Product Description

Third Edition. This is the newest edition of a very popular manual which is used in classrooms around the world to assist students learning to read the Hebrew Bible. It contains a simple and straightforward discussion of the masoretes, the masoretic tradition, the critical apparatus of BHS, the Masora, the accents, unusual letters and other markings. The third edition contains an index. Also bound in this volume is Dr. H. P. Rüger's An English Key to the Latin Words and Abbreviations and the Symbols of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #362056 in Books
• Published on: 1995-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 87 pages

Language Notes
Text: English, Hebrew, Arabic, Latin

About the Author
William R. Scott holds a B.A. from the University of Chicago, an M.Div. from the American Baptist Seminary of the West, an M.A. in Biblical Studies from The Graduate Theological Union, and a Ph.D. in Hebrew Bible from The Johns Hopkins University. He has taught at the American Baptist Seminary of the West, The Johns Hopkins University and Chapman College. From 1993 to 1997, he was the director of BIBAL Press and is currently the president of D. & F. Scott Publishing, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Serves its purpose
For those just beginning to work with the Hebrew Bible, this little guide can be very valuable. There is much in BHS that needs explaining, but is missing or difficult to comprehend in the front matter of BHS itself. The material in Scott's book is available in more substantial reference books on the Masorah ("The Masorah of BHS" by Kelley et al.) or textual criticism (see "Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible," by Emmanuel Tov), but these books are considerably larger and more expensive. The latter may be particularly difficult for beginners. As a quick and easy handbook for navigating BHS, Scott's book is very useful.

a good help for beginners
The "quick and dirty" of the stranger markings of BHS. For those not well-versed in Latin, German, or Aramaic, this little reference is quite handy. Scott does not bother with the history or evolution of the Tiberian Masorah or other markings, but rather simply gives what is necessary to successfully derive meaning from both the Masorah Magna and Masora Parva (but not the Masorah Finalis) as well as some of the accentation and other markings. The most useful feature of this reference work is its size - it's very small and slim, so much so that it may have a propensity to get lost frequently.

A useful tool
If one is interested in decoding the minutia around the BHS text, then this book is an invaluable resource to have available.

Upon careful reading, I found the explanation of the accents in this volume to be adequate, especially when applied directly to individual verses in the BHS.