Compiling a Vocabulary List in Accordance

A friend of mine was preparing to preach on Deuteronomy 10:12-22 and asked if I could help him compile a vocabulary list from that section and where he could find where these words are used else where in the Hebrew Bible. Here is a step by step tutorial of how I compiled the vocabulary list and concordance.

First, make sure that you have selected Words in order to enable your search commands.

Next, you want to enter the Range of the text you are wanting for a vocabulary list and concordance. 

For my friend, he was wanting to examine Deuteronomy 10:12-22

Next, you want to connect your Range with the And and Wildcard commands. After you hit search the entire Range will be selected red.

Next, click on Analysis 

When you click on Analysis, your vocabulary list can then be ordered how you prefer–alphabetical or by frequency.

From there I went back to the Analysis tab and selected Concordance in order for him to find where each word was used else where.


David’s Census

I just got word that my paper, “Intertextuality Between 1 Chronicles 21:1-17 and Genesis 13 and the Problem of David’s Census,” has been accepted for presentation at this year’s ETS meeting. I’ll be presenting in the Textual Strategies in the Hebrew Bible section at 4:40 on Wednesday.

I’m excited but also nervous – those Hebrew Bible folks are intimidating!

Audio Tanak

David Reimer (New College, University of Edinburgh) sent me a link to a website with the entire Tanak read in audio to help prepare for my MTh in Biblical Studies.

I have found this website helpful for my pronunciation and to quickly work through large chunks of text. I added the link to the Resource page on the blog for quick access.

You can access the audio Tanak by clicking here.

A language tool worth investing in…

I was recently invited to write a testimony for the biblical language software, Paradigm Master Pro. I first became aware of this program when I was taking Greek with Maurice Robinson, Guardian of the Byzantine Text. After testing the software through the available free online quizzes (you do not even have to sign up to try out the quizzes) I was hooked. It has been the best investment to improve my grasp of the biblical languages. “What was the cost of my investment?” you ask–$30.

My problem with the languages was that I could not recall forms: nouns, verbs, you name it, as fast as I needed to when I was reading through different texts. I felt what I lacked was the drilling of forms. I needed to drill these forms into my mind until parsing became a reflex! I think this is the beauty of the software, the program is made of hundreds of different quizzes in both Hebrew and Greek and those quizzes are comprised from thousands of different forms found in both languages. I think a helpful analogy is to consider PMP like a trainer in the gym that constantly pushes you physically by using different workouts and different exercises ensuring that your body is fit and ready for anything. Like a trainer that observes your form in each exercise, the program keeps track of what you get correct and what you miss giving you immediate feedback on how well you know your different forms.

Another benefit of the program is that it can be integrated with whatever grammar book you may be using. The way I have used the program is to read through a chapter and then find the corresponding quiz to whatever I’m learning. And because there are hundreds of quizzes you know there will be a quiz for whatever you just read.

If you want to get serious about learning the biblical languages I encourage you to try the free quizzes I linked to above and then after you see how beneficial this will be to learning Hebrew and Greek then purchase the full program to get all the quizzes available.