English-Hebrew Glossary

An English-Hebrew List of Technical Terms for Biblical Studies

Compiled with the assistance of Avital Ordan, MA, MLA*

*This list contains only more common terms and does not attempt to be complete. Additional grammatical terms and their Hebrew equivalents may be found in Marc Zvi Brettler, Biblical Hebrew for Students of Modern Israeli Hebrew (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 315-316; see also pp. 305-314, "Glossary of Grammatical Terms and Abbreviations." An extensive discussion of literary terms used in the study of the Bible are found in:

הסיפור במקרא : בחינות בעיצוב ובאמנות / מאת פרנק פולק

(1999 ,ירושלים : מוסד ביאליק)--see esp. the subject index on pp. 461-481.

The list above includes, where appropriate, variant spelling of Hebrew words, and both older terminology, in use in much of the twentieth-century (in scholars such as Y. Kaufmann), as well as more current terminology, as the aim of this list is to allow readers to understand both older and current Hebrew articles and books. The list is descriptive and does not aim at being prescriptive.

Many people helped in compiling and refining this list; i would like to thank especially: Dr. Yael Avrahami, Mr. Idan Dershowitz, Dr. Cynthia Edenberg, Dr. Hava Guy, Dr. Gili Kugler, Ms. Dena Ordan, Prof. Alexander Rofé, Ms. Tina Sherman, and Dr. Nili Wazana. This list was prepared with the assistance of a grant from the Department of Near Eastern and Jewish Studies at Brandeis University.