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Updates & Corrections — Thank you!


Julia Falling

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I just wanted to express my appreciation for all the corrections and updates.  I certainly do not take all that work for granted.

 

I noticed also that I can now do a search of the LXX and limit my search to the OT (sans Apocrypha).  That is a huge help.  Thanks for that, too.

 

I'm still wandering around in a fog of Hebrew so I haven't posted much in the last week.  But that doesn't mean I've stopped using my wonderful Accordance.

 

Final Tuesday 8 am.  Maybe after that I can do a few things besides Hebrew for about 5 weeks.  (I'll keep reviewing because I do not want to have to relearn everything!)

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Haha, I would forget my Hebrew even while still studying it, let alone afterwards!

 

It does seem to need extra special attention to learn and retain.

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Ιακοβ –

 

I am having an awful time retaining vocab. Then, when I've studied and studied, and try to ID the preformatives, sufformatives, and all the various "attachments," I have an awful time finding my words in a text. Disappearing consonants and morphing vowels don't help. I'm only auditing, but I'm putting in 25+ hours/week. If there is some secret for acquiring Biblical Hebrew, someone please share! I suspect that it's just going to take time and exposure.

 

Believe it or not, even with all my struggles, I'm doing well (if one is to believe the quiz results). But I never feel like I'm really prepared for anything except parsing and vocab and producing verb paradigms. The translations really gives me problems. And this prof expects us to go from English to Hebrew with one or two words in the vocab each quiz. Frustrated. Maybe that's normal. It seems to be normal for me, anyway.

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It seems to me, in my experience, that most people struggle with Hebrew, even with a excellent lecturer—even the top students.

 

I don't say this to discourage you, but to suggest that you shouldn't feel bad or frustrated, it really is just that hard. My Hebrew lecturer suggests the reason for this discrepancy is probably that while its possible to get quite a good grip on biblical Greek in one year, biblical Hebrew requires about two years to get to the same level. (Yet usually both are squashed into one year of study)

 

It's worth it, stick with it :-) 

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Ιακοβ -

 

Thank you for the encouragement. I have run into a few who think Hebrew is easier. But the Greek prof I had last year, though he hadn't learned Hebrew, thought ahead of time that Hebrew would give him trouble because he says he needs the vowels to remember the words. I think that is a lot of the problem.

 

I do plan on sticking with it, barring any unforeseen circumstances, but wonder if I'll ever be as comfortable with Hebrew as I am with Greek. I do enjoy class, and the principles are, so far, are not difficult to understand. But translation often gives me trouble. I need practice. And time, I think.

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I suspect Ιακοβ's lecturer is fairly close to the mark. I am not studying Hebrew by the same approach as Greek. It's going more slowly but I hope laying a solid foundation. I did a lot basic material with Randall Buth's lectures which emphasize listening and use. He introduces paradigms relatively slowly after one gets familiarity with the sound and script. I am now going through the First Hebrew Primer (FHP) which is not hugely dissimilar though I prefer the audio from Buth's material. I'm about to start with Ruth in Ch 10 after going through a good deal of very simple sentences which the authors just made up. Most to date has simply been in qal perf in the verb space which is of course much simpler. I'll drill paradigms a bunch a little later on. With Greek I did it the other way around. As a consequence I am really in a second year of basic material.

 

One thing I think is hard in FHP is that repeated writing exercises including translation to Hebrew from English. But I believe strongly that these are extremely valuable.

 

One other thing I did which might not appeal to all, is that I studied Akkadian morphology for about six months from another book. What's cool about that is that if you do it in transliteration (which this book did) is that you get a feel for that kind of morphology (semitic) without having to deal with the square script. I ordinarily dislike translit. but here it was very helpful.

 

I think it's helpful to read a lot of simple material - I am heavily influenced by Rod Decker's multi-pass reading approach I must say - documented in his Greek reader. I am doing that with Greek, German and Hebrew and it really helps I believe. I reached a point in my Greek a couple of years back where I became convinced that I was reading too much grammar and too little Greek. I have since tried to alter that balance a bit. Thus with Hebrew I looked for a less analytical and more direct point of access.

 

Anyhow, this is just a very long-winded way of my offering my encouragement in a thing which is not particularly easy and requires sustained work.

 

Thx

D

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There's another difficulty beyond learning morphology: the Greek in the New Testament is among the easiest ancient Greek that exists to read, and the Hebrew in parts of the Bible is among the most difficult classical Hebrew! (I'm looking at you, Major Prophets...)

