Of the 23,145 verses that make up the Hebrew Bible, 269 verses are not written in Hebrew, but in Aramaic. For this reason alone, the Biblical Aramaic: A Reader and Handbook by Donald R. Vance, George Athas, Yael Avrahami, and Jonathan G. Kline is easily situated as a vital addition to any Old Testament or biblical language enthusiasts’ library.

Biblical Aramaic: A Reader and Handbook begins with a brief introduction to the language and its history and relationship to biblical Hebrew. The first section offers the complete grammatical analysis of all Aramaic portions of the Bible—Genesis 31:47, Jeremiah 10:11, Daniel 24-7:28, and Ezra 4:8-6:18 and 7:12-26. The Aramaic text is founded on Biblia Hebraica Leningradensia (BHL), and where BHL differs from Codex Leningradensis (L) and the standard critical edition of Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) textual notes are offered. The “Reader” information is clearly presented and includes contextual glosses…