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A Basic Introduction to Biblical Hebrew: with CD
It has long been acknowledged that the classic textbook Basics of Biblical Hebrew was the standard Hebrew grammar for college and seminary students wishing to study biblical Hebrew. With the release on Jo Ann Hackett's grammar A Basic Introduction to Biblical Hebrew that assumption can no longer be made.
Hackett's grammar is arranged in 30 lessons which makes it excellent for intensive study over the period of 1 semester, or for 2 semesters over the course of an entire school year. During the study the stude4nt will encounter several new approaches to learning the language. First, Hackett lists verbal forms from 1st person to 3rd person, rather than the traditional approach of 3rd to 1st. She acknowledges that the traditional way in counter intuitive with English speaking students because they learn their verbs from 1st to 3rd.
Second, rather than introducing both strong and weak verbs together, Hackett divides them and presents all strong verbs first, and then introduces weak verbs near the end of the book. Again, the principle in play here is to follow a formal order that layers and slowly introduces nuance into the language rather than shifting back and forth between straight forward items, and more difficult aspects of the language.
Third, Hackett also jettisons what she believes are "old-fashioned methods" of teaching the Hebrew verbal system in favor of a more simple, but also more descriptive system using the terms "prefix conjugation" and "suffix conjugation." She also uses ve-qatal to describe what is popularly known as the "converted perfect".
Fourth, unlike many Hebrew grammars, Hackett introduces her verbal forms logically. She notes, "It is a logical progression to begin with the prefix conjugation and lead up to the consecutive preterite. The consecutive preterite is the form beginning students must know thoroughly in order to read most biblical prose, and in order to lead them to that form, I needed to introduce the jussive, and in order to introduce the jussive, I first needed to present the prefix conjugation.
Finally, Hackett introduces several new pedagogical techniques in her grammar. She emphasizes accent marks in her exercises, though both are artificial, or written by Hackett rather than taken from the biblical text. But Hackett's goal justifies her actions; she wants "to present both disjunctive and conjunctive accents to the students, and at this early time in their biblical Hebrew study, the impossibility of some of my combinations will not affect their learning the [accent] system as a whole." Along with this Hackett does stress the memorization of paradigms, and supplies verbs, where needed, to complete the paradigm even if a particular verbal form does not appear in the Hebrew text.
The CD which accompanies the book contains several helpful features for the student, not least of which is its helpful pronunciation guide. This includes the pronunciation of all Hebrew-to-English exercises in lessons 1-15, and the first two exercises of lessons 16-30. It also supplies the full pronunciation of Genesis 22.1-19, a common text used by instructors to help students learn pronunciation. Lastly, the answers for the books exercises can be found on the CD-ROM, and an additional workbook containing graded reading of biblical passages, glosses, additional vocabulary, is in the works and will be keyed to this book.
Hackett's grammar is arranged in 30 lessons which makes it excellent for intensive study over the period of 1 semester, or for 2 semesters over the course of an entire school year. During the study the stude4nt will encounter several new approaches to learning the language. First, Hackett lists verbal forms from 1st person to 3rd person, rather than the traditional approach of 3rd to 1st. She acknowledges that the traditional way in counter intuitive with English speaking students because they learn their verbs from 1st to 3rd.
Second, rather than introducing both strong and weak verbs together, Hackett divides them and presents all strong verbs first, and then introduces weak verbs near the end of the book. Again, the principle in play here is to follow a formal order that layers and slowly introduces nuance into the language rather than shifting back and forth between straight forward items, and more difficult aspects of the language.
Third, Hackett also jettisons what she believes are "old-fashioned methods" of teaching the Hebrew verbal system in favor of a more simple, but also more descriptive system using the terms "prefix conjugation" and "suffix conjugation." She also uses ve-qatal to describe what is popularly known as the "converted perfect".
Fourth, unlike many Hebrew grammars, Hackett introduces her verbal forms logically. She notes, "It is a logical progression to begin with the prefix conjugation and lead up to the consecutive preterite. The consecutive preterite is the form beginning students must know thoroughly in order to read most biblical prose, and in order to lead them to that form, I needed to introduce the jussive, and in order to introduce the jussive, I first needed to present the prefix conjugation.