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Thanks, GB.

 

Don't you think there are another couple of issues as well?  For those of us have English as our first language, learning Greek is learning another Indo-European language – it's not quite so foreign.  Additionally, the entire NT was written within about 50 years, more or less.

 

Hebrew, on the other hand, is Semitic.  Seems very foreign.  And the OT was written over a period of more than 1000 years, more or less.  Hebrew in Genesis is not the same as Hebrew in Isaiah, right?  I've only completed 1 semester, but this is the kind of stuff that is being brought up in class.

 

Basically, Hebrew has not 'gelled' for me yet.  I'm going to work over the break to try to get a better handle on it.

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Hi,

 

Some thoughts about whether Hebrew is harder, and if it is, whether it is worth learning.

 

First of all, in my experience, the people who say Greek was harder took a watered-down version of first year Hebrew, learning little or nothing of the weak verbs -  and most of the verbs in the HB are weak! With such a glaring omission of one of the most difficult but most needed parts of a first year course, no wonder Greek was harder for some.

 

Second, if one looks at it objectively, the Hebrew script is harder - it's all foreign, there are more vowels, and syllable division and accents come into play to identify the vowels. Many students were lost in week one and two of their Hebrew course and never recovered. Most Westerners have at least heard the names of 3/4 of the Greek alphabet, and seen at least 1/2.  Next, memorizing Hebrew vocabulary is harder - it is all foreign, compared to Greek with its many English derivatives (as Metzger calls them). And, there are about 3000+ more words in the HB than NT. And, learning Heb vocab eventually involves learning roots and rudimentary comparative Semitic linguistics. I hope you've all heard this introduction to Hebrew vocabulary:

 

Who (הוּא) is He,

He (הִיא)  is She, 

Me (מִי) is Who, 

and Woe is Me .

 

Third, since it is so foreign, it's harder to keep it up. In my experience, it's a lot easier to stop reading Greek for a few years and return to it than it is for Hebrew (yes, I gave up on both for a few years).

 

Fourth, people often confuse "Hebrew is harder to learn" with whoever learns Hebrew is smarter than someone who learns Greek. It's obvious that that is not necessarily true.

 

Fifth, after saying all this, I find Greek harder to learn. Let me explain. If I compared the biblical languages Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek to theories about light, I'd say Hebrew and Aramaic are like a wave and Greek is like a particle. A wave has rhythm and beauty, and so does Hebrew and Aramaic. I find Greek is more like a bunch of particles, not only the morphology, but the endless listing of categories. So I've experienced the so-called death by category, and I find it extremely difficult to learn that way. In fact, I don't study the categories any more. There is something very unnatural about them, and I only consult them when I need to. 

 

Finally, is it worth all the effort to learn Hebrew, especially after most learned Greek and have to keep up with it too?  Definitely. You will come to understand Hebrews 4:12, that the HB is alive.

 

Regards,

 

Michel

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Let me begin by saying that I really like Hebrew, but I do like Greek—however considerably less. All languages are culturally oriented. And in most cases we teach languages first and then perhaps get to the culture. There is a very real sense that we need to get into the culture of the language we are studying. In fact, a real good doss of cultural overview would not hurt to get us thinking the way the ancient Hebrew thought about the world in which they lived. We need to see the world view—not just in Genesis but throughout the Old Testament. How did the Hebrews think about the world at the various stages of their growth and development. Even it we could think about the way the Hebrew people thought about the world in which they lived and the God they worshipped, then we will begin to understand their language. For example, if a missionary would go to Taiwan he would need  to begin to learn its languages/s, but he/she would have the advantage of the cultural world all around him/her. But even within the cultural context it will take several years before a certain level of proficiency is reached. However, with Hebrew and Greek we are sitting in the clssroom trying to learn the language, but we know very little of the culture out of which the language begins to come to life. I have taught Hebrew for a good number of years in a small seminary, and this I have found. A student may learn the language with all its shapes and forms, but in the end it is the student who begins to understand the cultural world who will be the better Hebraist.  Just some thought to bring into focus a different way of learning the classical Hebrew of the Old Testament. Remember. too, that all languages are a moving target. Once you have read Genesis, you still have not read Ezekiel with the prophet's marvelous use of his way of expressing the ancient language in somewhat different way, Just my penny's worth in this discussion.

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in the end it is the student who begins to understand the cultural world who will be the better Hebraist

 

Hi Harold,

 

I agree. But like my first OT teacher Dr. Daniel Block said, one way into the cultural world of the HB is through its language. So professional Hebraists learn ancient near eastern languages, cultures, and religions. I'm actually writing a Hebrew grammar that, among other things, introduces students to the basic cultural contexts.

