Jeff A Benner?

Never heard of him. He teach Hebrew or something?

Jeff Benner web site
It appeares his focus is ancient Hebrew. While this can be a very scholarly pursuit it won't help you much to either read or speak current Hebrew - in prayer books or in conversation.

I have no idea of the level of his particular scholarship and neither do I have any concept of his theology - and what ever his theology is will inevitably color his scholarship to some degree. Use caution in that regard.

TheThadman is our resident ancient linguist and he may have clearer insight on this fellow.

What is your goal in learning Hebrew? Depending on what you are trying to accomplish I would recommend different material.

I have about 15 Hebrew grammar books on my shelves. The one you mentioned I am not familiar with.

To learn to read Hebrew Scripture I would recommend Biblical Hebrew A Text and Workbook, by Bonnie Kittel, Yale University Press 1989.

This book is inductive in appraoch and will give the ability to read Hebrew prose with some competancy by the end of the course. It gives a small introduction to Hebrew poety with is unusual in a beginning level grammar book.

I would not recommend that you end your studies there however. There are several other grammars that are essential in my opinion, but this is a good place to start.

Be wary. Alot of folks like to construct elabrate therories based Ancient Hebrew alphabet.

Your best bet is to get something written by a Public Professor, prefferbly Secular. Avoid anything that has to do with "ZoHar" and "Kabballah" and avoid any, Jewish or christian, who claim to have found some secret link or lost truth through study of the biblical alphabet. I fell prey to that one time myself.

Yatziv has good advice.

I went on the website. I was looking at the page about Los Lunas, New Mexico. I lived there for 12 years and never heard of this.

I am honored

After you get a grammar book you will want to get a good dictionary. There are many many good ones (and it is always good to have more than one) but I would recommend a must to be Langenscheidt's pocket dictionary of Hebrew-English. It is very user frendly

I taught Kittel to two different classes. One we taught a different grammar book first (because everyone had it, but it wasn't my first choice) the other group had not had any previous grammar books under their belt. I noticed that the second group developed a diffent logic with regard to the broader scope of how the language worked and caught on easier. The reason for this I believe is that Kittel does one of the best jobs I have seen in helping a student break apart a verb (EXCELLENT) and introduces concepts as they are used (inductive). And builds a little at a time.

With a deductive aproach one says all there is to about a concept (say nouns for example) at once.

What I can't comment on is how difficult an inductive approach would be without a teacher???? We often add when deemed appropriate. Last week we were going through Hithpael and there are two chapters on this but Kittel didn't go thru the rules for metathesis so we added that to the lesson. As our students do read we felt it important because even with a Zodhiates if you don't know these spelling rules the metathesis that occurs several times in Torah you would not be able to figure out and we didin't want them to get frustrated

I got to thinking last night.....

One thing that most grammar books fall short on is teaching alphabet and phonics. Usually there is a very brief intoduction, but most books assume some level of knowledge in this area. If you are really interested we can discuss this further. Just didn't want to get you off on the wrong foot.

One of our students took Hebrew at Moody Bible College and they taught Seow as a first semester course. It is an excellent book but a horrible first choice. She went home crying every day from frustration......

i have a langenscheidt's dictionary for classical greek, is the hebrew one for ancient Hebrew?
Langenscheidt is one of the leaders in language dictionaries and they make dictionaries for almost every imaginable language. So yes they do have a very good dictionary for Biblical Hebrew.

do you need to learn modern Hebrew to be able to learn ancient Hebrew?
I think we need to define here. Modern hebrew that is written and spoken today in Israel is a simplified form of Biblical Hebrew. There are only about four verb patterns that are used in modern Hebrew (as opposed to 7 major and 15 minor verb patterns in Biblical Hebrew) and the modern nikkud (vowel system) is not the same as Biblical. So if you are reading a newspaper you will not see the "dot vowels" but additional vavs and yods for vowels. When people speak of ancient Hebrew they are generally referring to the alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet has undergone changes through the course of time and the current "block" letters are the standard. All Biblical reference material is written in the block lettering. The cursive or script alphabet is of little value to the student desiring to learn Scripture. It is used mostly for personal notes, billboards etc.

So in terms of learning Hebrew to read the Bible you want to learn Biblical Hebrew. Ancient Hebrew is really only referring to the older way the alphabet looked and the source material is few and far between, so I can't see much value in learning that. Modern Hebrew won't help you learn Scripture so I wouldn't start there either.

what is the best text to get as in a bible in it's original language?

