Beginning Biblical Hebrew [Hardcover]

I am admittedly a bit biased in assessing this book. I took 2 classes of Hebrew under Dr. Futato where he used this book as his basic Grammar textbook for the courses. As such, I had the advantage not only of this Grammar, but also having access to its author as he went through it and explained the material as well as his thought process for how he chose to organize the Grammar.

This Grammar has some features in it that are lacking in most other Grammars that are so common sense, it makes one hope that Futato's Hebrew Grammar will at least inspire better Grammars by others. In particular, Futato insists on introducing the student to relevant vocabulary in the lesson prior to when it will be used to teach the subsequent lesson's contents. In Grammar after Grammar, students find themselves in the position of not only learning new concepts with each lesson, but being exposed to vocabulary not previously learned that is essential to being able to tangibly work with the concepts in that lesson. This is a very poor methodology of teaching a language, and Futato goes a long way toward rectifying that here. It's great to see vocabulary relating to the Hiphil (as just one example) in the lesson BEFORE getting exposed to the Hiphil, and then using that vocabulary in the Hiphil lesson to substantively interact with the Hiphil.

In addition, emphasis is placed on the majors instead of the minors, and each lesson is very digestable in terms of its length and content. Where the concepts are more difficult, Futato breaks up the lessons so that the student can absorb the material gradually. The lessons are well written and non-technical for the most part. Futato, I think, recognizes that he is writing this Grammar for beginners, and as such, expounds the material at a truly beginner level. Students, I think, can make considerable progress in this book independently, and that's a credit to how well the Grammar is laid out, and how clear the material is presented.

The lesson exercises themselves have elements in them that range from great to so-so. The translation exercises get progressively more difficult as more lessons are learned, and this keeps the student challenged, but not overwhelmed. Futato generally does a good job of providing at least some explanation for relevant oddities in the Hebrew language that the student will encounter in the lesson exercises. Each lesson exercise has a section devoted to reviewing material and concepts from previous lessons, thus keeping the previous material fresh and providing a sustained basis for the logical accumulation of knowledge. My only mini-complaint is that some of the exercises are actually a little too easy and rudimentary, and that's saying something coming from someone like me who doesn't possess a particularly strong aptitude for languages.

I'm giving the book 4 stars for 2 main reasons, one of which I know is going to be fixed. There are a proliferation of grammatical mistakes throughout the Grammar, and in some cases, those mistakes are quite material in terms of introducing mass confusion into some of the lesson exercise questions. Futato is aware of this problem and is working with the publisher to correct these mistakes. So I fully suspect that the next printing of this Grammar will be much cleaner. The more substantive problem is that while this is not a Syntax, the lesson exercises that deal with translation do not ask the student to parse verbs and participles - the student is merely asked to translate. To me, this is incomplete, and I would suggest that these exercises be modified to force students not merely to translate, but to parse verbs from the Hebrew text, and to have the answer key in the back of the book modified accordingly.

But overall, this is a fine introductory Grammar that lays down a solid basis for further study of Biblical Hebrew.

Several features make this one the easiest hebrew grammars to learn from

1) it is organized in short simple chapters.

2) Explanations are clear but brief, covering main points well.

3) The exercises and their answers are all in this volume, so there is no need to buy a separate workbook or answer key.

4) Exercises are divided into "new material" and "review" sections, making it easy to direct your efforts where you need the most work.

5) Every chapter has a separate set of exercise directly from the bible, so you get plenty of practice in reading real biblical hebrew.

6) Tables of grammatical forms are printed in two colors to make the changes in forms stand out.

There are a lot of typographical errors, but errata sheets available from the publisher help overcome that. About 25% of the errors are the same misprint of the same word throughout the book.

I would have rated it a four except that I purchased the first edition, which has an unacceptable number of errors (but I paid close to nothing for it, so I can't complain). The second edition is an excellent book for someone who knows nothing of Hebrew to learn it on their own without taking any classes, going to any lectures, or paying any tuition. You can be reading and translating your Hebrew bible on your own once you've finished this grammar (and with the help of a lexicon). It really helps you to enjoy the process of learning Hebrew.

I do recommend, however, that those who wish to go beyond a basic understanding purchase a few other books to compliment it because in its mission for simplicity, it leaves out technical terms and other information that will be valuable to the Hebrew student. So, for instance, I also purchased "Grammatical Concepts 101 for Biblical Hebrew" by Gary Long, which is helping to fill in these gaps while providing a very affective diagrammatic way to see how the linguistics of Hebrew work in relation to English.

On a final note, I find it rather peculiar that the main verb used throughout the grammar to learn and memorize various verb paradigms means "to kill" (or slay/slaughter). Thus, throughout this book, you will be chanting in Hebrew about yourself and others having slayed or slaugthered, are slaying or are slaughtering, etc. And what is more bizzare is that the author never seems to disclose the meaning of this word so that you'd never know you were chanting about slaughter and slaying until you looked it up in a lexicon (or read this review).