Title: A Cumulative Index to the Grammar and Syntax of Biblical Hebrew
Author: Frederic Putnam

Sample Pages: Coming Soon!
Table of Contents: View

Publisher: Eisenbrauns, 1996
ISBN: 1575060078
Pages: xii + 338 pages, English
Price: $24.50

Description: Beginning with Genesis and moving verse by verse through the entire Hebrew Bible, Putnam indexes the citations found in each major reference grammar to provide a wonderful time-saving tool for exegetes. Works indexed: Bauer and Leander, Historische Grammatik der hebraischen Sprache des Alten Testamentes; Beer, ed. by Meyer, Hebraische Grammatik; Bergstrasser, Hebraische Grammatik; Brockelmann, Hebraische Syntax; Davidson, Hebrew Syntax; Gibson, Davidson's Introductory Hebrew Grammar: Syntax; Kautzsch, ed. Cowley, Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar; Jenni, Lehrbuch der hebraischen Sprache des Alten Testaments; Jouon, translated and edited by Muraoka, Grammar of Biblical Hebrew; Richter, Grundlagen einer althebraischen Grammatik; Rosenthal, Grammar of Biblical Aramaic; Schneider, Grammatik des biblischen Hebraisch: Lehrbuch; Waltke & O'Connor, Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax; Williams, Hebrew Syntax: An Outline.

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Where to buy: Eisenbrauns | Amazon Hardback or Softcover

Title: Hebrew Bible Insert: A Student's Guide to the Syntax of Biblical Hebrew
Author: Frederic Putnam

Sample Pages: View
Table of Contents: View

Publisher: Stylus Publishing, 1996
ISBN: 1887070036
Pages: 64, English
Price: $5.95

Description: Intended as an insert for BHS (the Hebrew Bible), this guide is designed as a quick reference guide for Hebrew Syntax. Divided into five major sections this handy booklet covers Nominal Syntax, Verbal Syntax, Clausal Syntax, the Masoretic Accents, and [verb] Paradigms. This is a handy tool for reference when reading the Hebrew Bible and you don't have a reference grammar available.

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Where to buy: Westminster Bookstore

Title: Card-Guide to Biblical Hebrew
Author: Frederic Putnam

Sample Pages: Coming Soon!
Table of Contents: Coming Soon!

Publisher: Stylus Publishing, 1996; rev. ed., 1997
ISBN: 1887070044
Pages: xii + 338 pages, English
Price: $3.95

Description: Coming Soon!

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Where to buy: Westminster Bookstore | Fuller Seminary Bookstore

About: The below series of slides contain talking points in regards to major events in the Hebrew Bible. The presentations are listed below (roughly) in chronological order.

Note: You will need the free Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer (~2MB) or free Adobe Acrobat Reader (~27MB) to view the below files.

Download:
(PDF | PPT) -- Introduction and Orientation to the Hebrew Bible
(PDF | PPT) -- Beginnings: Genesis-Exodus
(PDF | PPT) -- Israel in the Wilderness: Leviticus-Deuteronomy
(PDF | PPT) -- Introduction to Biblical History Writing
(PDF | PPT) -- There was no King: Joshua-Ruth
(PDF | PPT) -- United Monarchy
(PDF | PPT) -- Divided Monarchy
(PDF | PPT) -- My Servants the Prophets: Prophecy
(PDF | PPT) -- Major Prophets
(PDF | PPT) -- Minor Prophets
(PDF | PPT) -- The "Other" Mode of Revelation: Poetry and Wisdom
(PDF | PPT) -- Post-Exilic Yehud

Download: Reading Notes on Ruth (PDF format; click here to get a free PDF viewer)

Pages: 10

Abstract: A verse-by-verse grammatical analysis of the book of Ruth to assist in reading Ruth in Hebrew.

Download: Reading Notes on Jonah (PDF format; click here to get a free PDF viewer)

Pages: 5

Abstract: A verse-by-verse grammatical analysis of the book of Jonah to assist in reading Jonah in Hebrew.

The Real Meaning of Genre: Some Thoughts & a Cautionary Tale

There are those writers-especially writers of books telling the rest of us how to read this or that kind of material (i.e., genre)-and that without knowing the genre of a work we can't "truly" understand or appreciate it, and are in fact prone to misinterpret it. This has become almost a dictum of biblical interpretation, especially in the Psalter, where numerous books on the hermeneutics [interpretation] of the psalms warn that the first step in understanding a psalm is to determine its genre.

Introduction: Translation is no slight task, and those who pursue it vocationally deserve our most heartfelt thanks and admiration. Translators are often challenged by verses of Scripture that contain, e.g., textual difficulties, terms with an uncertain lexical value, or ambiguous syntax. Nonetheless, the translator must produce a version of even the most ambiguous and difficult verse; that is his or her responsibility.

Many of the proverbs proper-those following Pr 10.1a-are difficult to translate. Gnomic compression, syntactic ambiguity, lexemes with uncertain semantic load, opaque metaphors, and cultural distance challenge even the best translators. These difficulties, however, are often invisible due to the translational tradition(s) within which the translator works-the traditional or "received" translation often determines renderings, whether or not the translator realizes this influence.

Irrealis in Esther

Narrational irrealis-negative statements telling us the readers what did not happen-is integral to the story contained in the book of Esther. Without telling us what didn't happen, the author would not have been able to tell us what did.

The real point of this paper, and my reason for writing and reading it, was to look at a tiny, apparently insignificant, aspect of biblical stories, and to ask how that kind of information functions within a particular biblical story. I believe that it also demonstrates (as I discovered, not as I intended) that attention to detail can help us read more fully. I was quite surprised to discover that the plot of the book of Esther is largely propelled by negation (both Mordecai's refusal to honour Haman and Esther's ethnic anonymity), so that Mordecai appears as both villain and hero. His refusal to honour Haman threatened his entire race, and led to the deaths of many hundreds of people.

What didn't happen caused what did. Without telling us what didn't happen, the author would not have been able to tell the story.

Read Irrealis in Biblical Narrative for Free.

Buy and listen to the CD/MP3: Listen to Irrealis in Biblical Narrative (off site link)