Greetings and Welcome to Fred Putnam.org!
Greetings!
Welcome to my website, and thanks for visiting. I hope that what you find here proves helpful or [at least] interesting.
I am a member of the faculty of The Templeton Honors College at Eastern University, in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, where I teach the honors courses in biblical studies.
I have taught Biblical Hebrew, Old Testament interpretation, Bible translation, linguistics, and various other subjects at the graduate (since 1984), and undergraduate (since 2007) levels; homeschool courses in Hebrew, Greek, Shakespeare, philosophy, poetry, and English literature to high school students; and various courses, workshops, and seminars in reading and understanding the Bible for collegians in the USA and at Institutul Teologica Timotheus (Bucharest, Romania) and Greek Bible College (Pikermi, Attika, Greece).
This website, which is intended as a resource for my students, includes papers that I have read at various conferences, as well as "personal articles" (studies made out of my own interest without regard for publication), fiction and poetry (for fun), and papers written to encourage and foster conversation.
A New Grammar of Biblical Hebrew
Title: Toward Reading & Understanding Biblical Hebrew
This is the full text of an introductory grammar of Biblical Hebrew. These files may be downloaded free until its publication by Sheffield Phoenix Press (anticipated late 2010), at which time I will have to remove it from this site, apart from a few sample pages.
Download Chapters (PDF*):
Grammar Part 1 (Lessons 1 - 4; pages 1-41)
Grammar part 2 (Lessons 5 - 9; pages 42-85)
Grammar part 3 (Lessons 10 - 14; pages 86-123)
Grammar part 4 (Lessons 15 - 17; pages 124-149)
Grammar part 5 (Lessons 18 - 21; pages 150-185)
Grammar part 6 (Lessons 22 - 27; pages 186-226)
Grammar part 7 (Lessons 28 - App. B; pages 227-276)
Grammar part 8 (Lessons App. C - F; pages 277-343)
Pages: 343
* Note: The Hebrew Grammar is in the PDF format; click here to get a free PDF viewer.
A New Grammar of Biblical Hebrew
A New Grammar of Biblical Hebrew (Sheffield Phoenix, 2010) is a discourse-based approach to Biblical Hebrew, designed to lead beginning students into reading and understanding the biblical text from a linguistic and literary perspective.
YHWH is a Farmer; People are Plants
This is an unformatted MSWord version of a second paper, developing the idea that complexes of related biblical metaphors can be used as theologies. A pdf version will soon be available (posted 2.June.2010).
Preaching Engagements (confirmed)
Preaching:
I will be preaching at Christ the King Presbyterian Church (Conshohocken, PA) one Sunday per month, February through May 2010.
Hope you can join us!
The New School of Theology: A Proposal
Can theological education be improved? If so, how? This paper sets forth a unique program of theological education and preparation for both ministry and a life of study and reflection.
From Darkness into Gloom: A True Story
A brief paper on my changing understanding of what it means to learn, and thus to teach, delivered as an address to the first Annual Alpha Chi Epsilon Gala (September 2009) at Philadelphia Biblical University.
One-man Show (not mine)
The Great Divorce
Sermon at Christ the King Presbyterian Church (Conshohocken, PA)
The Windmills of Creation