Hebrew Resources for Bible Translation Workers

Providing a one-stop compilation of Hebrew materials for the Bible translation community, including free and paid instructional sites, written and audio resources, online and on-site learning options. 

• Reading the Bible in translation is like kissing your bride through a veil! (Jewish poet, Haim Nachman Bialik)

• Properly using the languages opens doors of Biblical discovery that would otherwise remain locked and provides interpreters with accountability that they would not otherwise have. (Jason DeRouchie)

• The quality of exegesis is directly related to knowledge of the Biblical languages, which is in turn directly dependent on one's engagement with scholarship on those languages.  (Benjamin Noonan)

• The original Scriptures well deserve your pain, and will richly repay them. (John Newton)

• If the languages had not made me positive as to the true meaning of the word, I might have still remained a chained monk, engaging in preaching .... errors.  (Martin Luther) 

• If I were young, I would contrive a way and means for the perfect learning of the Hebrew tongue, which is both glorious and profitable, and without which the Holy Scriptures cannot rightly be understood; for although the New Testament be written in Greek, yet it is full of the Hebrew kind of speaking, from whence it is truly said, “The Hebrews drink out of the fountain, the Grecians out of the springs that flow from the fountain; the Latins out of the ponds.” (Martin Luther - Michelet, The Life of Luther from His Own Writings, 284. In Tverberg, Lois. Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus (p. 40). Baker Publishing Group.)

• What hardship I went through, how often I lost all hope, and how often I threw my hands up in the air and then went back to Hebrew out of an eagerness to learn… I give thanks to the Lord that from this bitter seed of learning I now pick sweet fruits. (Jerome) 

• That is the great Rubicon to cross in learning any language. Those in whom the Greek word lives only while they are hunting for it in the lexicon, and who then substitute the English word for it, are not reading the Greek at all; they are only solving a puzzle. The very formula, ‘Naus (ναῦς) means ship’, is wrong. Naus and ship both mean a thing, they do not mean one another. Behind Naus, as behind navis or naca, we want to have a picture of a dark, slender mass with sail or oars, climbing the ridges with no officious English word intruding. C.S. Lewis - scholar of ancient languages and Cambridge University Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature.

Contents

• Israel Learning Options
• Free Online Learning
• Paid Online Learning
• Tips for Learning & Improving Your Biblical Hebrew - Thomas H
• OT Translation Resources
• Bible Translation Hebrew Specialists
• Videos

Israel Learning  Options

• JCBT - Jerusalem Center for Bible Translators. Halvor & Mirjam Ronning/ Brian Kvasnica

  • JCBT YouTube videos

  • 2 week Land of the Bible Course

  • 1 month One-Book-At-A-Time Special Course

  • 5 month Semester Long Course

• IBLT - Institute for Biblical Languages and Translation. Randall Buth

  • 9 month School of Biblical Hebrew

  • 2 year MA in Hebrew and Translation Consulting

• Polis -  The Jerusalem Institute of Languages and Humanities. Christophe Rico

Free Learning

Online Learning

• Aleph with Beth YouTube videos - Beth, with her husband Andrew, teach Hebrew in Hebrew. It is completely free, with new videos coming out about every week or so. Aleph with Beth now has more than 100 video lessons available including the quiz videos that are put in after every 2 lesson videos. They offer other free open access Hebrew resources on their website. 

  • Free Resources for learning Hebrew in other languages - Andrew Case's website offers links to free resources for learning Hebrew in other languages for the rest of the global Church whose language is not English. They're collecting this on their Resources page, including free lectures in Spanish, Arabic, and Portuguese, etc.  And Free Grammars in Different Languages and Free Lexica and Dictionaries in Different Languages. 

• Animated Hebrew - Charles Grebe course. Including the Hebrew Reader with Abraham Shmuelof and the Hebrew Reader with Rabbi Dan Be'eri site. 

• Hebrew Bible Audio YouTube reading by Abraham Schmueloff.  You can follow along  the Hebrew text and also see the English and German text side-by-side. Read Abraham's interesting personal story. 