 

Regards,

 

Michel

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Michael & Harold – Thank you for the encouragement.  It is helpful to know that the problems I have are not "just me."  I plan on sticking with my studies because I want to understand my Bible better.  

 

I have learned to love Greek, not only because it has enabled me to see things in the NT I wouldn't have seen otherwise, and enabled to really use a technical commentary, but for also for the beauty of the language itself.

 

I am very hopeful that my study of Hebrew will yield the same – 1) see things in the OT I wouldn't have seen otherwise; 2) be able to really use a technical commentary; 3) love the language for its own sake – for its beauty and for the way truth is communicated.

 

There was a student in my class who wondered why I was there for the final since I didn't have to take it.  I told him that I was auditing with a view to really learning the material, and that if I didn't push myself, I wouldn't learn.  That is the way I did Greek, and the hard work does pay off.

 

And I agree that the learning process is mostly hard work.  I know that there are probably some who are just "wired" for learning languages.  But even those who are gifted that way have to do the work!

Edited by Julia Falling
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To Michael and Julie. John Walton is an excellent resource for looking at the culture. He has several books on that topic—a cultural study Bible (co-authored), and one focussing on the ancient Near Eastern cultures. I truly love Hebrew and am in the process of translating the Psalms from Hebrew to English with comments on each Psalm. I have over 100 done, and perhaps the Lord will let me finish them before He takes me Home—at 87 years old there are no guarantees. Harold.

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Any idea when the next update to the windows version of 12 will be?  I especially look forward to accordance fixing the copy as citation option.

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Since a couple of months I am in the proud possession of Accordance Bible as its supports me in my courses Biblical Hebrew. I am 71 and living in Holland. Up till now we are studying for 3,5 years; in total we had 42 classes of 2,5 hrs. each with our outstanding teacher, dr. van Veen-Vrolijk. She is Hebraica and studied almost all Semitic languages and she is specialized in the OT. Every year we are getting more enthousiastic as we came to the point of reading and translating parts of the OT. Really challenging! She says that we are making good progress, which I doubt.

One thing you discover is that with a translation you loose a lot of the meaning of the 'original'. In Holland we have about '100.000' translations and every one is different. Keeping studying brings you a lot further and everytime you learn a little bit. Now we are translating Ps. 33 and I find it one of the hardest to understand but with a lot of resources, as Accordance, a little light begins to flicker.

I could not miss the hours of the classes. Not only studying BH but everything around it too: New Horizons!! And not to forget the fun and laughing.

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In Holland we have about '100.000' translations and every one is different.

 

This experience illustrates something interesting, when a person is exposed to multiple languages (rather than just, for example, English), you begin to appreciate that there really are some things that are difficult to translate in a way that perfectly conveys the meaning. I often feel that English only speaking student's can't appreciate this, until they get a long way down the track into Greek or Hebrew.

 

Keep at it!

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I Found dave brunn's book, one bible, many version (are all translations created equal?) quite interesting as he gives a translators insight into the difficulties they face ( he is translating into lamogai used in papua new guinea).

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bible-Many-Versions-Dave-Brunn/dp/1844746267/ref=sr_1_13?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1481492072&sr=1-13&keywords=Brunn

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You must have heard or seen about SHEBANQ. A very interesting site with 'translations' from the BHS to English. I am not a scholar and not high educated in Hebrew but from what I see I don't think it's hard to imagine that there are so many translations in every language. What I always try to do is to capture the feeling of the original text, but I think every translator tries to do the same. My experience is that after translation in basic of a verse from the BHS and I look it up in various translations, there is often one that catches me the most. I think Adonai did a good job near the tower of Babylon creating all these different languages.

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  • 1 year later...

When I was a student at the Hebrew University a student asked one of the profs how to really learn Hebrew. His answer was "Read texts, read texts, read texts!" With Accordance that becomes much easier.

 

To make it even easier, try building a set of Highlights that for instance underlines every Aorist verb with a single thin black line (yes, I have shifted over to reading Greek texts, but the principle can be applied to Hebrew texts), and every Perfect tense verb with a single thin red line, and every Future tense verb with a single blue underline, etc etc. Today I read some of Revelation 18, I am nearly finished reading through the entire Greek NT. With those highlighting easing my reading, I look forward to jumping back into Matthew chapter 1 soon.

 

Read texts, read texts, read texts!

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