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Accessible Ancient Language Books Listing

Sarah LaRose in an outdoor background

For many years the only accessible ancient language books were found at the Bartimaeus Alliance of the Blind. This is still a good resource but no longer the only one. Bartimaeus hosts a wealth of primary source texts and a handful of older grammars that were donated and digitized in the early 2000s. There are now additional resources that offer more choices.

Bookshare began in 2001 as a site for people who were visually impaired to access books. In the early days, users shared books that they scanned and corrected themselves. Since that time, publishers have embraced the idea of making books available and have begun contributing books to Bookshare. Bookshare has also widened the definition of "print disability&quot to cover users with learning disabilities and physical disabilities that impact their ability to handle a book.

Problems with Hebrew and Greek Books On Bookshare

Most problems with foreign language books housed at Bookshare concern foreign language text shown as images and marked in text with place-marker words such as [image] or [foreign language] so that the book is useless to people who are using screen readers. Some include no placemarkers at all. These books are usable to people with other print disabilities, who can view the book on-screen and see the images; so they are left in the collection.

Because of the prevalence of this problem, I have taken time to compile a list of the existing books in Hebrew and Greek on Bookshare and comment on their degree of accessibility. I hope that this will help faculty, staff, and students who are searching for ancient language texts to use.

Hebrew Books with Difficulties

Advanced Texts

  • Bill T. Arnold and John H. Choi. A Guide to Biblical Hebrew Syntax. Cambridge University, 2003. Multiple copies of this book are available on Bookshare, as older inaccessible copies have been replaced with properly accessible ones. Older copies include text shown in images with no place-marker words to denote the presence of the images. If looking for a screen-reader-compatible version of this book, check for the most recently added version.
  • John C. Beckman. Williams’ Hebrew Syntax, 3rd ed. Univ. of Toronto, 1967. Text is represented as images and cannot be read by screen readers.
  • Gary Pratico and Miles van Pelt. Charts of Biblical Hebrew. Zondervan, 2007. no placemarkers included.
  • Lewis Glinert . Modern Hebrew. Taylor and Francis, 2016) includes a table of contents but all of the pages are shown as graphics. This book is not accessible in any way to users of screen readers. Bookshare includes an advisory stating that it is partially accessible and is beneficial to some members.

    • GREEK BOOKS

    Most Greek texts on Bookshare are accessible using screen readers and braille displays that handle polytonic Greek. Exceptions:

    • Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, 4th ed. Oxford University, 2005. Non-English text is marked as [foreign language].

      • Hebrew Books on Bookshare Tested and Found Accessible to Screen Readers

      Introductory Grammars

      • Lee M. Fields. Hebrew for the Rest of Us. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017. ISBN: 978-0-310-59059-0.
      • Lily Kahn. The Routledge Introductory Course in Biblical Hebrew. New York: Routledge, 2014. ISBN: 978-0-415-52479-7.
      • Page Kelley and Terry L. Burden. Handbook to Biblical Hebrew. Eerdmans, 2018.

        • Gary Pratico and Miles van Pelt. Basics of Biblical Hebrew. Zondervan, 2019. (also workbook, 2019)

      Advanced Studies

      • Ulf Bergstrom. Aspect, Communicative Appeal, and Temporal Meaning in Biblical Hebrew. Eisenbrauns, 2022. [uses transliteration]
      • Shai Heijmans, ed. Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew. Open Book Publishers, 2020.
      • Benjamin J. Noonan. Non-Semitic Loanwords in the Hebrew Bible. Eisenbrauns, 2019.
      • Sung Jin Park. The Fundamentals of Hebrew Accents. Cambridge University, 2020.

      Commentary

      • Robert Alter. The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary. Norton, 2018. ISBN: 9780393292503.

      Greek Books on Bookshare Tested and Found Accessible to Screen Readers

      Introductory Grammars and Readers

      • N. Clayton Croy. A Primer of Biblical Greek. Eerdmans, 1999.
      • Dana M. Harris.
      • An Introduction to Biblical Greek Grammar: Elementary Syntax and Linguistics
      • William D. Mounce. Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, 4th ed. Zondervan, 2019. ISBN: 9780310537441. Also workbook: ISBN 9780310537489..
      • Stanley E. Porter. Fundamentals of New Testament Greek. Eerdmans, 2010. ISBN 9781467424844. Also accompanying workbook: 9781467424837.
      • Rodney A. Whitacre. A Grammar of New Testament Greek. Eerdmans, 2021. ISBN: 9781467462525.

        • M

      • ark L. Strauss. The Biblical Greek Companion for Bible Software Users. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016. ISBN: 978-0-310-52135-8.
      • Alan Henry and Gavin Betts. Complete Ancient Greek. McGraw-Hill, 2010.

      Advanced Study

        John A. L. Lee. Basics of Greek Accents. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2018. ISBN: 978-0-3105-5685-5.
      • D. A. Carson and Constantine R. Campbell. . Zondervan, 2015. ISBN: 9780310524533.
      • Constantine R. Campbell. Basics of Verbal Aspect in Biblical Greek. Zondervan, 2008. ISBN: 9780310590507.
      • Douglas Estes. Questions and Rhetoric in the Greek New Testament. Zondervan, 2015. ISBN: 9780310525080.
      • Murry Harris. Prepositions and Theology in the Greek New Testament. Zondervan, 2011. ISBN: 9780310531050.
      • Daniel B. Wallace. The Basics of New Testament Syntax. Zondervan, 2003. ISBN: 9780310321576. Also workbook: ISBN 9780310874270.

      Readers and Dictionaries

      Vocabularies

      • Miles van Pelt. Biblical Greek Vocabulary in Context. Zondervan, 2021. ISBN: 9780310114673.
      • Richard Wright. A Reader in Biblical Greek. Eerdmans, 2022. ISBN: 9781467462235

      Lexicons and Dictionaries

      • Daniel Joseph Brendsel, Gregory K. Beale, and William A Ross. An Interpretive Lexicon of New Testament Greek
      • Michael H. Burer and Jeffrey Miller. A New Reader’s Lexicon of the Greek New Testament. Kregel, 2010. ISBN: 9780825493447

      Readers

      • Mark Jeong. A Greek Reader: Companion to A Primer of Biblical Greek. Eerdmans, 2022. ISBN: 9781467463621.
      • Albert L. Lukaszewski and Richard J. Goodrich. A Reader’s Greek New Testament, 3rd ed. Zondervan, 2015. ISBN: 9780310521471.

        Commentaries

        • New International Greek Testament Commentary Series: all volumes.

        In Spanish

        • Association for Hispanic Theological Education. Introducción al griego de la Biblia vol 2 AETH: Introduction to Biblical Greek vol 2 Spanish AETH. Abingdon, 2021. ISBN: 9781426766022.
        • Daniel B. Wallace and Daniel S. Steffen. Gramática griega: Sintaxis del Nuevo Testamento – Segunda edición con apéndice (Biblioteca Teologica Vida). Vida, 1996. ISBN: 9780829766264.

        MISC

        • K. Scott Duvall. Devotions on the Greek New Testament: 52 Reflections to Inspire and Instruct. Volume 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012. ISBN: 978-0-3105-3584-3.
        • Paul Norman Jackson. Devotions on the Greek New Testament: 52 Reflections to Inspire and Instruct. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017. ISBN: 978-0-310-52936-1.