Abstract
Muraoka sets out to provide a resource for students of Biblical Hebrew (BH) that will enable them to smoothly transition into the oft neglected language of Biblical Aramaic (BA). Because of this selected audience, there is an assumption throughout the book that the reader has at least an intermediate level of knowledge in BH. Moreover, unlike most BA grammars Muraoka attempts to guide his reader to the biblical text as quickly as possible. He undertakes this mission in three parts: the outline grammar, the paradigms, and the annotated reader.
Part one reads less like a textbook grammar and more like a reference grammar. There are no exercises in this section to reinforce the knowledge gleaned; however, Muraoka does succeed in providing the necessary comparative links between BH and BA. Additionally, the grammar is constantly bringing the reader to the biblical text and showing the relevance of the point being made through real, textual examples.
The second part contains a short list of the most relevant paradigms to BA. The charts include the various stems (G, D, tG, etc.) of the perfect, imperfect, imperative, infinitive, and participle forms for both strong and lamed-yod verbs. This section ends with fifteen simple exercises that requires the reader to reproduce either a phrase from English into BA or the full paradigm for a particular verb.
Finally, the annotated reader is the end goal of Muraoka’s first two sections. He succeeds behind expectation in providing a thorough grammatical commentary of the harder BA verses in Daniel, Ezra, Jeremiah, and Genesis while at the same time making it readable for the average BA student. Furthermore, Muraoka directs his reader back to the outline grammar and/or paradigm section in nearly every comment, so there are no questions on why Muraoka makes his grammatical comments.
A few caveats are necessary. The lack of exercises hurts the value of this book if one has not worked through a BA grammar before. The rapid nature of the outline grammar is best suited for students that have formally taken a class in BA and want to refresh their knowledge; however, if one transitions from a grammar that is more focused on introducing BA to this volume when they advance to biblical text, then any student of BA can benefit from Muraoka’s annotated reader. Anyone that wants to work through the BA text will not want to do so without this book.