Gesenius vs Jouon?

[Gedalya]

Hi all,

 

For the advanced student:

Which of these two volumes is easier to comprehend?

 

What are the pluses and minuses of each of these volumes?

 

Which one is more up to date?

 

Do they cover the same material?

 

If you could only buy one, which one would you purchase?

[Daniel R]

Jouon-Muraoka is more up-to-date. It's longer. It has more information. And it interacts with GKC. If you can only get one, get JM, but they work better together

[Michel Gilbert]

Hi Gordon,

 

I agree with Daniel. Both/and is better than either/or. GKC’s strength is morphology; its weakness is syntax, some of which is very dated. Jouon-Muraoka is much better for grammar and a bit of syntax.

 

Regards,

 

Michel

[Gedalya]

How does Watke's Intro to Biblical Hebrew Syntax compare to Jouon's Grammar?   NET notes seems to reference the Intro extensively in their notes.

[Daniel R]

Waltke-O'Connor is not a grammar. It has zero information about BH phonology or morphology. It only addresses syntactic functions.

[Robert Holmstedt]

JM is much newer and references many resources written in the last century, after GKC was published. And yet, GKC will discuss or list a word not treated in JM enough times that they both should be used.

For all that, both books' treatment of syntax and semantics (verbal system, interclausal relationships) should be used carefully, since GKC's is very dated and JM's is often idiosyncratic. Waltke-OConnor should be substituted in for most matters of syntax-semantics.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Robert Holmstedt