Hebrew for Life: Strategies for Learning, Retaining, and Reviving Biblical Hebrew

“Hebrew for Life will benefit you if you are just beginning your Hebrew journey, if you have forgotten most of your Hebrew, or if you find yourself somewhere in between. I will be using this volume with my students.”

“Hebrew for Life addresses conclusively the most common questions my students pose about learning biblical languages and provides important resources, approaches, and concrete study habits. The chapter on vocabulary memorization alone is an incredibly valuable resource that I expect to make required reading in my courses. The true value of the book, though, extends beyond its mastery of the mechanics of language acquisition; the authors encourage students to consider the more fundamental issues of the learning process, like setting realistic goals, valuing imagination, and living a life of diligence. Hebrew for Life is the kind of resource that helps to form students into faithful stewards of the unique privilege of reading the Hebrew text.”

“Howell, Merkle, and Plummer have put together a resource that provides nitty-gritty, real help to both encourage and guide pastors and students to engage the biblical text in the original languages as a lifelong discipline. I heartily recommend it.”

“Every Hebrew professor knows the challenge of getting students to retain their knowledge of Hebrew once the course is finished. Ideally, they should progress in the biblical languages, but many regress and lose most of what they gained. I am always looking for ways to encourage students to see the value and necessity of keeping up their knowledge of Hebrew and for ways to help them in this endeavor. This book offers strong and encouraging arguments for the continuous use of Hebrew, and it gives many practical suggestions for how to do this. It will definitely be a resource that I recommend to students and a requirement in many of my classes.”