resource person for several friends who are exploring Biblical Hebrew via the Aleph with Beth resources.

[Thomas Dolhanty]

This site seems mighty quiet! As I'm new here, I am wondering if I have that right? And if I do, I'm curious at to why that is? Is there really such a low interest in Biblical Hebrew? I Find that hard to believe! And all the mores so as I look at some of the past discussions and initiatives. Why then so little activity?

If there is genuine interest - I have to believe there is - it would be interesting to hear what folks are up to with respect to Biblical Hebrew activities and interests and initiatives - reading, studies, teaching, projects, current interests and so on.

[talmid56]

Welcome, Thomas! It has been quiet here lately, possibly because members are going to other fora, like Nerdy Biblical Language Majors on Facebook, or to the Discourse Hebrew sites. However, I still check in here often. Hope things will get more active. Questions are welcome.

[Thomas Dolhanty]

Thanks, Dewayne. This seems to me such a superior platform for serious dialogue re. Biblical Hebrew compared to Facebook! Though I'm new to B-Hebrew, I've spent quite a few years on the B-Greek forum and received much benefit from the dialogues there in the past. (In fact, I still automatically want to write "Greek" after the "B-" from force of habit, as I did in my opening sentence above! )

My interest in Biblical Hebrew is to be able to read it, and hear it, the way the first audiences of the various Biblical authors would have done - and to help others to do the same. Most of us are not grammarians, just as most of them were not grammarians. Thank God for the grammarians, and I do look to them quite often for help in learning how to 'hear' ancient Greek or Hebrew correctly. But actually interacting with the Biblical Hebrew text or Greek text is where I find most joy and satisfaction. And I love to see others achieve that experience too. Seeing that "lights on" moment in someone who has actually begun to function in Biblical Greek or Hebrew is worth all the effort in helping him/her get there!

A few month ago I came across some of Stephen Krashen's videos on language acquisition versus language learning and it really helped me to focus something which I've known by experience for a lot of years. Hearing someone like Krashen codify some of the experience and confirm it with solid research has given me a new impetus - and direction - to acquire Biblical Hebrew. And I think my favourite (Cdn. eh?) metaphor when thinking of this is the picture of the little child who wants to hear mom or dad read the same account of Goldilocks again, and again - exactly as he/she has heard it before. That, to me, is the classic picture of how we all acquire language! "Comprehensible Input" in an optimal language acquisition setting!

Love to hear what you're up to these days with respect to Biblical Hebrew!

[Jason Hare]

Shalom, Thomas. You’re right to mention that the forum has been rather dormant. Most of my online interaction for Hebrew stuff has been through Facebook (especially, the Nerdy Biblical Language Majors [NBLM]) and Discord (especially, my own Biblical Languages server associated with the Hebrew Café). With that, I’ve kinda lost track here... and it didn’t help that I felt a lot of personal tension with one member here that made my experience negative. I needed a break, for sure.

I talked with Kirk this week for the first time in a while, and we decided that we’re going to sit down and talk about the direction of this forum and what we can do to get it going again. Not everyone wants to move to Discord, and Facebook really is unruly for long–form discussions. There are definite benefits to keeping this forum going for its own sake.

I started Hebrew back in 1999, and now I live in Israel and teach Hebrew over YouTube. We worked through Seow’s grammar, Kutz and Josberger’s grammar, Weingreen’s grammar, and right now we’re going through Lambdin’s grammar (playlist). Feel welcome to come and hang out with us.

We’ve used parts of this forum in the past for doing Hebrew lessons together. We can definitely do something like that again, if you’re interested. I’ll also make announcements about our Hebrew reading group that meets on Mondays at 5:00pm (Eastern), in case anyone just wants to meet to hear our Hebrew reading and discussions of the text.

Either way, I hope the place will start to come back to life soon.

[Kenneth Greifer]

Greetings B-Hebrew members. I’m new here and looking forward to asking some questions and perhaps sharing some of my own discoveries in learning and interacting with the Hebrew Scriptures.

Hello, Thomas, I was curious what kind of discoveries you have made. Usually people who come here have all kinds of unique fringe theories about the Bible that they like to talk about. I used to post here about my own discoveries because I liked doing my own amateur textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible. I basically like to divide the Hebrew letters into words differently to see if the letters can form other words that make more sense. I have done that for hundreds of verses, and I self-published all my ideas as ebooks on Amazon. I am not going to mention any of my ideas here because I am too lazy to do that nowadays. I am just curious what you meant by "discoveries" you have made.
Kenneth Greifer

[Thomas Dolhanty]

Greetings Jason. My apologies for being slow to reply. This is the first time I've been able to log onto this site for about two weeks. Since I joined B-Hebrew I have had trouble connecting with this site - even though I have no trouble connecting with any other site, including B-Greek. Most recently my Browser (Firefox in this case) reports a security/certificate issue - with dire warnings if I ignore it! Sigh!

