Biblical Hebrew: An Introductory Textbook (review)

Hebrew Studies 44 (2003) 226 Reviews and dread," because "nowhere is God's help mentioned in connection with the evening offering" (p. 340). This points to the primary methodological problem that confronts contributors to any theological dictionary. That is, there is no straightforward alignment between individual words and theological concepts. The biblical authors may use any number of words, technical terms, or images to communicate a theological concept. In 1974, James Barr observed that TDOT, is, in fact, an encyclopedic dictionary, which happens to make theological comments with varying degrees of plausibility (Interpretation 30 [1974): 186-190). Even so, the ultimate test of any dictionary is its utility. TDOT is unsurpassed as a repository of accurate, useful information on contextual matters and on the etymology and usage of select words. William A. Tooman University ofWisconsin-Madison Madison, WI 53706 watooman@wisc.edu BIBLICAL HEBREW: AN INTRODUCTORY TEXTBOOK. By Nancy L. de Claisse-Walford. Pp. vii + 280. St. Louis, Mo.: Chalice Press, 2002. Paper, $39.99. This is a teaching book meant for students who study Biblical Hebrew as part of their academic education. It is based on the author's experience in teaching Biblical Hebrew in theological seminaries and as an assistant to a professor. The volume is divided into twenty chapters which are meant cumulatively to teach the basic facts of Biblical Hebrew. These are followed by four appendixes entitled "Keys to exercises," "Shortcuts," "Useful charts," and "Vocabulary." The book is not meant to serve as a general grammar of Biblical Hebrew, which is generally divided into four fundamental parts, namely, orthography, phonology, morphology, and syntax. As a teaching book, its goal is to enable students to manage a basic Hebrew text, and therefore it focuses on building up basic grammar and vocabulary. Though there is no shortage of grammars, introductions, and teaching books of Biblical Hebrew in English, there is always room for other works, on the condition that they are accurate, well organized, and meet their goals. Chapters 1 and 2 expose students to orthography, vocalization, accents, and syllabic structure. Chapter 3 deals with the deftnite article, prepositions, and the conjunction 1. Nouns are the subject of chapter 4, and adjectives and pronouns are the subject of chapter 5. Chapter 6 presents pronominal sufftxes of nouns and prepositions, the metheg and maqqej, and describes the method Hebrew Studies 44 (2003) 227 Reviews of looking up words in the dictionary. In chapter 7, the forms of numbers and furtive patab are encountered. Chapters 8, 9, and part of 10 deal with the verb, and the last also includes a discussion of word order and the direct object. Chapter 11 sets out the participles and presents a "verb location chart" to serve for analyzing verbs. Chapter 12 presents the imperatives, the long forms of the imperfects and imperatives (inadequately entitled "the suffix i1, ," since such a suffix is found elsewhere in Biblical Hebrew), and the particle ~~. Infinitives and negation (poorly entitled "the Hebrew 'nots"') appear in chapter 13. Chapter 14 deals with pronominal suffixes of verbs, and with i1 interrogative and i1 of direction (which would have been better presented as 0 interrogative and jj, of direction, since the vowels are part of the morphemes). Chapter 15 introduces the weak verbs, the verbs i1'jj and j~K and the particles r~ and ~~. Chapters 16 to 18 contain more information regarding weak verbs. Each of these chapters ends with shortcuts and relevant exercises. The last two chapters, 19 and 20, present two short texts cited from Jonah I and accompanied by helpful notes for the reader. The goal of the book is that anyone using this tool will successfully manage these texts. Although the general choice of topics, their organization, and the method of step-by-step exposure to them and to basic Biblical Hebrew vocabulary are reasonable, the book is replete with misconceptions, inappropriate grammatical definitions, incorrect grammatical forms, forms that did not exist in Biblical Hebrew, omission of vocalization marks, and vocalization and Hebrew spelling typos. The introduction in chapter 1 (p. I), though very short, exhibits a few misconceptions . The assertion that "Biblical Hebrew is the name given to the Hebrew of the Jewish Scriptures (the...