Hebrew Bundle, L (280 vols.)

A trio of eminent Old Testament scholars—Francis Brown, R. Driver, and Charles Briggs—spent over 20 years researching, writing, and preparing A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament. Since it first appeared in the early part of the twentieth century, BDB has been considered the finest and most comprehensive Hebrew lexicon available to the English-speaking student. Based upon the classic work of Wilhelm Gesenius, the “father of modern Hebrew lexicography,” BDB gives not only dictionary definitions for words, but relates each word to its Old Testament usage and categorizes its nuances of meaning. BDB’s exhaustive coverage of Old Testament Hebrew words, as well as its unparalleled usage of cognate languages and the wealth of background sources consulted and quoted, render this abridged version of BDB an invaluable resource for all students of the Bible.

The stated aim of the Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar (BHRG) is to “serve as a reference work at an intermediate level for exegetes and translators of the Hebrew Bible who have a basic knowledge of Biblical Hebrew, but would like to use and broaden the knowledge that they acquired in an introductory course.” This purpose is achieved with a thoroughly systematic organization that facilitates using the BHRG in conjunction with the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. The BHRG functions as a centralized resource in matters concerning the grammar and syntax of Biblical Hebrew, and will be found valuable by both beginning and advanced students of Biblical Hebrew.

Spelling in the Hebrew Bible is a valuable guide to the Hebrew Bible’s spelling. It attempts four things: first, it describes the orthographic phenomena of the Hebrew Bible; second, it assesses the evidence by means of appropriate statistical analyses; third, it interprets the evidence in terms of the history of Hebrew spelling; finally, it speculates on the significance of this evidence for studies in the production and transmission of the text.

This collection of papers in Hebrew and Semitic linguistics is formed by research into the history of biblical Hebrew. Individual authors deal with details, yet the introduction, entitled “On the History and Structure of Hebrew” (especially written for this publication), fits them into the general frame. Topics in Hebrew and Semitic Linguistics will convey to scholars something more than the mere sum of the various publications.

The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon is an essential reference work for serious Old Testament study. This lexicon (dictionary) provides not only the English equivalents for Hebrew words, but also relates various meanings to specific passages in the OT. The Logos electronic version of BDB is a very special product and unquestionably the most useful version of BDB ever released.

The text has been fully corrected and updated with all changes noted in the addenda et. corrigenda in the print edition. This book represents maximum complexity in minimum pages. The number of Bible links, cross references, popups and jumps far exceeds the average Bible reference book.

Modern linguistics is a relative newcomer in the scientific world, and text-linguistics, or discourse analysis, is one of its youngest disciplines. This fact has inclined many toward skepticism of its value for the Hebraist, yet much benefit is thereby overlooked.

In this work, the author examines recent contributions to Hebrew text-linguistics by Niccacci, Andersen, Eskhult, Khan, and Longacre, evaluating them against a twofold standard of theoretical and methodological integrity, and clarity of communication. An extensive introduction to one particularly promising model of text analysis (from Longacre’s tagmemic school) is given, and a step-by-step methodology is presented. Analyses according to this model and methodology are given of seven extended text samples, each building on the findings of the previous analyses: Judg. 2; Lev. 14:1-32; Lev. 6:1-7:37; parallel instructions and historical reports about the building of the Tabernacle, from Exodus 25-40; Judg. 10:6-12:7; and the book of Ruth in its entirety. Considerable attention is given to the question of text-linguistics and reported speech.

A Manual of Hebrew Poetics is a helpful guide for analyzing Hebrew poetics. The volume’s primary purpose is not to serve as a source of information about facts and authors but, rather, to initiate the reader into the stylistic analysis of poetry. Everything that this manual contains by way of definition, description, or classification is given as a means to doing analysis. For this reason, many of the chapters and sections either begin or end with an example of analysis. The manual is not primarily a reference book but, instead, a volume of initiation into the practice of analysis. Among the poetic techniques discussed are sound and sonority, rhythm, imagery, figures of speech, dialogue and monologue, development, and composition.

