An Introduction to Aramaic.

• Author: Fassberg, Steven E.
• Position: Book Review

By FREDERICK E. GREENSPAHN. Society of Biblical Literature Resources for Biblical Study, vol. 38. Atlanta: SCHOLARS PRESS, 1999. Pp. xi + 232. $54.95 (paper).

Students of the Hebrew Bible are regularly required to study a semester of Biblical Aramaic to enable them to read the Aramaic portions in Ezra and Daniel. The usual method of instruction is to present a sketch of Aramaic grammar highlighting the similarities and differences between it and Hebrew grammar, which students are expected to have already learned. After the presentation of the grammar, the student jumps right into the biblical texts. Frederick Greenspahn's An Introduction to Aramaic is designed to present students with an orderly, graded introduction to the language, Moreover, it is intended to present a window to the importance and diversity of the Aramaic language. The work consists of twenty-seven chapters devoted to Biblical Aramaic, followed by five more chapters introducing the students to different genres of texts written in Aramaic (inscriptions, letters, Dead Sea Scrolls, midrash, and targum) in different periods (Old Aramaic, Official Aramaic, Middle Aramaic, and Late Aramaic). Each of the chapters dealing with Biblical Aramaic consists of a presentation of grammar (in the light of Biblical Hebrew), vocabulary, a passage from Biblical Aramaic that has been simplified and graded, followed by various exercises of word identification, parsing, translation into English, and Aramaic composition.

Unlike Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Aramaic has not been blessed with grammars designed especially for beginners. There are, of course, several reference grammars, the most widely used today that of Franz Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, 6th ed. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1995), and for more advanced students, Hans Bauer and Pontus Leander, Grammatik des Biblisch-Aramaischen (Halle: Max Niemayer Verlag, 1927). Mention should also be made of the grammar by Alger F. Johns, A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic, 2nd ed. (Berrien Springs, Mich.: Andrews Univ. Press, 1972), which includes exercises (translation from Aramaic into English) and is used by many seminarians. Greenspahn's Introduction is not meant to be a reference book. Like the monograph of Johns, it is designed for beginning students in Aramaic. it differs from that grammar, however, in that it does not aim to be comprehensive and it is not linguistically-oriented. Greenspahn explicitly states that he sees the...