The Cambridge Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Paperback with CD-ROM

by Brian L. Webster

The Cambridge Introduction to Biblical Hebrew is designed for anyone studying biblical Hebrew for the first time. It is well suited for students enrolled in introductory-level courses as well as clergy and laity engaged in self-study. The accompanying CD (suitable for Mac and PC) includes the workbook, answers, paradigms, and the interactive program TekScroll. TekScroll greatly facilitates learning through grammar illustrations with moving graphics, interactive parsing programs, translation practice items, and a vocabulary program. The grammar illustrations demonstrate key grammatical points. The parsing programs provide feedback, hints, and corrections. Translation practice comes primarily from biblical verses. The vocabulary quizzing program includes audio of the vocabulary words. The textbook is designed for a two-semester course covering one chapter of grammar per week (22 chapters) and then turning to select syntactical items. Each chapter begins with a Focus section, identifying key elements, and is followed by a summary, vocabulary list, and description of the learning activities on the CD. The practice translation items and workbook exercises only use vocabulary from previous chapters (with few exceptions), so that they can be used immediately in classroom instruction.

380 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Paul, · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used the preliminary version of this book with Dr. Webster in my first year of Hebrew at DTS. I have also tutored other students who were using Pratico and Van Pelt's Basics of Biblical Hebrew and Alan Ross's Introducing Biblical Hebrew. I have also studied several other languages (living and dead) at the university level. In my opinion, Webster's book is a modern language textbook while other Hebrew books are holding on to some dead traditions. For example, Pratico and Van Pelt list their verb paradigms with the 3rd person first. I've studied Russian, Latvian, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, and Koine and all of those languages start with the 1st person. Switching it around just makes it that much harder to learn Hebrew.

The real strength of Webster's book is that he explains why the vowels change the way they do. This makes the first months of Hebrew harder than they are in the other books. However, the payoff is awesome because you cruise through the second semester because you are building on a deep foundation. In other Hebrew books, the second semester is a killer because you don't understand why the vowels are changing, so you just memorize the changes.

The CD is a huge advantage also. It gives the user lots of repetition and some visual explanations of things. There is still some work to be done on this part though. It has all the information and drills that you could want, but it is not very intuitive to use. I think that, when a second edition comes out, the CD w