Does anybody here read Classical (Biblical) Hebrew?
I’m beginning my study of it next semester. I’ve been going over a couple websites and it’s seeming confusing to me, yet I know I’ve got a few months before I’m actually taking any classes.
How different would you say Classical Hebrew is from Modern Hebrew? Are there any bands or singers who sing in Classical Hebrew? Who would you reccomend?
Other advice, thoughts, tips, etc? 
I’m guessing you could get recordings of synagogue music.
Another resource is to download one of the freeware Bible programs with the Massoretic text and download some lexicon modules.
Do you have any suggestions (either of music or of the Bible programs)?
Shalom Aleichem Cranberry, Mah Shlomcha?
Modern Hebrew is similar to biblical only greatly abbreviated.
There are two major groups of hebrew, Ashkenazi and Sephardic. Modern Israeli hebrew is based on Sephardic. Both of the two groups thinks that they are closer to the original. I you compare them both to other middle-eastern languages, you find elements in both of them that compare to the other languages.
For example, biblical hebrew has “reversing vav” roughly equivalent to the letter ‘v’ when used as the prefix for ‘and’. The word after it is written in future tense but means past tense and vice-versa. Send me a private email or call me 513-398-8617 and we talk about it.
Thank you!
I wrote your phone number down. You might want to edit it out, because it’s dangerous to have that information floating around on the Internet. I’m getting a calling card tomorrow so I might call.
I’ll email you more in depth later tomorrow. I’m super busy tonight and I don’t think my head is screwed on right at the moment to discuss important things like this anyway. 
This is among the most popular of the free Bible software suites… http://www.onlinebible.net
Heres an interesting site:
http://bible.ort.org/intro1.asp
Click on Torah and it will take you to where you can hear Torah (aka Old Testament) chanted using the traditional “trope” or musical notes. It starts right at Genesis,but you can navigate to any portion that you want. If you click on Haftorah, you can hear weekly selections from the Prophets chanted with their own specific trope, which sound quite different from the Torah chanting. There are also special, different trope for use on the High Holidays and for certain other books such as Song of Songs, Lamentations, etc. This type of musical notation is very fascinating-- I’ve learned Torah, Haftorah, High Holidays, and Song of Songs.
Are you going to be learning this type of singing, or just reading the language? Either way, you’ll find it very interesting. Good luck and keep us posted.
Thank you all.
We’re learning the language itself, in order to better understand the Tanakh/Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. My professor is a Christian priest, who learned the language in grad school. He also holds degrees in some related ancient languages, like Akkadian and Aramaic.
My biggest concern is the writing and recognizing the letters. Sometimes English writing is hard for me, so I fear Hebrew. I have a friend who is a Hebrew Christian, so he had some prior exposure to the language. But he took the same class 3 years ago and he said it was a disaster. He ended up getting a D for his final grade. I just don’t want that to happen to me.
I speak some Iraqi Arabic, and I know the languages are distantly related, but I can’t read or write a word of it. This class centers on reading and writing. The worst that happens is that I fail it and get in trouble academically, but I don’t think that will happen if I try really hard. We’ll see how it goes, I guess…
Learning to read the Hebrew letters phonetically is not all that hard. Learning the vocabulary and grammar is a different thing, but I think you’ll enjoy it. Something about reading the Bible in the original language, even if you don’t understand all of what you’re reading, is very satisfying.
Reading written Hebrew (printed Hebrew) is a doddle. It’s easier than Arabic IMO. I have a little book called “Hebrew Reading Lessons” by Tregelles, but it’s gone walkabout. I think it’s meant for Bar Mitzvah students. It has some nice alphabet tables, including the old Aramaic and Syrian Scripts, which you sometimes see in Witchy manuscripts.