In 1961, William L. Moran published The Hebrew Language in Its Northwest Semitic Background, in which he presented a state-of-the-art description of the linguistic milieu out of which biblical Hebrew developed. Moran stressed the features found in earlier Northwest Semitic languages that are similar to Hebrew, and he demonstrated how the study of those languages sheds light on biblical Hebrew.

Since Moran wrote The Hebrew Language in Its Northwest Semitic Background, our knowledge of both the Hebrew of the biblical period and of Northwest Semitics has increased considerably. In the light of new epigraphic finds and the significant advances in the fields of Biblical Hebrew and Northwest Semitic in the past four decades, the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem convened an international research group during the 2001–2002 academic year on the topic “Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typological and Historical Perspectives.”

This volume presents the fruits of the year-long collaboration and contains 20 articles based on lectures given during the year by members of the group and invited guests, including Moshe Bar-Asher, John A. Emerton, Jan Joosten, Menahem Z. Kaddari, Mordechai Mishor, Adina Moshavi, Alviero Niccacci, Elisha Qimron, Ada Yardeni, and more. A wide array of subjects are discussed, all of which have implications for the study of biblical Hebrew and Northwest Semitic.

Cassuto wrote in many languages and published his articles in a variety of learned periodicals. Previously, many of these writings were very difficult to obtain. Although the majority of essays presented here in English translation were written a long time ago, the passing years have dealt kindly with them—and their value has not dissipated.

The present collection of essays is the first of two volumes comprising articles on the Bible, Ugaritic writings, and other texts. This volume is devoted to purely biblical themes.

This collection of essays is the second of two volumes comprising articles on the Bible, Ugaritic writings, and other texts. While the first volume is devoted to purely biblical themes, this volume includes comparative studies in which biblical subjects are examined in the light of Eastern literature (particularly Ugaritic) and articles on Ugaritic and other texts. This volume also contains the index to both volumes.

This study tackles the neglected subject of word order in biblical Hebrew poetry. The fact that the order of clause constituents frequently differs from that found in prose has often been noted, but no systematic attempt has been offered by way of explanation. Here two separate factors are taken into consideration: that of purely poetic variation (defamiliarisation), and that of pragmatic markedness. The former is common to the poetic genre. In the latter case there is a discernable significance in the positioning of the words that has implications with respect to the matter of topic and focus.

Using Lambrecht’s theory of information structure and building on the insights of previous studies in biblical Hebrew narrative, the present volume shows that marked topic and focus structures in Old Testament poetry are identical to those found in prose and are distinguishable from defamilarised word order by means of the environment in which the latter is found. Here the common phenomenon of parallelism is seen to be an important factor in providing a secondary line in which defamiliarisation may freely occur.

This work offers a new approach to the poetry of the Old Testament that will aid towards more accurate translation, exegesis, and discourse analysis of poetic texts.

Logos is pleased to announce an exciting moment in scholarly databases for biblical studies: the development of a database for the biblical Dead Sea Scrolls.

The achievement of this database is the result of years of painstaking work on the part of Dr. Stephen Pfann. Dr. Pfann is the president of the board of directors of the University of the Holy Land, as well as chair of the University’s fepartment of Qumran studies. Pfann holds an MA from the Graduate Theological Union and a PhD from the department of Ancient Semitic Languages at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Dr. Pfann’s dissertation was supervised by Prof. Michael Stone. His areas of academic expertise are Qumran studies, ancient languages, paleography, and cultural geography. Dr. Pfann is the author of many scholarly articles related to his research, and has contributed to or co-edited several important works on the Dead Sea Scrolls, including: The Dead Sea Scrolls on Microfiche (with Emanuel Tov); and several volumes in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD) series, the official publication series of the Dead Sea Scrolls (vol. XXV, Qumran Cave 4: Sapiential Texts, Pt. 1; vol. XXVI, Qumran Cave 4: Miscellaneous Texts from Qumran, Cryptic Texts and Miscellanea, Pt. 1; vol. XXXV, Qumran Cave 4: Halakhic Texts). Dr. Pfann lives in Jerusalem. His direct access to both the original scrolls and state-of-the-art imaging and viewing technology allowed him to review and revise the transcriptions of each biblical scroll.

