Michael Patrick O'Connor (1950–2007)

A monumental work; an essential reference, especially in its exhaustive coverage of the secondary literature. It is also a monument to 19th century linguistics and theories of language, informed but not influenced by 20th century developments in linguistics. Their explicit refusal to deal with text linguistics is an understandable need to limit scope, but separates it from being a truly 20th century syntax. Text linguistics provides explanation and motivation for syntactic features and structures and they choose to set it aside! One final critique: they often explain Hebrew syntax via English syntax instead of *mapping* Hebrew to English. So Hebrew syntax and semantics becomes English in code.

Having said all that, I use it nearly every day....… (altro)

While the book does have much to say about syntax, it is actually designed to be more of an intermediate grammar.

Waltke and O'Connor do very well at describing the various phenomena of Biblical Hebrew and provide examples. They also wade through historical morphology and the scholarly disputations regarding matters of grammar and syntax and do well at providing the various viewpoints in contentious matters.

While a basic understanding of Hebrew, grammatical concepts, and linguistics is necessary, the book does well in explaining the various features of the language. My only regret is waiting to read it until the end of my grammar study; I would have done better to read it before tackling Jouon/Muraoka and Gesenius/Kautzch/Crowley.

An essential work for students of Biblical Hebrew.… (altro)