Jonah: A Handbook on the Hebrew Text (Baylor Handbook on the Hebrew Bible)

This nice concise volume by Dennis Tucker is a very good tool for students of Biblical Hebrew (BH). As indicated by the title, this book utilized the text of the book of Jonah. It contains the usual pattern most BH readers use. That is a verse of biblical text in Hebrew is followed by word/phrase analysis to aid the student in translation. Like other BH reading guide it assumes the reader has at least a working knowledge of BH.What is different and the reason for my buying of this book is the fact that Mr. Tucker focuses heavily on syntax. Specifically, the book focuses on macro-syntax as Tucker calls it. I like to think of macro-syntax as the big picture or structure of the text on a greater level beyond a single verse or sentence. This is in contrast to what most BH readers focus on, which is micro-syntax, i.e. analyzing word and a sentence without looking at how it fits into the bigger picture. The beauty of reading Hebrew isn't so much the thrill of being able to translate Hebrew text word by word, but understanding what syntax can reveal about the structure of the text and thus the larger picture of what the text is intended to communicate. Wolfgang Schneider's Grammatik des Biblischen Hebräisch. approaches the study of BH from this very point of view.With focus on macro-syntax the reader can more easily identify units such as discourses, admonitions, and many other literary and poetic forms and structures. In this light, it is important to remember that Hebrew texts were composed and structured to be HEARD and not read, at least in their original setting. Thus these texts are structured accordingly with syntactical and other markers to denominate units and give oral signals to help the hearer better understand the message. This notion is consistent with Watson's seminal work on Hebrew poetry, Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to its Techniques (Library Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies). Likewise, Dorsey's work on Literary Structure of the Old Testament, The: A Commentary on Genesis-Malachi focuses at length on oral typesetting and denomination of larger units.It is this understanding that drew me to this book and the approach taken by Tucker. And in that respect my expectations were met and the book is a welcome addition to my library. I highly recommend this book.

Tucker's handbook on the Hebrew text of Jonah is an excellent addition to the library of any intermediate student of Ancient Hebrew. For those familiar with the basics of Hebrew syntax, Tucker's volume is especially useful. Thankfully, Tucker incorporates numerous recent developments in discourse analysis and linguistic approaches to Hebrew literature into the volume, which further helps those seeking to understand the meaning of the Hebrew text. I highly recommend this volume to anyone interested in understanding the message of Jonah.

Excellent book for 1 year hebrew students, greatly assists with verse parsing and identifying special words and terms.

I took two years of Hebrew at Whitworth University and decided to spend summer break making sure my Hebrew skills remained intact for graduate school (in religious studies). I went through this book twice. I ended up writing a paper on the book of Jonah also--and this particular book was instrumental to my argument and thesis. I found I came to it over and over again. This book is perfect for the returning Hebrew student. It presupposes a KNOWLEDGE of Hebrew (2 years worth, at least!). Don't think you'll learn Hebrew simply by using this book! But if you know Hebrew and want to broaden your reading and translating abilities, I happily recommend this volume. It is stellar. Jonah is, as many know, one of the most funniest books in the Hebrew Bible; reading it in Hebrew, exposing all of the wordplays, makes it all the funnier!

Just about every student of Hebrew gets to go through Jonah or Ruth so there are a plethora of aids out there - and plenty of home grown ones as well.This little handbook does have some positive features in that it focuses on discourse structure and macro-syntax, something you won't get in many other handbooks of this nature (Tucker follows Brian Rocine's work on discourse analysis and uses his terminology; Rocine's work in turn is derivative of Longacre, in case you want to know). It is also geared at a level that won't put students off (well, it shouldn't put off those who have done their basic homework; it may daunt those who just want a crib sheet) and suitably concise.The book also has many annoying features. The Kindle version is not worth the price, despite the convenience, because the Hebrew text is tiny and won't enlarge rendering the book next to useless at times. Even in this day and age of unicode, the Hebrew text is presented as images which at times are out of line.It is also badly edited with many shocking typos ("grams mars" "traditions ally" - was the editor blind? - some Hebrew errors too, but then the Hebrew is so small it would render any proof reader blind). One also finds the odd paragraph which betrays a copy-paste compilation. Oh, I'll just copy this bit in here. Too bad if it's in the wrong spot. The editor won't read it so it will pass. (I am sure it wasn't intentional on the author's part but hey, this is why one has editors and proof readers, right? Was there an editor?)Some of the analysis is questionable - but then grammarians and exegetes never agree on anything anyway. Sadly too, some references are also wrong or misleading. For example one inline reference was to an alleged multi page discussion in another text which amounted to a footnote on a different page altogether, with no discussion, and a reference to another much older work.Worth looking up? Maybe. Worth buying? Hmm, not sure. Depends on your disposable income. Mine isn't that disposable.