• Picture Hebrew series of grammar video lectures. YouTube Picture Hebrew  videos.

• Daily Dose of Hebrew  two-minute “Daily Dose” videos talking through a single Hebrew verse. Help you learn Hebrew “from scratch” or review the basics of Hebrew grammar.  These lessons are a condensation and simplification of forty lessons in Mark Futato’s Beginning Biblical Hebrew.  

• BibleLing - online platform for Biblical Hebrew learning aids, with free audio visual learning tools. These materials may be used to supplement formal courses and aim to help learners learn their first words as well as practice reading simplified stories and Bible passages.

• Hebrew for Christians - basic information on Hebrew including some audio

• Torah Class Audio Bible in Hebrew - Hebrew voice recordings of every Old Testament book. They are not chanted with a melody (as in a formal synagogue service) but instead are clearly pronounced in Sephardic-style modern Hebrew. 

• Biblingo - YouTube videos

• William D. Barrick - lecture videos teaching introductory Biblical Hebrew from The Master's Seminary (TMS). Bill Barrick's Hebrew Grammar I website, has links to the lecture videos and course book (Hebrew Grammar, vocabulary list and workbook) for free download.

• unfoldingWord Hebrew Grammar - free Biblical Hebrew reference grammar based on the morphology codes that appear in the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB). Key contributors: Bram van den Heuvel, Chapel Presson, Daniel Bowman, Ethan Knapp, Joel D. Ruark, Jesse Griffin, Kenny E. Hilliard III, Perry Oakes, Stephen J. Andrews

• duolingo - Learn modern Hebrew for free in just 5 minutes a day

• David Lowry Hebrew Songs List - has more than 250 Scripture songs available online, organized by Bible book, chapter and verse

• Join a Hebrew Reading Group - 

  • Cameron Hamm (SIL Cameroon) has a Hebrew reading group on Zoom where we read Deuteronomy and interact in biblical Hebrew. It is currently running on Thursdays at 4 pm WAT (GMT+1). Discussion in Hebrew.

  • There is also the BTList Live Hebrew monthly reading group. Discussion about the text is in English.

TW Logos Options

• The complete Pratico/Van Pelt Hebrew text, workbook and video lectures are available. Search on "Pratico."

• Ernst Wendland and Lynell Zogbo resources on Hebrew Poetry. 

Hebrew Audio Bible

• Mechon-Mamre. Chapter-by-Chapter MP3 Recordings of the Hebrew Bible, pronounced in Sephardic-style Hebrew.

• Talking Bibles. Hebrew Bible

Other Options

• Moorlands College offers an annual two-week Hebrew course in the UK - Basic Hebrew in Week 1 and Intermediate Hebrew in Week 2. 

  • The recommended textbook is: John H. Dobson. 2014. Learn Biblical Hebrew. 2nd Edition. Baker Publishing Group. 408 pgs. The book provides the basics of a standard grammar but also includes insights into Hebrew narrative and poetry not usually found in introductory textbooks. The book comes with links to audio files. 

• Hebrew 4 Nations - Assisting Bible translators around the world in Hebrew knowledge by sending Israelis abroad to provide local Biblical Hebrew courses. 

Other Books

• Bruce K. Waltke  & Michael P. O'Connor (1990) Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Eisenbrauns. (Logos $26 - recommended by Minie Mathew)

• B. M. Rocine (2000) Learning Biblical Hebrew: A New Approach Using Discourse Analysis. Smyth & Helwys. (Logos $25 - recommended by Roman Kim)

Paid Online Learning

• Gateway Theology School is offering Hebrew and Greek beginners and intermediate classes. For Hebrew contact Phil King.

• Biblical Language Center - communicative language teaching with Scott McQuinn, offered for both Greek and Hebrew.

