Review of:

James C. Bangsund: Reading Biblical Hebrew: A Grammar and Basic Lexicon. Usa River, Tanzania: Makumira University College, 2007 (Makumira Textbook Series, 2, revised edition). ISBN: 9987-657-07-9. xx + 317 pp (Can be ordered from: Makumira University College, P.O. Box 55, Usa River, Tanzania. E-mail: chaplain@makumira.ac.tz).

Dr James C. Bangsund is an American who has taught Old Testament Studies and Biblical Hebrew at Makumira University College of Tumaini University, Tanzania, from the mid-1990s and up till 2007, when he returned to the US. The present book represents his legacy as far as Biblical Hebrew is concerned, and the book's target group is primarily Bachelor of Divinity students. Still, due to the author's comprehensive approach and pedagogical skills the book probably has a potential of serving as resource material outside the classroom too. The book is not a reference grammar offering a systematic and research sensitive survey of Hebrew grammar (cf. the traditional Gesenius-Kautzsch or the more recent van der Merwe & al.); rather, it is a textbook offering a successive and pedagogically sensitive entry into Biblical Hebrew (cf. the tradition of Lamdin).

Let two points be made. First, the strength of the book (and of the genre it belongs to) is its ability to take the students step by step into the language of the Old Testament. The book's 78 chapters presents its readers for a successive introduction into sounds and signs, words and forms (it is surprising, though, to see a more or less total negligence of syntactic – at a clause level – discussion), and it is performed with good textual examples and subsequent exercises. Included in the 78 chapters are also good introductions to Hebrew poetry and to the scientific edition of the Hebrew Bible, the BHS.

Second, though, it should be remarked that the book shows hardly any traces of being developed in an African context for an African audience. Even though the language of instruction is English, one would have wished that the author had made some references to the advantages many African students of Biblical Hebrew have at their disposal. An obvious example in Tanzania would be the advantages Ki-Swahili speaking students have as far as vocabulary is concerned. Another example could be the fact that some (e.g. Bantu) languages have cases of syntactical structures that are closer to Biblical Hebrew than what English or other European languages are able to come up with. A sensitivity to these examples would serve pedagogical purposes, of course, but it would also acknowledge African resources as far as Old Testament Studies are concerned.

Reviewed 2007-12-21by Knut Holter, School of Mission and Theology, Misjonsvegen 34, N-4024 Stavanger, Norway. E-mail: knut.holter@mhs.no