The Logos Qumran Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls Database includes morphological tagging, prepared by Dr. Michael S. Heiser, Academic Editor at Logos.

The biblical scrolls from Qumran have had a profound impact on our understanding of the development and transmission of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. Prior to 1947, scholars who studied the transmission of the text of the Hebrew Bible had access to the Masoretic Text handed down by scribes in Judaism since the second century A.D., the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament; and the Samaritan Pentateuch. All of these witnesses to the text of the Old Testament were preserved in manuscripts that dated well after the time of the composition of the Old Testament. The oldest complete Hebrew manuscript of the Old Testament prior to the discoveries at Qumran dated to around 1000 A.D. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, manuscripts of the Hebrew Old Testament as old as the third century B.C. were among them—more than a millennium older than the best textual data known at the time.

While scholars have had access to the biblical scrolls material for decades in expensive print volumes, this biblical textual treasure-trove is finally available to everyone in morphologically-tagged searchable database. Aside from morphological searching, which enables scholars to detect and analyze morphological and grammatical differences between the Masoretic Hebrew text and the oldest textual witnesses to the Old Testament, the Logos edition allows quick comparisons of the biblical Qumran material with other manuscript witnesses to the Old Testament.

The Massorah Gedolah, also known as the Masorah Magna (Mm), contains the Hebrew Bible’s upper and lower marginal notes. The marginal notes (known as Masorah, meaning “to hand over” in Hebrew) consist of instructions designed to preserve the text, maintaining a form of quality control by which the texts could avoid significant change. The Mm specifically presents references to the verses where a particular text feature occurs. As opposed to giving chapter and verse, the Mm identifies excerpts: each verse or passage annotated by an Mm note is identified by a brief excerpt from it. The editor includes chapter and verse references to the lists in Massorah Gedolah, so you don’t have to recognize a verse by the short quotation. Study of the Masorah can benefit both the scholar and the student. For instance, the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia apparatus contains extensive citations to the Mm, so any study of the BHS would be aided by the Massorah Gedolah. A better understanding of the Tiberian text can be obtained by mastering the Masoretic notes, helping the scholar become more familiar with what constitutes a standard tradition. Study of the Masorah can also aid the student’s movement past technical matters of grammar and textual tradition, as the Masorah was a simple form of literary criticism.

This ground-breaking compilation of ancient texts includes Hebrew, Aramaic, and Canaanite Inscriptions. Each text is accompanied by an English translation. The Semitic Inscriptions: Analyzed Texts and English Translations would be extremely expensive to assemble in print form—and now Logos Bible Software brings them to you in a morphologically-tagged electronic edition! Resources in this collection include:

• The Hebrew and Canaanite Inscriptions
• The Hebrew and Canaanite Inscriptions in English Translation
• Glossary to the Hebrew and Canaanite Inscriptions
• Glossary of the Morphological Terms in the Hebrew and Canaanite Inscriptions
• The Aramaic Inscriptions
• The Aramaic Inscriptions in English Translation
• Glossary to the Aramaic Inscriptions
• Glossary of the Morphological Terms in the Aramaic Inscriptions

The Canaanite languages represented in this collection include Byblian-Phoenician, Standard and Mixed dialect Phoenician, Ammonite, Moabite, Ekronite (Philistine), and Edomite. The Hebrew and Canaanite database was prepared by Dr. Michael S. Heiser, Academic Editor at Logos.

Aramaic is a Northwest Semitic language, the same language family as Hebrew and the Canaanite dialects (e.g., Phoenician, Moabite). The database of Aramaic inscriptions was prepared by H. H. Hardy, II and Charles Otte, III, doctoral students in Northwest Semitic Philology at the University of Chicago.