Creating easy Biblical Hebrew materials introduction

Guidelines for creating easy Biblical Hebrew materials

We’re so thankful that you’re interested in helping with this immense and important task of creating a
body of literature at different levels for Hebrew students!

To start off, let me emphasize that writing good simple stories at the level of easy reading for kids is not an easy task even in your native language, much less when you’re trying it in another language. This task will definitely challenge your creativity and your Hebrew skills. You will probably not be able to dash off a story that is in easy, grammatically authentic Hebrew while also being fun and satisfying to read without significant effort. Think of your task as crafting stories that will require some creative thinking and multiple revisions before you arrive at a satisfying final product. But this task is so important to help students continue advancing in their reading comprehension of Hebrew without hitting a brick wall. It’s also very satisfying to see your completed story, and I guarantee your Hebrew will improve through this process, so let’s dive in!

Grammar checks & tools

None of us speak Biblical Hebrew as a native language, so we all have some inevitable and significant holes in our knowledge of the language. If you speak Modern Hebrew fluently, you may find that the structures from Modern Hebrew tend to influence the way you compose in Biblical Hebrew. Always check your phrasing and grammar choices back with the text of the Bible itself. Try to have specific textual backup for all of your decisions as much as possible (keeping a detailed record of your decisions and the evidence you based those decisions on is highly recommended - in three months you probably won’t remember why you did that. Dr. Jesse Scheumann of Picture Hebrew is a shining example of this good practice).

Because it is so important to check with the text itself all the time, you should ideally have access to a program that allows you to search the Hebrew text electronically, such as BibleWorks, Accordance or Logos. To me, the ability to search for the consonantal form of a Hebrew word in order to confirm its correct vowel pointing (e.g. I need to be able to type in משׁכבו to see all forms whose consonants correspond to my search), to search for all instances where two or more specific words appear together, and the ability to search for a given lemma in all its forms are very important. Some free online tools such as BibleHub or E-sword may do what you need, but probably less efficiently than a more sophisticated search tool. Whatever tools you have, learn how to use the search function to search for Hebrew words, verb forms, phrases, etc. Access to a variety of Hebrew lexicons is also important. A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar by van der Merwe et al. is a helpful resource for looking up grammar and discourse points, though I’ve found that there are many questions I can only solve by diving into the text itself, hence the need for good search tools.

When I find there are multiple attested spellings, word forms, or grammatical constructions in the biblical text, I prefer to favor the one that appears most frequently in the narrative portions of Genesis-2 Kings. My goal is to mimic Standard/Classical Biblical Hebrew narrative discourse style as much as possible. Poetry is different enough from narrative that it’s best not to depend on examples from poetic passages to back up your grammatical decisions when writing a narrative story. Also, there are some significant differences in vocabulary and grammar between Classical Biblical Hebrew and Late Biblical Hebrew that, while definitely worth teaching, are probably best left for later. I also try as much as possible to avoid using word forms and verb conjugations that are unattested in the Hebrew Bible.

Always check your stories with other colleagues or Hebrew teachers, particularly people who are picky about grammatical and discourse details. They will always spot things that you’re blind to, and you can learn a lot from their comments. I’ve often found that each person I check my materials with sees different ways to improve it, so there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors. This Facebook group may be of use in finding others to review your materials.

Stories

1. Beginning readers/primers - carefully crafted repetition

Repetition is helpful: At the beginning stages of developing literacy in any language, some repetition built into the story is important. The reader needs to train their eyes to sight-read common words without having to carefully sound out each word, and will feel encouraged that each time they encounter the repeated words or phrases, it is a little easier to recognize them.

Body of the story: Think of a simple story line that has at least one repeating motif that can be repeated 3-6 times to form the body of the story before the resolution at the end. This can be a phrase or question that is repeated verbatim in varying contexts, or a sentence that is slightly varied with each repetition. The storyline needs to create some type of tension, however simple. For example, a man is searching for his donkey, a woman has run out of oil, a sheep is too hot under its wool... use your imagination! What is the problem that needs to be resolved? Each repetition of the motif should advance the storyline slightly and build tension… how is this going to end? You will notice that many children’s books and folktales have this same basic repetitive structure (as well as some passages of scripture, particularly in Kings). Examples of this structure from the Easy Hebrew Readers app would be The Small Boy and The Hungry Snake. Keep your story brief, with between 3-6 repetitions of the motif and then a resolution.

End with a zing: Reading in a different language (especially with a new script) is hard work. The brain wants a satisfying payoff for all that mental effort. Relevance Theory says there needs to be a certain level of gratification derived from a communicative act to make the human brain feel that the processing effort is worth it. The more processing effort reading requires, the greater the gratification payoff must be to compensate. Aside from the internal motivation of the reader to learn to read Hebrew (which will vary with the student), we can help readers stay more motivated to keep persevering in this difficult mental task by giving them as much emotional gratification as we can when they reach the end of the story. This means the story should end with a zing. A surprise twist or a funny unexpected outcome is ideal, since humor is very gratifying, especially when understood in the target language. The simplest joke becomes hilarious because of the rush of gratification that you ACTUALLY GOT IT in the new language! At the very least a satisfying resolution of the tension or problem is important.

