(Part 1)

JBTM Book Reviews
132
Did the authors succeed with their goals? Let us look first at the presentation of the book.
The book bears two covers with slightly different versions of the title. The front (left-hand)
cover contains the title with the words “A Grammar” in the subtitle in larger font than the
rest of the subtitle. The back (right-hand) cover again contains the title but with the words
“Illustrated Reader” in larger font. The grammar section of the book runs left-to right while
the reader follows a Hebrew model, running right-to-left. The two meet in the middle. The
grammar section includes lengthy and important appendices. The grammar section proper
runs to 139 pages; the appendices contain 93 pages; the reader comes to 90 pages. Each
section is separately paginated.
The grammar lessons contain a striking amount of white space. The student may need
the white space for notes since each lesson contains sparse information and needs to be
supplemented with material from the appendices or from the instructor. Within the 139 pages
of grammar, the authors have separated 50 lessons, so each lesson averages between two to
three pages. Thus the authors have pared down the language into small bits and confined
each lesson to one discrete topic.
As mentioned above, the authors have relegated much crucial information to the
appendices. The appendices contain all detailed information concerning phonology and
morphology as well as all information about irregular forms. Each lesson presents a topic
in very simple fashion with a series of footnotes sending the reader to the appendices for
more information. This method of dividing the information has clear benefits since it allows
for concise lessons without bogging the student down with crushing detail. Problems occur,
however, when the authors apply the system inconsistently. For example, lesson eight is one
of the briefer lessons, covering the definite article and interrogative particle on one sparsely
filled page. The authors describe the form of the definite article as the he with a following
dagesh chazaq (forte). The appendix contains the fuller description explaining the problems
related to guttural letters in the noun, but no note in lesson 8 sends the reader to the appendix.
Likewise, lesson nine shows the process of attaching the inseparable preposition, but no note
links to the fuller and necessary explanation given in the appendix. One hopes the authors
will be able to correct such oversights in a later printing.
Some readers may have significant problems with certain other aspects of the grammar.
Cook and Holmstedt have espoused a view of Hebrew word order that has placed them at
odds with the traditional presentation of Biblical Hebrew as a VSO language. They have
presented their understanding of the SVO character of the language has been presented
at length. 1 Currently no consensus exists in the scholarly community on the question of
word order in Biblical Hebrew, but a prospective user of the textbook should understand the
position of the authors and how it might affect issues of sentence structure, word order, and
¹See, e.g., Robert D. Holmstedt, “Word Order and Information Structure in Ruth and Jonah: A
Generative-Typological Analysis,” Journal of Semitic Studies 54.1 (Spring 2009): 111–39.