Hebrew Masoretic Text with Andersen-Forbes Morphology and Syntax Database

Reviews

1. 

   (verified owner) Benjamin Noonan

   Rated 3 out of 5

   Reviewed on July 10, 2023

   This is an important resource for the linguistic analysis of the Hebrew Bible. Its greatest strength is its detailed tagging, which includes much more information than either the Grammatical Syntax Add-On to HMT-W4 or the Hebrew Masoretic Text with ETCBC Morphology (WIVU). Its primary weakness is that is fairly eclectic, drawing from a variety of linguistic schools of thought and using a lot of non-standard terminology. Still, this is a resource worth having, again because of its detailed tagging.

2. 

   Dick Roberts

   Rated 2 out of 5

   Reviewed on July 30, 2024

   I ordered this a few years ago but have yet to use it. There is an entire learning curve to understand its non-standard terms and functions. I have asked for a few years for some kind of tutorial, but so far no help has been provided. I asked on forums if anyone was using it on a regular basis and did not get responses. It appears like it could be a powerful tool, but until some useful tutorials are provided, it remains unusable to me. The Holmstedt syntax is much more user friendly

3. 

   (verified owner) Accordance Enthusiast

   Rated 2 out of 5

   Reviewed on December 1, 2024

   This module is useful but not as much as I hoped it would be:
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   1. The text is vowel-pointed but lacs accentuation.
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   2. Although the tagging is very detailed, there are issues which can make search results highly inaccurate. E.g., אלהים is tagged as a “אלהים Noun Proper Deity”, but all inflections with suffixes or in the construct state are tagged as “אלה Noun Comon Masculine Plural Devine.” Thus a search for אלהים will not find inflected forms like אלהיהם, אלהיו, אלהי, etc., which is highly confusing as it omits about half the occurrences of the word “Elohim.” Also, it does not take much knowledge of Biblical Hebrew to know that “Elohim” is not uses as a proper noun in the Tanach, but can be inflected and qualified with modifiers and suffixes.
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   3. The tagging makes use of questionable classifications like “Priestly Prose”, “Jahwist Prose”, “Elohist Prose”, “Lay Prose”, “JPoetry”, “LPoetry”, etc.
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   4. There is no explanation for the complex grammatical codes used in the syntax tagging. For example, “SR-CIC Temp timePoint” is not easy to decipher – there is no explanation for it in the glossary nor in the instant details. These codes need to be learned from the Andersen-Forbes Grammar.
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   5. The tagging can be very useful for searching (except for issues similar to the those shown above in no. 2 and below in no. 6).
   E.g. you can search for every occurrence of יהוה as the subject of a sentence, or as the direct object, indirect object, etc., which is great.
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   6. The grammatical tagging is sometimes inconsistent for the same word and same function in different passages. E.g. in Gen 8:20 “ליהוה” is said to be the “indirect object,” but in Gen 4:3 “ליהוה” is supposedly the “direct object.” The correct identification would be that only “מנחה” is the direct object, while “ליהוה” is the indirect object in Gen 4:3.
   Also, “מאת” is tagged as “normal” (non-construct) in the phrase “מאת יום”, but as “construct” in the phrase “מאת שנה”. In both cases the word is actually in the construct state based on its form and function in the sentence.
   Such inaccuracies or inconsistencies in the tagging makes search results untrustworthy and less accurate than expected.
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   7. The syntax trees give detailed information about the authors’ perspective on the grammatical relationship between the words and phrases. Again, the Andersen-Forbes grammer will be needed in order to understand the linguistic codes.