Peter James Silzer

I was hoping this book would help me tie together what I've learned in Hebrew and Greek, but it was at a much more basic level than I thought it would be. Having gone past the basic morphology and syntax of each language, this was not so helpful. But it was very readable and there were some good tidbits:

= The possessive construction "the color of the car" in English actually comes from the Tyndale and KJV Bibles in the sixteenth century. Greek and especially Hebrew have possessive noun phrase construction that puts the possessor after the possessed. In English it's still more idiomatic to say "the car's color" but we have more options thanks to literal bible translations!
= The authors discuss some universal principles of language that helped put things in context. For example, the universal polarity between fluid word order and rich morphology/inflections and strict word order with few inflections. Greek is very inflected, Hebrew less so, and English even less so. That's why both languages seem to have very loose and fuzzy syntax to my mind.
- Some tips on how to look for Hebrew poetry. Hint: it's less about rhyme and meter (the sine qua nons of English poetry) and more about parallelism and use of figurative language.

Overall, I would give this to a friend just starting or in the first semester of Greek/Hebrew, but it lacks the depth for my level. Only one note: the transliteration of Greek and Hebrew into the English alphabet drove me nuts!… (lisätietoja)