Vocabulary: At this level stick with high frequency vocabulary as much as possible. A helpful resource with vocabulary arranged by frequency is Larry Mitchel’s vocabulary. If you want to explore the nitty-gritty of the most frequent forms, see this detailed thesis by Daniel Ockrin. You may choose a less frequent keyword or two to weave into the motif, and students may learn the new word through reading the story. If you choose to include a word that most students at this level will not know, it should be a word that’s very easy to understand from context and ideally would be something concrete (not abstract) that could be clearly portrayed in the illustrations to help readers easily identify the meaning of the new word.

(In the Aleph with Beth lessons I have chosen vocabulary to introduce based on both frequency and combinability, that is, how well it will combine with other known or soon-to-be-introduced vocabulary for interesting visuals and stories. You can see what vocabulary and forms are introduced in which AwB lessons in this document.)

Illustrations: At this level, having pleasing illustrations accompanying your text will greatly increase the attractiveness of your story and give new readers some hope that they’ll be able to follow and enjoy. A picture book is much more inviting than plain text in a new script. If your story involves dialogue, using speech bubbles is helpful to make readers see clearly who is speaking to whom. Remember that you can communicate a lot of things through illustrations, even if you can’t say them in Hebrew, so you can rely on the illustrations to some extent to drive plot points when necessary (see the ending of The Hungry Snake, for example).

More about illustrations below under the section Publishing Options.

2. Easy stories

Once students are more comfortable with the alphabet and early readers, stories that have a more complex storyline but limit the vocabulary and grammar structures to familiar ones are helpful to keep them advancing and building reading fluency and confidence. Some repetition in the storyline is still a nice feature, but not necessary. Including an element of tension, adventure or problem-solving is still a must, and a funny or satisfying resolution is still a must. Illustrations are still highly recommended.

If you’re composing an original story, you may be tempted to compose it in your native language first. If you do, you may find it challenging to transpose what you want to express into simple Hebrew phrases and constantly feel frustrated that you can’t easily say what you wanted to say. This also increases the risk of ending up with text that is too influenced by another language and isn't correct or natural Hebrew. I recommend composing directly in Hebrew to help skip the frustration of not being able to translate what you wrote. That way you’re forced to think in terms of available Hebrew structures and vocabulary from the start.

I have considered the idea of translating/adapting simple folktales from around the world into Hebrew but have found that adapting an existing story from another language and culture can be frustrating due to the limitations of the Biblical Hebrew corpus. For this reason, writing your own original story may be easier, but if you feel inspired and you want to explore some folktales for inspiration, check out this bottomless folktale archive. This has been done with classic fairy tales in the book Tall Tales Told in Biblical Hebrew.

Decide what level of grammar knowledge you are aiming for and limit yourself to those structures. Different textbooks and programs teach grammar structures in different orders, so this is not a universal hierarchy, but here is a list of major grammar topics arranged according to the order they are introduced in the Aleph with Beth lessons:

Verbless clauses > construct forms > relative clauses > imperative verb forms > qatal verb forms > possessive suffixes > vayyiqtol verb forms > participles > yiqtol verb forms > negative imperatives > infinitive purpose clauses > veqatal verbs > infinitive time clauses > object suffixes > jussive verb forms

Once you reach the level of vayyiqtol verb forms and beyond, you have a lot more flexibility for easy sequential stories. It’s very challenging to write grammatical Hebrew stories without using vayyiqtol forms. Some teachers like to write simple stories using qatal verb forms only, resulting in a series of sentences that, while each grammatically correct in and of themselves, sound isolated from each other according to Hebrew discourse, instead of connected in a sequence. It is not a natural flow of narrative in Hebrew, but it may be okay depending on the story. It is possible to construct a simple grammatical story using mostly verbless clauses and by fronting prepositional phrases or other elements to trigger a qatal form. Also, I think it’s valid to observe that children’s books in English don’t always reflect natural English discourse, so perhaps getting students reading something in Hebrew even if all they know are qatal forms is worth it.

On the other hand, some teachers believe that qatal-only stories are not true to Hebrew grammar and discourse, and therefore should be avoided because they get students used to a more English-like discourse pattern (SVO, SVO, SVO, etc.) which is unnatural in narrative Biblical Hebrew (VSO, VSO, VSO, etc.).

I personally prefer to keep qatal-only stories to a minimum and get students comfortable with vayyiqtol forms as early as possible because they open the doors to more natural narrative stories and lots of Bible passages.

Some other programs like Biblingo and BLC introduce participles as the first verb forms that students learn, so a story using only participles would also be accessible for many beginning students.

3. Simplified Bible passages

These are probably the easiest stories to create because you already have a grammatical text to work with, and you can just strip it down to the simplest way to say it. Choose an interesting but not-too-difficult passage of scripture (100 easiest chapters in Hebrew may be helpful, though these chapters don’t necessarily contain the most engaging stories), choose your target grammar level and start paring down the original text. Sometimes by just choosing a few key simple clauses straight from the text, you can string together a decent story without hardly having to compose anything new or paraphrase. Do check your stories with others anyway though, because simplifying sometimes introduces errors you may not spot. For example, by simplifying חַלֻּקֵי־אֲבָנִים from 1 Samuel 17:40 to אֲבָנִים, the masc. pl. object pronoun אֹתָם later in the verse no longer agreed with the irregularly feminine אֲבָנִים (yes, I made that mistake).

You can see examples of this type of text in video format with static illustrations in Israel Asks for a King, The Twelve Spies, and David & Goliath. For The Creation, we used stock footage, which would be difficult for most narratives. If you’re excited about experimenting with filming, you could try your hand at some stop-motion animation like in Esau comes to meet Jacob and Ruth & Naomi.

Bible passages read and explained with comprehension questions

This is an idea that would probably be most effective in video format, but could potentially be adapted to print with illustrations. Once students have an intermediate to advanced level of grammar and vocabulary, a resource to help them grow and review would be to choose a short Bible passage that they have the tools to understand and read it through slowly, with repetitions, pausing to explain in Hebrew or clarify hard-to-recognize forms by rephrasing them, while including visuals to help them follow along. Once you’ve reached the end of the passage, repeat it again once or twice without all the explanations so they can just comprehend and process all they learned. Then ask some comprehension questions in Hebrew and give the answers. The Aleph with Beth lessons have lots of examples of this strategy.

A good variation on this is to ask comprehension questions during the reading, directly after the sentence that contains the answer. This is probably easier on the student, as they don’t have to remember back. I’ve seen teachers from Hebrew4Nations do this to excellent effect, systematically questioning each element of the sentence while teaching a passage. For example, if the sentence is בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ׃ then the comprehension questions might be:

?מִי בָּרָא אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ

?מֶה עָשָׂה אֱלֹהִים

?מַה־בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

?מָתַי בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

Since most students are learning Biblical Hebrew specifically in order to connect with the biblical text in the original, experiencing the original text even from an early learning stage is highly motivating.

Publishing Options

Video publishing: A wonderful way to get your story out there to readers everywhere is to publish it on YouTube in the form of a video with illustrations and a clear voiceover. This obviously requires access to a video editing program, and learning some technical skills in order to be able to produce a final product with good visuals and sound quality, but it is worth the extra effort to make it as professional as possible. If this is an unknown world for you, you may be able to team up with a techie friend or student. There’s also lots of information about our filming and sound setup on our Behind the Scenes page.

Including sound effects and appropriate background music in your video is another fun way to make the experience more immersive, memorable and engaging.

PDF format: Another great way to publish and share online is in the form of a free downloadable PDF. You can either do one page of the story per PDF page, like The Small Boy, and The Twelve Spies or else arrange multiple illustrations on each PDF page comic-book style like Israel Asks for a King and Moses in the Land of Midian. You can find all our available PDF stories here.

BibleLing: The free Hebrew-learning website BibleLing would love to get more content! You can reach out to them to discuss sharing your story there with audio and illustrations to be read online like a book.

Audio: If you’re releasing your story online in a video or picture story format, definitely include an accompanying audio recording reading the text clearly and slowly. This helps students engage and stay focused with the reading, and gives them confidence they’re pronouncing the words correctly when they go back to read it on their own without the audio. If your accent is heavily influenced by your native language, we’d recommend finding someone to record it who can pronounce Hebrew closer to the classic Sephardic pronunciation (what we use in our videos) or a Modern Hebrew pronunciation. An excellent free audio editing program is Audacity.

Illustrations: Even a very basic stick-figure drawing style (such as in David & Goliath) can be effective and fun, as long as it’s expressive and clear and visually appealing. I do my illustrations using an iPad pro and an Apple pencil (on the digital art app Procreate and the animation app Callipeg), but any digital drawing tool would work. You can of course do a physical illustration on paper and then scan it, but doing it digitally keeps things nice and clean and allows you to easily and quickly change details, colors, and contrast. Most importantly, you’re able to quickly duplicate figures and edit them slightly for the next action, or use the same background for multiple images, saving lots of time and making it easier to keep a specific character looking the same throughout the story.

If you aren’t able to make illustrations yourself and can’t find any artists to collaborate with, you could consider using illustrations from Free Bible Images. Just keep in mind that because the images aren’t made for your specific simplified text, they may not show the specific actions and objects you included in your text. To get an effective end product, you will probably need to adjust your text to match the available images. Also, be sure to read the terms of use for each set of pictures, because some are more restricted than others. Unfortunately, I've found that many of the best images there include a "No derivatives" clause in their terms, which means you really can't do anything with them except look at them. 😑 At the end of the day, I recommend making your own images whenever possible, because you can customize them perfectly to match your text and your ability to share them freely online won’t be hampered by any copyrights or terms.