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As you do your compositions...

Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2021 8:46 am
by Jason
The heart of the advanced Hebrew course is Jacob Weingreen's Classical Hebrew Composition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962). You should all have a copy of the textbook accessible to you at this point, as we begin the course. Weingreen says in his preface:
A student's knowledge of a classical language may be assessed in terms of his [sic, or her] competence in writing compositions in the correct idiom of that language. Teachers of classical Hebrew have long felt the need for a textbook designed for the training of students in writing Hebrew compositions in the style of the Old Testament [sic, Hebrew Bible or Tanach]. This book is offered in the hope that it will fill that vacuum. It is assumed that the student has already covered the general groundwork of Hebrew grammar, that he [sic, or she] has worked through the exercises accompanying the rules of grammar, and that he [sic, or she] has also studied some Old Testament Hebrew texts.
Of course, our weakness at this point is that your knowledge of forms (that is, morphology) is pretty passive, as you have only used Hebrew passively in reading the story of Elijah from Cook and Holmstedt's textbook. You haven't done any type of composition in Hebrew beyond what was done at the beginning of the first course. Additionally, you haven't spent a lot of time reading various parts of the Tanach to familiarize yourself with the style of Hebrew generally. This presents a challenge as you get started, since you'll essentially be writing in a language that you don't have extensive experience reading in, which is difficult.

What does this mean? You cannot expect perfection from yourself, nor should you do so. It's expected and even hoped that you will make mistakes in your compositions. The goal is improvement, not mastery. Most of the compositions can be tied directly to passages that Weingreen modeled them on from within the King James Bible. This makes it easy to search for a phrase in the English Bible and then look it up in the Hebrew Bible ( [Hebrew Bible] or 𝔐 [Masoretic Text {MT}]) to get some kind of direction for your translation.

If you have a morphologically tagged copy of in Logos or Accordance, you can do searches on specific lemmas (lexeis) to see how they appear in the text. For example, you can search for the root קוּם in the hiphil to see the forms it takes in the Bible. This will also be very helpful when trying to find the right forms.

You can tag your compositions here on the forum with:
[​rtl][​he]...[​/he][​/rtl]
Just type your Hebrew exactly where the dots are (with no spaces between the tags and your words). For example:
[​rtl][​he]וַיְהִי רָעָב בְּאֶ֫רֶץ כְּנַעַן כִּי חָטָא הָעָם לַיהוָה׃ וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּ֫אמֶר אֵלָיו הִנֵּה רָעָב בָּאָ֫רֶץ׃ קַח־נָא אֵת אִשְׁתְּךָ וְאֵת בֶּן־אָחִ֫יךָ וְאֵת כָּל־אֲשֶׁר־לְךָ וָרֵד אַ֫רְצָה מִצְרַ֫יִם כִּי לֶ֫חֶם בְּמִצְרַ֫יִם׃ וַיַּ֫עַשׂ אַבְרָהָם כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּ֫הוּ יְהוָה וַיִּקַּח אֶת־אִשְׁתּוֹ וְאֶת־בֶּן־אָחִיו וְאֶת־צֹאנוֹ וְאֶת־בְּקָרוֹ וַיֵּ֫רֶד אִתָּם מִצְרַ֫יְמָה וַיֵּ֫שֶׁב שָׁם׃[​/he][​/rtl]
This will make the text align right-to-left ([​rtl]) and stylized for Hebrew ([​he]). It will come out looking like this:
וַיְהִי רָעָב בְּאֶ֫רֶץ כְּנַעַן כִּי חָטָא הָעָם לַיהוָה׃ וַיְדַבֵּר יְהוָה אֶל־אַבְרָהָם וַיֹּ֫אמֶר אֵלָיו הִנֵּה רָעָב בָּאָ֫רֶץ׃ קַח־נָא אֵת אִשְׁתְּךָ וְאֵת בֶּן־אָחִ֫יךָ וְאֵת כָּל־אֲשֶׁר־לְךָ וָרֵד אַ֫רְצָה מִצְרַ֫יִם כִּי לֶ֫חֶם בְּמִצְרַ֫יִם׃ וַיַּ֫עַשׂ אַבְרָהָם כַּאֲשֶׁר צִוָּ֫הוּ יְהוָה וַיִּקַּח אֶת־אִשְׁתּוֹ וְאֶת־בֶּן־אָחִיו וְאֶת־צֹאנוֹ וְאֶת־בְּקָרוֹ וַיֵּ֫רֶד אִתָּם מִצְרַ֫יְמָה וַיֵּ֫שֶׁב שָׁם׃
Make sure to pay close attention to the notes in Weingreen's book. They give a lot of clues as to how he expects you to translate the English into Hebrew.

Of course, use the forum to ask any questions for direction, and don't be shy. Everyone will have the same issues. You're learning together. Never be afraid to make a mistake or to ask a question.

Re: As you do your compositions...

Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2021 2:29 am
by Jonathan
Thanks, Jason. This is helpful!

Re: As you do your compositions...

Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2021 5:13 am
by samthemanB3
You make a good point, Jason, about our passively reading the Hebrew. In a way, that is what is minimally required in studying a text. But I can see how composition helps you learn the language from a different angle. I've liked your point in the past about getting a Hebrew mindset, and getting the feel of the language. I still think that's good advice.

Re: As you do your compositions...

Posted: Tue Sep 07, 2021 10:11 pm
by mplioplis
Thanks. Still trying to get the hang of this forum... takes me back about 20 years, LOL, but it's still valuable, don't get me wrong. Just need to be constantly checking here.