  • BLC approach comes highly recommended by Ed Boehm (SIL Nepal Translation Consultant) -  I’ve studied Greek a fair bit, but have always put it in a different category from other living languages that I’ve learned. Greek was a language I knew about, and studied, but after taking the BLC course, I now put it in the category of ‘a language I know.’ And it’s resulted in some very practical improvements in how I integrate Greek into my translation checking. I used to have Greek pretty far down in my Paratext Text Collection and honestly didn’t refer to it on every verse—often only if there was a problem. But I now have it at the top of my Paratext Text collection and I begin with that before I read anything else. I don’t always understand everything, but for the gospel of John that I’ve been preparing consultant notes for, I’m understanding so much more than I ever have before. And it’s allowed me to catch a few things I might have missed if I was mostly relying on English. So, I feel like it’s upgraded my skills as a consultant.

• Polis Online Courses - The Jerusalem Institute of Languages and Humanities.

• Biblingo - tool for individuals to learn Hebrew at their own pace, which can be used on its own or as a supplement to other resources. They offer many flexible pricing options. Also offers Biblingo YouTube videos. 

• BibleMesh Biblical Hebrew Courses - First Steps, Reading, Vocabulary

• bibling - Learn to read biblical Hebrew in one year in an online tutoring/immersive approach. Pay less than a single class in seminary.  Taught by Travis Wright and Andrew Keenan, two Cambridge PhD students with a passion to help you learn to read the Bible in full color.

Tips for Learning and Improving Your Biblical Hebrew

For beginners

There are two approaches to learning Hebrew.

• (1) The traditional approach, where you learn about the language, rather than actually learn to speak and use the language.  Most Bible and theological colleges / seminaries use this approach.  Even though this is the most common way to learn Hebrew, it is very difficult for most people to make real progress in learning Hebrew using this method.  There is a high drop-out rate in classes.  For the hard-working student, the end result for most people is that he/she can understand what commentaries are talking about when they refer to the Hebrew. The hard-working student can usually also read some Hebrew text with a lot of help from dictionaries and grammars. Few people learn Hebrew well enough to be able to read portions of the Hebrew Bible without constantly looking up dictionaries, grammar charts or commentaries.

Where can you learn Hebrew using the traditional approach? 

• Most Bible and theological colleges / seminaries

• Online courses are available at Israel Institute of Biblical Studies (eTeacher Group). Note that although the school is based in Israel, the instruction is in English and they teach you about the language, rather than teaching you how to speak the language.

• (2)  The living language method, where you actually learn to speak the language, as well as read it.  The method of teaching is similar to the way you would learn a modern language such as Chinese or French.  Although you only ever need to read the Hebrew Bible, if you learn to speak it, rather than only just read it, you will learn it much more effectively.  Lessons are much more interesting than using the traditional approach, and the drop-out rate is far lower.  For the hard-working student, the end result is that he/she will be able to read the Hebrew Bible with understanding and will only need to look up dictionaries or grammars from time to time.

Where can you learn Hebrew using the living language method?:

• Online courses at Biblical Language Centre. They offer both live video classes or pre-recorded courses.  If the times suit you, the online classes are the best option.  The instruction is in a mixture of English and Hebrew and you will actually learn to speak and understand Hebrew.

• Online courses at the Polis Institute.  Some of their classes are in Jerusalem and some are online.  Click here to see the online courses.  Instruction is only in Hebrew, which is great if you are a non-English speaker.

• Online classes at Jerusalem Seminary.  Teachers are native speakers of modern Hebrew who have been trained to teach biblical Hebrew.

• Online classes with Aleph with Beth or YouTube Hebrew Lessons.  This is a new YouTube channel and they keep adding more and more lessons to it.  It is not interactive, but is still a good way of learning.  It is only in Hebrew (no English), so is a great way of learning for those who don’t already know English.  It is also free!

If you are a beginner, the best approach is to take courses with both the traditional approach and the living language method. Taking courses using both methods, you will get the best of both worlds

• If you only learn with the traditional approach, most people will always find learning Hebrew difficult and you will most likely never feel like you can comfortably read the Hebrew Bible.  

• If you only take the living language method, you will be able to speak it well, but you may not understand all the grammatical theory that goes with Hebrew. You might also feel left behind in classes because you aren’t being taught the theoretical background and structures behind the language.