You want to get a Bible. There are many good texts. Amazon generally will give you a few sample pages so you can see before you buy. But I would recommend the Artscroll Stone Tanack. It has good clear print, a readable font, and the points are very clear. Side by side Hebrew/English is helpful. In terms of an interlinear which is a very good option for a beginning student the resources are limited. The only one on the market that is really readable is the Kohlenberger NIV. What I like about it is the print is very good with nice word separation. You just have to remember that you will learn "sloppy" Hebrew if you always follow their translation under the words. I like each of these for different reasons, but remember ALL books have strengths and weaknesses.

are there different types as have they been updated and modernized?I wouldn't be too concerned about this. To get into textual critiscm is not a place to start. It takes a great deal of backround to really be able to sort through this.

i started to learn a bit of the alphabet from mr benners site, but didn't get very far. I would not learn the ancient alphabet.

where should i start as one who knows nothing but is most interested in the ancient language but not really that bothered about the modern or is it essential to learn the modern to beable to learn the ancient?
Learn Biblical Hebrew. Do you have a list of the alphabet? Do you have a lexicon? (there is one in the back of Strong's concordance) I would get familiar with the alphabet then begin an introductry grammar book. As a self paced book maybe Biblical Hebrew by Page H. Kelley would be a better start. I could send you some alphabet drills too if you are interested.

There is a set of books designed for the adult learner- I know the second ones name is "Aleph is not enough". I can't lay my hands on the first one at this particular moment. I might also suggest getting some tapes that teach beginning Hebrew. You can play them and get a real good sense of pronounciation even if you don't get it all at first.

The book that Yael referred to is written by Rabbi Linda Motzkin. I am not familiar with that series, but she co-authored two othersThe First Hebrew Primer and Prayerbook Hebrew: The Easy Way, from EKS Publishing which I have.

Prayerbook Hebrew only goes thru only the Qal varb pattern and is very very basic.

The First Hebrew Primer is a primer and would need further study.

Jacob Weingreen is an excellent book. I would encourage, if you are really interested....that it will take several books. For many reasons.

The first book I ever did was "Prayer Book Hebrew The Easy Way". Its presentation was the most simplistic but it was the hardest because I had to make room in my head for different linguistic concepts. I was originally discouraged at the end of that book because the final statement was that there was so much more to be learned that they didn't present UGH!

So the long and the short of it is if your goal is to read Biblical Hebrew it will require a time + effort commitment. Which is soooooo rewarding, but don't want you to underestimate the task.

Different authors have different styles of communication. On the one hand some authors tend to write their books for their pier group while other are more friendly to the student (that is nothing more than style). On the other hand our ability to absorb information varies depending on where we are at at the time. So, let's say every book is talking about vowels for example and they are going to present the classes and types (because this is so important to understanding vowel reduction) but the student is still trying to just remember what the vowels are. That same information will need to be presented until we have the ability to digest it. (how long did it take us to learn to read and write English and it is our first language)

But I would encourage you with this. I have a Hebrew/English dictionary that was written for the Hebrew speaking person and has 14 pages of pronunciation rules for English. There just simply are not as many pronunciation rules for Hebrew. English speaking people don't understand how hard it is to learn English when it is not your first language. So IT CAN BE DONE! I knew an oriental man who was in the states working on a PhD (so he was a very smart man) and he talked about how hard it is to learn English. He was at a picnic one time and heard people talking, the comment was, "yeah, that was toast!" Not knowing what they meant, he went home and looked in his dictionary and it said - toast = burnt bread. We had a good chuckle over that!

There is no Hebrew font available on this web site so I would have to PM stuff to ya Be happy to

Also heard of Gesenius Hebrew Grammar is this any good?

I have Gesenius and it is excellent, but it is a reference grammar. Perhaps you may want to add it to your library, but later. It is a difficult read.

Should i just start with one grammar book, after i've learned the alphabet.
Do you learn from one grammar book first and then learn more from another after you've learnt from the first one, or do you use more than one to start with?

One book at a time

I've sent for Jacob Weingreen's book and Langenscheidt dictionary.
I know i'll need a Hebrew bible also, is this enough to start with or do i need more?

This is a good place to start. I e-mailed you the alphabet and vowels. Memorize these. A good technique is to make flash cards after you are familiar with the letters. Just take an index card and put the Hebrew letter on the front of the card, then put the name of the letter and how to pronounce it on the back.

One thing that really makes things hard at first is you will be learning a basic vocabulary at the same time you are trying to learn grammar principles. Another source I would recomend is:

A Students Vocabulary for Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic
by Authors: Larry A. Mitchel
Released: 04 May, 1984
ISBN: 0310454611
Paperback

Amazon sells this for $10.39 This book arranges vocabulary in order of occurance. You learn the most frequently used words first. I will scan a couple of pages for you so you can get started. This will help alot with grammar books (they tend to use very frequent words in the lessons). OH WHAT FUN!

Sorry it took a couple of days to get back to you - holidays you know....

I sent you the first two pages from Larry Mitchell's book. I whited out my notes (they were additional spelling rules that are not neccesary right now) that is why there are some blank spots. I scanned these at a higher resolution because you need to be able to see the vowels (and the print is small to begin with). So it will probably take a little while to come in when you check your e-mail.

When you feel confident with the material I sent you I will give you some alphabet drills .