Finally, Hackett introduces several new pedagogical techniques in her grammar. She emphasizes accent marks in her exercises, though both are artificial, or written by Hackett rather than taken from the biblical text. But Hackett's goal justifies her actions; she wants "to present both disjunctive and conjunctive accents to the students, and at this early time in their biblical Hebrew study, the impossibility of some of my combinations will not affect their learning the [accent] system as a whole." Along with this Hackett does stress the memorization of paradigms, and supplies verbs, where needed, to complete the paradigm even if a particular verbal form does not appear in the Hebrew text.
The CD which accompanies the book contains several helpful features for the student, not least of which is its helpful pronunciation guide. This includes the pronunciation of all Hebrew-to-English exercises in lessons 1-15, and the first two exercises of lessons 16-30. It also supplies the full pronunciation of Genesis 22.1-19, a common text used by instructors to help students learn pronunciation. Lastly, the answers for the books exercises can be found on the CD-ROM, and an additional workbook containing graded reading of biblical passages, glosses, additional vocabulary, is in the works and will be keyed to this book.
- GenresLanguageNonfiction
296 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
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July 6, 2011
In comparison with other Hebrew books I have come across, this is easily the worst Hebrew book with which I have worked. Having a CD with all the resources it has is nice, but beyond that this book is horrendous.
Now, I hate reading reviews which either praise or criticize a book without providing proper justification, so let me provide some of the reasons why I don't care for this book. Firstly, this book is littered with typos; granted, the text is in its first edition, but I would imagine that much more of these typos would have been found and corrected in using prototypes of this text with all her students at Harvard and the University of Texas. As an example of this, note the second word of exercise 6 on page 113 having a sin instead of a shin. This is just one of the typos that I remember off the top of my head; were I to actually go through the book and write out all the typos I found, this list would certainly be much longer.
Secondly, Hackett's textbook simply lacks way too much grammatical concepts which in my opinion makes learning the grammar easier; instead of learning difficult-sounding but relatively simple grammatical rules and morphological changes, she would rather have you memorize them as they occur. I don't know about you, but I would rather have to memorize one grammatical concept than to memorize 15 words as irregular. For instance, at no point does she say that, for unaccented He + qamets, unaccented ayin + qamets, and accented/unaccented chet + qamets, the definite article is he + seghol; instead, she just has you memorize every word where this is the case as irregular. Her text tries to be deductive without grammatical!
Thirdly, the text really is not that clear (or, when it is, its often clear at the expense of thoroughness). For instance, she fails to note the similarities in the paradigms between min ("from") and kh ("like") with pronominal suffixes, which could result in the student seeing the two as completely disconnected (which I did until I read the corresponding section from Seow); she just has you memorize the paradigms as semi-irregular, something for which I have criticized her previously.
Fourthly, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as why concepts or vocabulary are being presented in the particular order that she gives. With respect to the vocabulary, this is particularly a problem for students such as myself who would like to know how much of the Hebrew text they should reasonably expect to be able to read. I don't know if by the end of this book I'll know 99% of all word occurrences in the Hebrew Bible, 50%, 10% or even 1%. Should I be supplementing my vocabulary right now? With Hackett's book, I have no idea.
Fifthly, there simply are not enough exercises. Given that the the first 6 chapters are devoted to the alphabet and pronunciation alone and there are 30 chapters in total, there are only 24 chapters in the text of actual grammar. And in each of these chapters she gives never gives upwards of 20 sentences for translation; the most she seems to give is 18 in chapter 25. Now, I am of the opinion that less than 20 sentences is simply not enough practice for grammatical concepts to sink in, especially at the rate at which she is presenting them. I would rather she include an excessive amount of sentences for practice and have the instructor choose for the student which one's to do. Furthermore, with the exception of Genesis 22:1-19, she simply does not have any extended passages for reading or translation at all.
Sixthly, this book simply does not cover all the Hebrew grammar that I feel should be covered in an introductory language course (for those who wish to know, I have also studied Spanish and Latin, am currently also taking Attic Greek, and have also studied bits and pieces of Tagalog). To see what I mean, browse through the Table of Contents to see what she covers and when she covers it. If you are particularly attentive, you'll notice she never covers the superlative degree for adjectives, though she does cover comparatives in chapter 9.
