Biblical Hebrew Step by Step, Volume 2: Readings from the Book of Genesis

Rating:
Summary: Beyond grammar and into text
Review: This volume builds on basic Hebrew skills by working through the text of Genesis. Passages directly from the Torah are illuminated by vocabulary and grammar notes, explaining odd usage and highlighting regular grammatical features. Exercises emphasizing both vocabulary and grammar follow each reading selection. Without overwhelming the student, this textbook manages to offer a glimpse of the depth of the Torah's language and help the student begin to unpack some of the text's meanings.

This volume and the companion Volume 1 present short, focused, uncluttered chapters. Each volume can be used independently, as well as with a class. Answer keys and cassette recordings are also available for the independent student.

Rating:
Summary: Small font : magnifying glass required
Review: Volume II of Hebrew Step by Step by Menahem Mansoor presents readings from the Book of Genesis with grammatical notes and exercises. Contrary to the infamous and inordinately expensive "Readings in Biblical Hebrew", another intermediate level Hebrew manual you may have heard of, Hebrew Step by Step II includes the Hebrew text.

Students will find that it has the same strong points and weaknesses as the first volume. It is very user-friendly inasmuch as you get lots of study hints from the author; photographs from the good old times enliven the text; the amount of exercises is kept to a reasonable level, offering the student what I'd call "Hebrew Snacks". Briefly, this is a manual with a reassuring feeling of homeliness about it.

The only major problem that I see, apart from the usual messiness of the explanations and lack of clear charts, is the size of the Hebrew font, which is painfully small. To make matters worse, the Biblical text is reproduced with all the minute reading symbols of the Biblia Stuttgartensia.

Conclusion: equip yourself with a good magnifying glass if you aregoing to use this manual. If your eyesight is pretty poor, I recommend the First Hebrew Reader by EKS instead. Their font is HUGE.