Learning Biblical Hebrew: A New Approach Using Discourse Analysis
Overview
Designed for beginning students in their study of biblical Hebrew, this course book focuses on the Hebrew alphabet, the basics of pronouncing Hebrew, and learning almost 400 of the most common words in the Hebrew Bible. Learning Biblical Hebrew is comprised of fifty lessons and eight readings, using about 1000 verses of biblical text. Each lesson has two types of assignments: (1) speed drills for practicing the lesson's materials, and (2) translation exercises taken from the biblical text. Important information is reviewed before introducing new material, and cross-referencing is made available throughout the book to access previously learned material.
Hebrew writers used grammatical signals to guide their readers through the text. This book will study those grammatical signals through discourse analysis. Rocine tells us that, “I have found the discourse analytical approach…to be the most powerful grammatical tool for gaining” a rich and intimate knowledge of the Word of God.
By utilizing discourse analysis, Learning Biblical Hebrew helps teach the nuances of meaning not accessible through English translations. Written suitably for independent study as well as the classroom, this resource teaches the most useful information about Biblical Hebrew that can be accomplished in a typical one-year study period. The book also contains verb charts, vocabulary, a bibliography and an index.
Top Highlights
“RULE: The verbless clause gives scene-setting information in Historical Narrative.” (Page 10)
“An infinitive does not have a person, gender, number or dedicated discourse function, so you may leave these spaces blank.” (Page 88)
“2. The subject is what is already known by context. The predicate is what is new.” (Page 11)
“The Piel stem refers to the causing of something to be in a state or condition. דבר means to speak” (Page 8)
“RULE: A qamets under the first root letter is the sign of the qatal verb form in the Qal stem.” (Page 19)
Product Details
- Title: Learning Biblical Hebrew: A New Approach Using Discourse Analysis
- Author: B. M. Rocine
- Publisher: Smyth & Helwys
- Publication Date: 2000
- Pages: 451
Sample Pages from the Print Edition
Reviews
9 ratings
Charles Grebe
11/14/2019
I’ve taught through Rocine twice. Roughly speaking he follows Longacre in his approach to discourse analysis. It’s interesting because he’s introducing Hebrew (in a first-year textbook) with the normal categories of morphology and syntax etc but under the overarching umbrella of discourse analysis. I found it particularly helpful to have students think about verb forms within this larger context, i.e. in a certain discourse genre a qatal is going to function like this… in another discourse genre like something else… rather than simply giving students four ways a verb form can function and then leaving them to guess which to use when. Note that this textbook actually arose from Rocine’s notes when he was teaching Hebrew to high school students so DA doesn’t have to be only for “advanced students.” Also, I have teaching notes for Rocine’s textbook if anyone is interested.George T Barnes
5/25/2018
Kendall Sholtess
5/13/2018
Veli Voipio
1/30/2017
I know already some Hebrew but now I decided to read this kind of an introductory book because of the discourse analysis approach and I was not disappointed. After reading this, this was also first time when I felt comfortable with the Hebrew verb system. This also works well with the WIVU moprphology and with WIVU constiruency trees https://www.logos.com/product/55088/stuttgart-scholarly-editions-core-bundle
Dave Crosby
5/5/2015
Faithlife User
1/13/2015
Dennis Pulley
10/9/2014
Faithlife User
11/6/2013
Bill Shewmaker
10/19/2013
Willie Parker
8/29/2013