Now, to be fair, there are some good things about this book. The CD is rather nice, and I suppose a self-learner would benefit from the answer key and audio readings for the exercises (though in future editions it may be more helpful for the audio to be read by native Hebrew speakers instead of by her). Her introduction to the alphabet is gives time for the student to familiarize himself with the alphabet (though in my opinion she takes more time going through the alphabet than is really necessary). She also provides some good information on various accents and other special markings, though once again this list is meager (the atnakh, merkhah, munakh, revia, silluq, soph pasuq, tiphkhah, an zaqeph are covered in this textbook). On the whole, however, these benefits simply do not outweigh the disadvantages.
To summarize, Jo Ann Hackett's A Basic Introduction to Biblical Hebrew is on the whole a horrendous textbook IMHO. She may be a good scholar, but that does not necessarily make her a good teacher.
Now, before I conclude this review, I think its important that I provide some sort of alternative rather than just simply bashing Hackett's textbook (please bear in mind that I am still learning Biblical Hebrew). After reading reviews and looking at different introductory Hebrew grammars out there, I have come to prefer Lambdin and Seow over Hackett. Both now come with answer keys, which are helpful for the self-learner, and both are very thorough in their presentation of the grammar. Most of the reviews I have read seem to prefer Lambdin over Seow (because Lambdin is more thorough in his presentation of the grammar), but Lambdin also costs a lot more. If you live near a university or scholarly seminary, check out some local used bookstores for Lambdin; I managed to find a used but hardcover and unmarked copy of his Introduction to Biblical Hebrew for $12. Seow was written to replace Lambdin, so if one has the time one could go through Seow quickly and then see where Lambdin expands upon the material. Finally, a lot of people don't seem to like Seow because the most recent edition of his textbook lacks an English to Hebrew glossary. Now, this is a true, but this should not be a significant issue, for two reasons: (1) there is a plethora of electronic resources which make finding the entry in the BDB much simpler (try googling bible web app), and (2) there is an English to Hebrew glossary you can print out online (http://www.lionelwindsor.net/2009/06/...). Just keep in mind that this greater attentiveness to the Hebrew grammar results in a much more difficult textbook; reviewers are absolutely correct in saying that they are difficult to get through alone, so unless you have someone to guide you through some of the more difficult terrain, have the time and patience to work through the textbook yourself, or have had enough prior experience in Biblical Hebrew to make it through the more difficult parts, you may be better off with another textbook. You'll be expected to bring much more to the table, but I believe you will leave with a much greater command of the language.
Now, I hate reading reviews which either praise or criticize a book without providing proper justification, so let me provide some of the reasons why I don't care for this book. Firstly, this book is littered with typos; granted, the text is in its first edition, but I would imagine that much more of these typos would have been found and corrected in using prototypes of this text with all her students at Harvard and the University of Texas. As an example of this, note the second word of exercise 6 on page 113 having a sin instead of a shin. This is just one of the typos that I remember off the top of my head; were I to actually go through the book and write out all the typos I found, this list would certainly be much longer.
Secondly, Hackett's textbook simply lacks way too much grammatical concepts which in my opinion makes learning the grammar easier; instead of learning difficult-sounding but relatively simple grammatical rules and morphological changes, she would rather have you memorize them as they occur. I don't know about you, but I would rather have to memorize one grammatical concept than to memorize 15 words as irregular. For instance, at no point does she say that, for unaccented He + qamets, unaccented ayin + qamets, and accented/unaccented chet + qamets, the definite article is he + seghol; instead, she just has you memorize every word where this is the case as irregular. Her text tries to be deductive without grammatical!
Thirdly, the text really is not that clear (or, when it is, its often clear at the expense of thoroughness). For instance, she fails to note the similarities in the paradigms between min ("from") and kh ("like") with pronominal suffixes, which could result in the student seeing the two as completely disconnected (which I did until I read the corresponding section from Seow); she just has you memorize the paradigms as semi-irregular, something for which I have criticized her previously.
