Keep Up Your Biblical Hebrew in Two Minutes a Day, Volume 1: 365 Selections for Easy Review

Jonathan G. Kline (PhD, Harvard University) is the author of Allusive Soundplay in the Hebrew Bible and co-author of Biblical Aramaic: A Reader & Handbook. He currently serves as an associate editor at Hendrickson Publishers.

"Dr. Jonathan Kline has devised a method for remembering and using the biblical languages that most students simply forget after learning them in seminary or graduate school. In carefully constructed lessons that take only two minutes each day, Dr. Kline reminds the reader of vocabulary and grammar, and readers' use of these books each and every day allows them to experience long-term comfort with the language. We have needed these books for a long time, and I personally will be very happy to have them in my library."
–Jo Ann Hackett, Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Professor of Religious Studies, The University of Texas at Austin

"What a clear and superb presentation of the grammar of Biblical Hebrew! Indeed, in just two minutes per day, one can continue to read and enjoy and appreciate the original text of the Hebrew Bible! The clear layout, the highlighting, the choice of passages, and much more make the learning process a sheer delight."
–Gary A. Rendsburg, Blanche and Irving Laurie Professor of Jewish History, Rutgers University

"Language learning is a costly investment on many levels. Reading the Bible in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic is a skill acquired only through many months of difficult effort, yet after coursework ends, life and work get in the way, and the ability to access Scripture in its original language fades. Now with Jonathan Kline's series, language learners can not only protect and sustain the knowledge they've acquired—they can build new skills. These expertly designed Two Minutes a Day books will help anyone who has taken an introductory Biblical language course revive their reading ability, and the lessons can even function as daily devotional readings in the original language. While working through the short passages in these books, I felt as though I had a wise language teacher by my side. Kline is that teacher, and through these volumes readers will again feel the excitement and joy of connecting with the Bible in the language of its authors."
–Brian R. Doak, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies and Faculty Fellow in the William Penn Honors Program, George Fox University

If you have studied Biblical Hebrew, you know that even after two or three semesters in the classroom it can be easy to soon forget most of what you learned. After entering the working world, most of us who studied Hebrew in seminary or college find it challenging to pay much attention to the language, let alone achieve our primary goals of exegeting and meditating on the Hebrew Bible in the original Hebrew.

Keep Up Your Biblical Hebrew in Two Minutes a Day: Volume 1 has been specially designed to build on your previous study of Hebrew and help you read a small amount of the Hebrew Bible in its original language every day in an easy, manageable, and spiritually enriching way. It does not replace the need for a grammar or textbook; rather, it complements grammatical study by helping you to build a robust vocabulary and to review morphology and syntax in a completely inductive way, and without using any grammatical jargon. The page for each day presents:

• one new vocabulary word, with transliteration and meanings, and two review words from earlier in the book
• the English text of a verse from the Hebrew Bible, with these three Hebrew words embedded in it, as they appear in the verse
• the Hebrew text of the verse, in full and then divided into phrases or clauses, with the corresponding English phrases or clauses next to them

The book presents, one day at a time and in order of descending frequency, the 365 most frequently occurring words in the Hebrew Bible (about two-thirds of the vocabulary that one typically learns in a first-year Hebrew class).

Keep Up Your Biblical Hebrew in Two Minutes a Day: Volume 1 is designed to help you reconnect with Hebrew in an easy and enriching way and to empower you with the vocabulary you need to begin again reading the Hebrew Bible in its original language.