Grammatical Concepts 101 for Biblical Hebrew. . - Briefly Noted - book review

Grammatical Concepts 101 for Biblical Hebrew. By Gary A. Long (Hendrickson, $19.95). The subtitle discloses the approach: "Learning Biblical Hebrew Grammatical Concepts through English Grammar." Way back when, we used to say that we first understood the structure of English when we took high school Latin.

This book turns that epigram on its head and uses analysis of English expressions to help beginning Hebrew students understand direct objects, nominal sentences, verb tenses, etc. The book is laid out well, and the graphics are both pleasing and clarifying. As the book moves on and things get more complicated, I fear that the struggling student who needs a book like this may get lost in an explanation such as: "The vayyiqtol commonly functions to discourse a story's mainline, yet it may also denote something we can label SIDELINE or EXPOSITION. In written etic discourse, which is, after all, a linear string of syntagms, one may need to 'break off in order to 'enflesh' a character...." I'll confess I have nev er used "discourse" as a verb.

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