This project aims to produce a grammar of Biblical Hebrew that will bring together descriptions of all the known traditions of the language. It will include the traditions that are reflected by the medieval Masoretic manuscripts, with various vocalization traditions, and also the traditions found in Hebrew Bible manuscripts from Qumran, transcriptions of Biblical Hebrew from antiquity to the Middle Ages, and various oral reading traditions of Biblical Hebrew that have survived to modern times, including the Jewish oral traditions and the Samaritan tradition.
The grammar has been commissioned by Oxford University Press as a successor to Wilhelm Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar (ed. by Emil Kautzsch; trans. by Arthur E. Cowley, 1910, Oxford: Clarendon), which has traditionally been regarded as the standard grammar of Biblical Hebrew. The new grammar will incorporate material from the grammar of Gesenius, but will include substantial additions of new material.
The project was supported by a research grant from the Leverhulme Foundation 2013–2016. It is being carried out in collaboration with Dr. Aaron Hornkohl (FAMES), Dr. Shai Heijmans (FAMES), Dr. Benjamin Kantor (FAMES), Professor Christo van der Merwe, University of Stellenbosch (Affiliated Researcher), Professor Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris (Affiliated Researcher).