Product Description

Following in the footsteps of the popular A Reader’s Greek New Testament, A Reader’s Hebrew Bible includes features that make this a time-saver for studying the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament. It comes in Italian Duo-Tone™ binding—attractive, durable, and affordable.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #135857 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-01
• Original language: Hebrew
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Leather Bound
• 1680 pages

From the Back Cover
Ideal for Hebrew students and pastors, A Reader’s Hebrew Bible saves time and effort in studying the Hebrew Old Testament. By eliminating the need to look up definitions, the footnotes allow the user to read the Hebrew and Aramaic text more quickly, focusing on parsing and grammatical issues. A Reader’s Hebrew Bible offers the following features:
• Complete text of the Hebrew and Aramaic Bible using the Leningrad Codex (minus critical apparatus)
• Shaded Hebrew names that occur less than 100 times
• Footnoted definitions of all Hebrew words occurring 100 times or less (twenty-five or less for Aramaic words)
• Context-specific glosses
• Stem-specific glossed definitions for verb forms (Qal, Piel, Hiphil, and so forth)
• Ketib/Qere readings both noted in the text and differentiated appropriately
• Marker ribbon

Featuring a handsome Italian Duo-Tone™ binding, A Reader’s Hebrew Bible is a practical, attractive, and surprisingly affordable resource.

About the Author
A. Philip Brown II (PhD, Bob Jones University) is associate professor of Bible and Theology at God’s Bible School and College in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Bryan W. Smith (PhD, Bob Jones University) is Bible integration coordinator at Bob Jones University Press.

Customer Reviews

A Great Work!
Zondervan has finally come out with a Hebrew equivalent to the Reader's Greek New Testament. For those that liked its Greek predecessor, this is a wonderful addition that will help students of the Hebrew Bible read in the original languages. Words used less than 100 times in the Hebrew Bible are listed in footnotes at the bottom of the page (except for proper nouns). This will require an intermediate knowledge of Hebrew Grammar and vocabulary, but that that's the point. It's not an interlinear, it's a reader! There is also a short list of all words used more than 100 times in the appendix, in case you forgot some of your more common Hebrew vocabulary. The only immediate downside I can find is that the binding is a bit stiff and not of the quality that one might expect for a Bible. But that's a minor issue for such a huge undertaking!

A great resource
I've got both the first and second editions of the Reader's GNT companion volume. Either is a great value for the money, but neither comes close to the quality and usefulness of the Reader's GNT published by UBS -- the real deal. So I was a bit hesitant to purchase Zondervan's Reader's Hebrew Bible.

My hesitation was overcome by the fact that I use my UBS RGNT on a daily basis for devotional use, but don't read the Hebrew text in the same way as frequently because of the need for a lexicon nearby. A reader's lexicon helps, but it's still a clunky way to read, and because Hebrew vocabulary is so much larger than NT Greek, there are few of us who will ever be able to simply read with no lexicon around. So seeing what a reader's GNT did for me, I ordered this.

I'm very pleased. It hast the same cheap binding and paper as the companion RGNT, but the fact that it's duo-tone (basically PVC plastic) does mean that despite being flimsy, it should hold up for a long time. They seem to have overcome the typeface problems present in both editions of the RGNT. This font is very easy to read. I have not found the proper names being in gray instead of black to be a problem -- they're not that light and the purpose is to make proper names used less than 100 times stand out so that the newbie doesn't waste time trying to parse them. That's the whole point: to gloss the words so the reader doesn't have to. The more you read, the more you learn, and the more often you read and learn the more Hebrew sticks in your mind.

The fact that this text is that of the Westminster edition of Leningradensis is great. They essentially cut and pasted from Bibleworks 4. There are minor variants between this and BHS/BHQ, but nothing significant and all differences are listed in the appendix. I also like the way they've dealt with Kethib-Qere readings -- something that should serve good training for the student just learning his way around the Hebrew Old Testament.

If Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft ever prints a readers edition of BHS or BHQ it will probably leave this in the dust just as the UBS RGNT leaves the Zondervan RGNT in the dust, but until then this is a great tool.

Everything but the cover...
This is quite an amazing product. To my knowledge, nothing like it exists. If you are a Hebrew student who spends most of the time tracking down words in a lexicon, this is the tool you need to pick up. The font is very legible and the helps are appropriate for even beginning Hebrew students. My primary concern is that the structure of the Bible needs some attention.

The binding seems fairly solid, but because I just purchased it, I have no idea how it will hold up long term. My concern is more to do with the cover. The Italian leather is nice, but the cardboard underneath it is very flimsy. It is easy to crease and it will probably break before too long and need to be rebound.

Zondervan, if you read these reviews, please address the problem and put a good cover on a great product.