Beginning Biblical Hebrew.

Kaye, Alan S.

Beginning Biblical Hebrew. By MARK D. FUTATO. Winona Lake, Ind.: EISENBRAUNS, 2003. Pp. xii + 351. $35.

This work, another introductory textbook of Biblical Hebrew in an apparently insatiable market, claims to have "an easy-to-learn format" plus the advantage that "familiarity with English and Hebrew grammatical terminology is not presumed" (p. ix). It is a well-organized book with some strengths over its competition, e.g., good use of blue color for headings and a pleasing look. Other strategic assets include limiting the vocabulary section of each of the forty chapters to just ten words, which allows students to master these four hundred items while simultaneously concentrating on the rudiments of grammar. Moreover, numerically keying the vocabulary to Raymond B. Dillard's Hebrew Vocabulary Cards (Springfield, Ohio: Visual Education Association, 1981) is quite beneficial.

Not everything in Futato's text is new, however. For example, the section listing the verb paradigms (pp. 253-81) takes up many pages, and they can be found in numerous other Biblical Hebrew textbooks and grammars. Furthermore, they are also to be found in the text itself in the grammatical sections of the forty lessons. Thus, e.g., geminate roots are the subject matter of chapter 40 (pp. 249-52) and can also be found on p. 281. Is it necessary to present this material in both places?

The total vocabulary is presented alphabetically--not under the triradical root system (pp. 282-90). This is a pedagogical advantage in that beginning students will find words faster, since they have but little knowledge of the intricate morphophonemic system of the language. On the other hand, students will eventually have to learn the morphophonemics in order to use one of the standard lexicons, so why not introduce them to it from the beginning?

The last part of the book contains the answers to the practice drills (pp. 291-351). Since Biblical Hebrew is a dead language, it is not surprising to see that the traditional grammar-translation genre has been employed. Thus there are many exercises involving translation and morphological parsing. Unfortunately, modern foreign language teaching methodologies have not progressed very much in the teaching of dead languages.

Let me now turn to a few details:

p. 3: It is erroneous to equate the Biblical Hebrew [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] with the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in English rug. According to Gary A. Rendsburg (in Phonologies of Asia and Africa, ed. Alan S. Kaye, vol. 1 [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1977], 70), BH [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] was either a voiced rolled dental or a voiced uvular fricative.

p. 12: Genesis 1:1 is misvocalized in the Hebrew script. The particle [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] marking definite direct objects should be et (twice), and there should be a daghesh in the word [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "the heavens." The same sentence is correctly vocalized on pp. 17, 22, 41, and 87.

p. 128: The author states that "English active participles are formed with [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], for example, 'he is working,' 'they are giving,' and so on." English does not have the category of active participle. The author is probably confusing the Semitic active participle with the auxiliary followed by the present participle of the verb. This construction is often referred to by grammarians as the English progressive or continuous and should not be confused with the English perfect, which uses the auxiliary have and the past participle.

pp. 163-64: What is traditionally called the wawconversive or waw-consecutive (and also waw conservative) is referred to by the author as the "vav-relative." Although not all specialists agree, there is evidence to support his conclusion that this "is simply a preservation of an old use of the short imperfect." G. R. Driver's comparisons with the Akkadian permansive and preterite, respectively (in the second edition of J. Weingreen's A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew [Oxford Univ. Press, 1959], 252-53) are particularly poignant in this regard. In this connection, I would add that in Arabic lam + the jussive (cf. the Hebrew jussive [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "he arose") has a past meaning (e.g., lam yaktub "he did not write"). I see no reason to abandon the traditional terminology, however.

Although Futato is committed to the perfect and imperfect as part of what are termed the finite conjugations (p. 30), I think that most scholars today would characterize the Hebrew verbal system as aspectual (so Winfred P. Lehmann, Esther Raizen, and Helen-Jo Jakusz Hewitt, Biblical Hebrew: An Analytical Introduction [San Antonio: Wings Press, 1999], 127, who state that aspect is "generally accepted, [but] not without controversy").

Although rare, the waw consecutive with the cohortative to refer to the past should have been mentioned, as in Genesis 44:11: [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "and we dreamed" (see Joshua Blau, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew [Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1976], 87).

Let me conclude by mentioning the order of the presentation of some vocabulary. Since I believe most American students will know words such as [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] "peace," they should be presented early on. As it is, this word does not makes its entry until p. 139. Moreover, high-frequency verbs such as yes "there is/are" and 'eyn "there is/are not" do not appear until this page as well--much too late for practical considerations.

ALAN S. KAYE

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, FULLERTON