Commentary on Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar

It would be an amazing help to have someone in Logos (eg Mr Heiser) write a commentary on Gesenius' Hebrew grammar. I find Gesenius very difficult to follow. A commentary on it explaining what Gesenius meant (if anything at all in some places) by what he wrote would help a lot. Maybe even better would be to write a Hebrew grammar that includes every grammatical point (except the places where he is not making any point at all - there are many of these) in Gesenius in modern accessible English. Other Hebrew grammars frequently leave you with no answer on many points of grammar. Gesenius is very difficult to follow in many instances.

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MJ. Smith

have someone in Logos (eg Mr Heiser)

Unfortunately he is no longer at Logos. Is this a case where reformatting the text could help add clarity?

Robert Griffin

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1114560#Comment_1114560

I am sad to see Dr Heiser leave Logos.

Reformatting will not help at all. It is the style that the English is written in that is the problem. It is very difficult to understand. I believe that it was translated from German. Perhaps a German style does not translate easily into English. Also, I find that German scholarship is often too thorough so that it is hard to understand it. It is over engineered. It can also not get to the point.

So, it would be very helpful if someone who is an expert in Hebrew grammar went though the whole of Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar and explained every detail (that is not pointless - some of it seems to have no point al all) in crystal clear English. Alternatively, and even better, it would be good if someone revised the whole text and published it under his or her own name. If they did Gesenius would be forgotten and their name will live on for at least a hundred years. The thing is there has been about a hundred years of scholarship in the revisions of Gesenius. It would be great if someone made that great scholarship more easily available to more people than at present with this book that is almost impossible to understand in many places. Pick it up and read it at random in several places. See if you can understand what Gesenius is trying to say.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1114640#Comment_1114640

First, I don't wish to offend you. And a Gesenius-Explained volume WOULD be good.

But Gesenius in its current form is a diamond .... the author wrote in a time, when the details were still being argued, and immense detail was invaluable. And still is.

The problem one runs into, is you need to know the later discussions, in order to know what to drill into, and what to pass on. The same issue is with Billerbeck & Strack (which, in Logos anyway, is currently german only .... where's that german analytical!).

Ben

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1114643#Comment_1114643

I think you want jouon-muraoka.