I was interested in your comments - in various places and posts - on the Kutz & Josberger grammar and workbook. Like you, I've acquired and been through a myriad of grammars and reference books over the years. I started with Ross on my own. And by the time I finished I felt very much like you felt after your first year - I wondered whether I would keep going! Ross is great in many ways, but by the time I finished I felt like I sometimes felt as a kid after a very large meal - I didn't know if I could handle one more bite! I also own, and have used, Futato, Pratico & Van Pelt, Travis West (Interactive Approach) at various stages along the way. I also regularly access the usual 'beyond the basics' volumes - Jouon-Muraoka, Gesenius, Waltke & O'Connor - all of which I have digitally on my copy of Accordance. Accordance is a mainstay for me!

I am casting around trying to find the right book for folks to use after going through the Aleph with Beth video series. My plan is to use the Joseph narrative as the introduction to substantial Biblical Hebrew narrative. I am working on a teaching manual to cover that awesome section of Biblical Hebrew narrative. There will be a strong emphasis on audio, as well as the written text. For example, I've divided the entire 14 chapters of the Hebrew script using the cantillation marks in concert with narrations by Abraham Shmuelof and Shlomoh Bertonov as a guide. Students who have been through the entire Aleph with Beth program (156 videos + 56 Easy Biblical Hebrew Short Stories) are very attuned to relating to the text by hearing it.

I picked up a copy of the Kutz & Josberger grammar and workbook and am going through it now. I like it a lot in many ways. However, at least as a first impression, I find that for the beginner there is way too much discussion in the early part of the text on the mechanics of the language. Very interesting and helpful - but too much for the kind of student I'm working with. As usual, there is reason to both love and hate every grammar, it seems, and I'm still working through this one. For sure, there is much to love about it, and it may be a matter of using it with close advice from the tutor/instructor on what matters at this stage and what to breeze over in the early going. So far, it seems that I would not find so much use for the workbook, as my own teaching manual on Genesis 37-50 will deal with those issues - and use ONLY the actual Hebrew text as the reading material.

I do hope I can get past my connection issues with this site - and I am glad to hear that you may be around here a bit more! I found many of your earlier posts interesting, instructive, and engaging.

[Thomas Dolhanty]

Hello, Kenneth. I think I’m using the word “discoveries” in a narrower sense than you are. I’m quite sure that none my “discoveries” in Biblical Hebrew are discoveries in the larger sense. Rather, I was speaking about things that I learned along the way about Biblical Hebrew – personal discoveries about the language. For example, the importance of understanding the trop as a guide in rightly dividing the Hebrew script. My great joy is the Biblical text itself!

[Kenneth Greifer]

Thomas,
I have watched some of the Aleph with Beth videos too, but I stopped because I hate watching videos. I understand they recommend immersion and reading and watching videos, etc., but I hate watching movies and videos because I feel forced to study the words that the people in the video are interested in instead of the words I want to study.

I sometimes decide to study a certain verb or two that you can practice with together and then I look for a few nouns and maybe an adverb or two to practice making my own sentences with. I like to practice conjugating verbs by using them in little sentences that I think of using a few other words with them. Then I try to practice a new verb with some other nouns that go well with it. I don't like to learn lists of nouns or verbs, but a few words at a time that can be interesting together. I only study what I call past, present, future, and a little bit of the infinitive forms. I don't like to practice the command forms much. I know I am supposed to say perfect and imperfect and imperative probably, but I don't say those words.

I am curious how many hours a day did you study at your peak studying Hebrew and how many you might do in an average day? If you look at language learning videos, they all talk about how many hours they have studied languages, so I am curious about how much time the best learners study and practice every day or however often they study.

Kenneth Greifer

[talmid56]

Hi Thomas,

Have you looked at Paul Overland's or Robert Holmstedt's beginning textbooks? They are departures from the usual grammar-translation approach in some ways. I've seen samples of each and have Overland's book in Logos. Both are more user-friendly than most modern grammars for BH I've seen/read reviews about. Overland also has a book covering conversation BH classroom phrases on various topics. This might be a good supplement to the Aleph with Beth classroom vocabulary videos.

The Joseph story is a great reading choice. Another good option is a short book like Jonah or Ruth. Linga Deo Gloria has some good editions aimed at beginning/intermediate Hebrew readers for both these books. One nice feature they provide is pictures of key vocab in the margin, with glosses in Hebrew.

You can see and download these at https://www.linguadeogloria.com/books. They call these Visual Readers, which is correct. The same site also has several Greek resources for Koine.