Biblical Hebrew Resources

I have been studying Hebrew for nearly two years.  It has been a very rewarding journey.  Along the way, I have discovered a few resources that I think are especially helpful.  Maybe this list can help others who are starting down the same path.

Aleph Isn't Tough

I started studying Hebrew with this thin, little introduction to the Hebrew aleph-bet.  I purchased this book from Amazon as an impulse purchase; it was only $10.88 and $3.99 for shipping and it arrived the next day.  I had no idea that Hebrew was to become a significant project for me.  Aleph Isn't Tough: An Introduction to Hebrew for Adults by Linda Motzkin was the book that got me started.

The book is divided into ten chapters.  Each chapter introduces two or three consonant letters and a couple of vowel.  The first chapter introduces shin (sounds like an English "sh"), bet (sounds like an English "b") and tav (sounds like an English "t") along with the "a" vowels.  After reading a few lines on the first page I was already starting to read collections of nonsense sounds all written using the Hebrew alphabet and the few letters introduced in the lesson.   Before the first lesson was finished I was reading and pronouncing a Hebrew word: shabbat. 

Each chapter, or lesson, takes about an hour to study carefully.  I did one lesson per day and within less than two weeks I was able to slowly read and pronounce vowel-pointed Hebrew.  It is a very gentle learning curve that is fun to travel.  The book also introduces a few key Hebrew roots and explains their significance.

This book uses Modern Hebrew pronunciation.  I highly recommend Aleph Isn't Tough for a gentle and enjoyable introduction to Hebrew.

Living Biblical Hebrew: Part 1

If I had to pick just one resource to get started with Biblical Hebrew, this would be it.  The Biblical Language Center offers courses and materials that emphasize a methodology of "audio and oral internalization" of Biblical Hebrew.  (They also offer courses and materials for Koine Greek.)  Their approach is to use "living language" methods not unlike those that could be found in a course for learning Spanish, German or French.  

Living Biblical Hebrew: Part 1 begins with ten lessons; each lesson is a set of 100 cartoon-like pictures that is used along with a CD or MP3 audio track.  The audio tracks are entirely in Hebrew.  In each lesson, the narrator says a word or phrase about a picture; the narrator says each phrase twice before moving on to the next picture.  The narrator also says a number before each phrase to help the student keep track of the current location in the chapter.

Seemingly without effort, the student starts to understand what the narrators are saying.  By the end of the tenth chapter the student is able to understand some short narratives and has been exposed to "700 different forms in varying syntactic contexts based on 250 different vocabulary items."  There is also a set of audio tracks and charts at the back of the book that teach the alphabet and letter pronunciation. After completing the listening and picture viewing, the student listens to all ten chapters while following along with written Hebrew text rather than pictures.  The pronunciation used is Modern Hebrew.  The price at this time from BLC is $69 plus shipping.

Living Biblical Hebrew: Part 2

The Biblical Language Center's  Living Biblical Hebrew: Part 2 continues using an audio and oral approach to Hebrew learning, but makes extensive use of dialogs and drills rather than simply listening and picture viewing.  The drills include grammatical exercises. 

Audacity

Audacity is a free, open source, multi-platform software program for recording and editing sounds.  Audacity has been a very useful tool in my Hebrew learning toolkit.  I use it in two different ways.  I have several sources of Hebrew audio tracks (more on this later); each track is one chapter from the Bible.  I usually load a track into Audacity and then select a verse and then play it repeatedly in an audio loop.  Sometimes I select just part of a verse or just one word so that I can hear the pronunciation more clearly.  Audacity also provides a feature that allows the user to slow down the sound without changing the pitch; this feature is very useful for listening to difficult sections.  I also have used Audacity to create short sound clips of one or a few verses; I then load these sound clips into an iPod so that I can listen to them in a sound loop while walking or working outside.  I highly recommend including some kind of Hebrew Bible listening as part of Biblical Hebrew study.