Fourthly, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as why concepts or vocabulary are being presented in the particular order that she gives. With respect to the vocabulary, this is particularly a problem for students such as myself who would like to know how much of the Hebrew text they should reasonably expect to be able to read. I don't know if by the end of this book I'll know 99% of all word occurrences in the Hebrew Bible, 50%, 10% or even 1%. Should I be supplementing my vocabulary right now? With Hackett's book, I have no idea.
Fifthly, there simply are not enough exercises. Given that the the first 6 chapters are devoted to the alphabet and pronunciation alone and there are 30 chapters in total, there are only 24 chapters in the text of actual grammar. And in each of these chapters she gives never gives upwards of 20 sentences for translation; the most she seems to give is 18 in chapter 25. Now, I am of the opinion that less than 20 sentences is simply not enough practice for grammatical concepts to sink in, especially at the rate at which she is presenting them. I would rather she include an excessive amount of sentences for practice and have the instructor choose for the student which one's to do. Furthermore, with the exception of Genesis 22:1-19, she simply does not have any extended passages for reading or translation at all.
Sixthly, this book simply does not cover all the Hebrew grammar that I feel should be covered in an introductory language course (for those who wish to know, I have also studied Spanish and Latin, am currently also taking Attic Greek, and have also studied bits and pieces of Tagalog). To see what I mean, browse through the Table of Contents to see what she covers and when she covers it. If you are particularly attentive, you'll notice she never covers the superlative degree for adjectives, though she does cover comparatives in chapter 9.
Now, to be fair, there are some good things about this book. The CD is rather nice, and I suppose a self-learner would benefit from the answer key and audio readings for the exercises (though in future editions it may be more helpful for the audio to be read by native Hebrew speakers instead of by her). Her introduction to the alphabet is gives time for the student to familiarize himself with the alphabet (though in my opinion she takes more time going through the alphabet than is really necessary). She also provides some good information on various accents and other special markings, though once again this list is meager (the atnakh, merkhah, munakh, revia, silluq, soph pasuq, tiphkhah, an zaqeph are covered in this textbook). On the whole, however, these benefits simply do not outweigh the disadvantages.
To summarize, Jo Ann Hackett's A Basic Introduction to Biblical Hebrew is on the whole a horrendous textbook IMHO. She may be a good scholar, but that does not necessarily make her a good teacher.
Now, before I conclude this review, I think its important that I provide some sort of alternative rather than just simply bashing Hackett's textbook (please bear in mind that I am still learning Biblical Hebrew). After reading reviews and looking at different introductory Hebrew grammars out there, I have come to prefer Lambdin and Seow over Hackett. Both now come with answer keys, which are helpful for the self-learner, and both are very thorough in their presentation of the grammar. Most of the reviews I have read seem to prefer Lambdin over Seow (because Lambdin is more thorough in his presentation of the grammar), but Lambdin also costs a lot more. If you live near a university or scholarly seminary, check out some local used bookstores for Lambdin; I managed to find a used but hardcover and unmarked copy of his Introduction to Biblical Hebrew for $12. Seow was written to replace Lambdin, so if one has the time one could go through Seow quickly and then see where Lambdin expands upon the material. Finally, a lot of people don't seem to like Seow because the most recent edition of his textbook lacks an English to Hebrew glossary. Now, this is a true, but this should not be a significant issue, for two reasons: (1) there is a plethora of electronic resources which make finding the entry in the BDB much simpler (try googling bible web app), and (2) there is an English to Hebrew glossary you can print out online (http://www.lionelwindsor.net/2009/06/...). Just keep in mind that this greater attentiveness to the Hebrew grammar results in a much more difficult textbook; reviewers are absolutely correct in saying that they are difficult to get through alone, so unless you have someone to guide you through some of the more difficult terrain, have the time and patience to work through the textbook yourself, or have had enough prior experience in Biblical Hebrew to make it through the more difficult parts, you may be better off with another textbook. You'll be expected to bring much more to the table, but I believe you will leave with a much greater command of the language.
February 18, 2017
This is not the easiest basic grammer to work from.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews