BIBLICAL ULPAN:

The language of Moses
By DAVID SMITH [Jerusalem Post]

At first glance the ulpan at Kibbutz Tzova, about 20 minutes west of Jerusalem, may seem no different than any other. But within a couple of minutes of listening to the exchange between students and teachers, it becomes clear that there is something fishy about the Hebrew spoken here.

Welcome to the Biblical Ulpan, a framework that allows students to study biblical Hebrew in its original context. In place of the conventional grammar-driven approach to Hebrew study that often includes memorizing elusive rules and arcane verb charts, biblical Hebrew is the medium through which the language is taught here to Christian and Jewish students.

"Studying a text needs the 'code' [the language] and the culture, history and geography in order to be most fully understood," explains Randall Buth, who founded the ulpan 10 years ago.

[...]

Buth says some of the students try to speak biblical Hebrew in the street or in restaurants, evoking a smile or puzzled look from Israelis, though they are usually understood.

This would be something like coming up to someone in New York or London and speaking to them in Shakespearean English.

Often, he reports, Israelis affirm the effort. "At archeological sites it frequently happens that Israelis will walk by, hearing us read a biblical passage, explaining the passage and the geography in simple biblical Hebrew. Sometimes they are curious enough to stop and ask the teacher what they have just heard. They have never heard anything like it and are impressed to see foreigners take the time and discipline to delve into the ancient texts like this."

[...]

This is the first time I've heard of this program, but it sounds like a good concept. One quibble about the headline (for which, obviously, Randy is not responsible): the language being taught is hardly that of Moses, which would be more like Ugaritic. Biblical Hebrew is the upper-class Jerusalem dialect of the Hebrew of the late First-Temple and early postexilic periods, but overlaid with an early medieval pronuciation in the vowel-pointing of the Masoretes.