An Elementary Grammar of Biblical Hebrew.

• Author: Hamilton, Gordon J.
• Position: Brief Reviews of Books

An Elementary Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. By EDWIN C. HOSTETTER. Biblical Languages: Hebrew, vol. 1. Sheffield: SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS, 2000. Pp. 176. $84 (cloth); $29.95 (paper).

This is a good but flawed introduction to Biblical Hebrew. "The approach taken in this grammar to the order of the subject matter is to discuss nouns and particles first and then move on to the verb. Within the verbal category, I will address completely strong verbs before paying attention to weak verbs. Thus, roughly one third of the lessons delineate nouns and particles, another third explain strong verbs, and a final third present weak verbs" (p. 7). Vocabulary is limited to 230 common words and exercises usually to five Hebrew-to-English excerpts (no English to Hebrew). Paradigms are kept to a minimum (notes on exceptional forms being preferred). Students are sent to a full Hebrew Bible early and often.

There are only a few conceptual errors in this textbook. An assimilated nun leaves a dages forte (not lene, p. 26). Waw consecutive shows a dages in the preformative of the imperfeet (not the root letter, p. 85). "Perfect, imperfect, cohortative, imperative, jussive, infinitive construct, and infinitive absolute" do not "all count as tenses" (p. 74), nor does the participle (p. 78). Verbal forms do not come from roots (p. 104) but are traced to them. Concerning the latter, Hostetter never includes discussion of roots assigned to nouns and adjectives, nor teaches students how to use a lexicon arranged according to roots, although he expects such usage from an early stage (p. 44).

Numerous statements or examples appear throughout this textbook which could lead to confusion, error, or poor translation habits for a beginning student. The transcriptions "Aleph" and "Ayin" (p. 13) could easily suggest that these consonants are vowels. Consonantal names receive no diacritical marks except for yod (contrast pp. 13 and 16), names of vowels always do (p. 16). Spirants are represented contradictorily: "Lamedh" but "Yod" (p. 13); "Daleth" (p. 13), but meteg (p. 21). The author's statement about res not taking a dages (p. 26) is preceded by an example of a res with a dages two pages earlier. His treatment of...