For intermediate learners

If you already know some Hebrew, here are some tips for improving your Hebrew:

• (1) Living Language Method. If you have only ever studied using the traditional approach listed above, consider taking classes using the Living Language method.  You will have to start at the beginning, but you will find it greatly improves your Hebrew.

• (2) Read and listen to the Bible in Hebrew. First, read a chapter in English/Russian or whatever language you know well, in a literal version (eg CSB, ESV, Synodal).   Then, listen to the same chapter as it read out in Modern Hebrew (audio drama). As you listen to it read out, follow along in the English.  When your Hebrew has improved enough, you can follow along in Hebrew.

• (3) Listen to Hebrew worship songs. There is a growing body of Messianic Jewish believers in Israel who put out a lot of worship songs based on the Scriptures and publish them on YouTube. Listening to these songs is great for your Hebrew because:

• They are repetitive, which helps you to learn

• Most are based on the Scriptures or scriptural themes and vocabulary

• You can worship the Lord at the same time!

• Many of them come with sub-titles in both Hebrew and English.  Follow along with the Hebrew sub-titles as much as you can, and look at the English sub-titles when you get lost.

YouTube uses a lot of internet, so if using lots of data is an issue for you, you can download a YouTube video once using YouTube Downloader and then watch as often as you like offline. During installation, be careful to deselect all the extra software it tries to install! The easiest way to find this music is to type “Hebrew worship” into the YouTube search bar.  Here are some I would recommend to start with - roughly starting from easiest and going to more difficult:

• David Lowry Hebrew Songs List - has more than 250 Scripture songs available online, organized by Bible book, chapter and verse

• Worthy

• You are Holy - Ata Kadosh

• Our Father, Our King - Avinu Malkenu אָבִינוּ מַלְכֵּנוּ 

• Great is the Lord - Gadol Adonai

• He Shall not Slumber

• Hephzibah (Isaiah 62:1-4) חֶפְצִי-בָהּ

• Coming Back to You - Ashuv Eleicha

• Make Your Face to Shine (Daniel 9:3-4, 17-19) - Ha’er Panecha הָאֵר פָּנֶיךָ

• Unto Heaven - La Shamaim

• Let us Sing to the Lord - Lechu Nerannena Le'Adonai

• Let us Sing to the Lord - the same song sung first in Hebrew and then in Russian

• He Who Did not Spare - Hu Asher

Now you can try a few Psalms!  The Psalms have some of the most difficult Hebrew in the Bible, so don’t be surprised if these are hard to begin with.  Some of them don’t have subtitles, but they are sung exactly as they are in the Bible, so all you need to do is open your Hebrew Bible to the Psalm and follow along:

• Psalm 23 תהילים כ״ג & the quarantine version

• Psalm 150 & the quarantine version is here

• Psalm 121 בעברית

•  (4) Join a Reading Group. Join a reading group, either face-to-face or virtually.  If you don’t know of an existing reading group that you can join, see if you can find at least 2 other people who will join you to start a reading group.  Meet for about one hour once every week or two weeks.  Take it in turns, with each person reading one verse, translating it, and then discussing any difficult words or phrases.

  • Cameron Hamm (SIL Cameroon) has a Hebrew reading group on Zoom where we read Deuteronomy and interact in biblical Hebrew. It is currently running on Thursdays at 4 pm WAT (GMT+1). Discussion in Hebrew.

  • There is also the BTList Live Hebrew monthly reading group. Discussion about the text is in English.

•  (5) Daily grammar doses. This website gives small doses of Hebrew grammar each day. It is not very helpful for learning to speak and understand Hebrew, but if you use it with some of the other methods listed here, it can be useful for learning more Hebrew grammar.

• (6) Read the Bible in Hebrew. Just read it!  Start with easier books, such as 1 Samuel and Genesis. Psalms and the prophets are the most difficult, so get some practice with easier books before trying these.

OT Translation Resources

• Exegetical and Practical Aids for Old Testament Translation - take a look at Peter Schmidt's site with material for translators of the Old Testament, focusing on exegetical issues that affect meaning and translation. 

Bible Translation Hebrew Specialists