Mellel II: Davka Special Edition

Mellel is a Word Processor program for Mac OS X that is especially suitable for Hebrew and other right-to-left languages.  It also is a very good English language Word Processor and is especially good for mixed language word processing.  The Davka Special Edition is bundled with the the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) both with and without vowel-points along with several other Jewish texts.

Mellel is a useful tool for creating personal study materials and for documenting Bible studies that include Hebrew and Greek text.  The regular price from Davka at this time $79.  It is available for purchase by download.

Hebrew Audio Bible (Free Download)

A Hebrew Audio Bible is available for download from the Academy of Ancient Languages.  Each chapter can be downloaded separately.  The reader is Abraham Shmuelof; an interesting and brief biography on Abraham Shmuelof is available here.  The pace of the reading is slow and it is generally quite clear.  The pronunciation is Modern Hebrew.

Hebrew Audio Bible (MP3 CDs)

A Hebrew Audio Bible is available for purchase on 4 MP3 CDs.  The recording quality is generally better than the free download recordings that I just mentioned.  However, the pace of the reading is significantly faster and in places can be more difficult to understand.  The pronunciation is Modern Hebrew.

I like both of the free audio Bible and this commercial version.  They are both useful resources for learning Biblical Hebrew.

Hebrew-English Bible: Tanakh and New Testament


This Hebrew-English Bible is now the Bible that I carry and use the most.  It is printed in two columns per page; the left column is NKJV English and the right column is Hebrew.  The New Testament is a modern translation.  The book is printed in Hebrew page-order; back-to-front from an English perspective.  The books of the Tanakh are in Hebrew order.

Hebrew Audio New Testament (Faith Comes From Hearing)

A free Hebrew Audio New Testament is available for download from Faith Comes From Hearing.  The recording is dramatized with sound effects and the text is read by multiple readers. 

A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament

A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament is usually the first reference that I turn to when I look up a Biblical word.  (Unless I am using Accordance Bible Software or Olive Tree BibleReader; more on these later.)

The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon

If I am struggling with a difficult word or I need to confirm the parsing of a word, I turn to The Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon.  This book alphabetically lists every word exactly as it appears in the Hebrew Bible.  This book is available for free viewing or download from the Internet Archive.

501 Hebrew Verbs

501 Hebrew Verbs is a useful tool for learning and looking up verbs.  Although it is a Modern Hebrew resource, it is frequently useful for learning Biblical Hebrew.

Multi Dictionary

I like the Multi Dictionary because it is mostly written in Hebrew.  This is a Modern Hebrew resource.  The English-Hebrew section is simply an English index into the Hebrew-English section.  The Hebrew-English section is organized using the non-vowel-pointed spelling.  Most words include a definition in Hebrew along with a Hebrew sentence that uses the word.  The English translation is generally very brief.

Google Translate

Google Translate is sometimes helpful.  It is especially useful for looking up words in Modern Hebrew and for doing a translated search for Hebrew texts on the Internet.  I occasionally have fun using it by typing in Hebrew, trying to get it to create a readable English translation of some Hebrew phrase I am experimenting with.

Accordance Bible Software

Accordance Bible Software is a very advanced original-language Bible study tool.  There are video demos and tutorials available at the vendor's web site.

Olive Tree BibleReader

Olive Tree's BibleReader on the iPod Touch puts a Hebrew Bible, a Hebrew lexicon and advanced Bible search tools in your pocket.

The New Covenant: Aramaic Peshitta Text with Hebrew Translation

This isn't really a learning tool, but it is a very interesting book.  The first image below is Matthew chapter 1 in Aramaic (The Peshitta).  The second image is Matthew chapter 1 in a Modern Hebrew translation of the Aramaic New Testament text.  Generally the Hebrew is quite similar to the text that I find in my Hebrew-English Bible.  The (English) editor's note states that the text attempts "to follow the Aramaic as closely as possible, even at the expense of somewhat forcing the Hebrew."