Journal: Interdisciplinary Journal on Biblical Authority
Volume: IJOBA 01:2 (Fall 2020)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous

IJOBA 1:2 (Fall 2020) p. 202

Book Reviews

By The Faculty And Students Of Calvary University

Futato, Mark D. Basics of Hebrew Accents. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2020. 113 pp. $16.99.

Mark D. Futato, Sr. is a professor of Old Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. He has authored several books and made contributions to the NIDOTTE, NLT, ESV, among others.

Most twenty first century seminary students who have survived a year of Hebrew are likely to admit they remain illiterate with regards to being able to read the Masoretic accents in their Hebrew Bibles. Many would say they were never exposed to them during their introductory courses or even in their intermediate ones. This is an unfortunate practice. However, those who have labored through a year of Hebrew would concur that “sufficient for each day of Hebrew class is its own trouble without the introduction of additional foreign markings”.

Futato takes note of the rare occurrence for the student to encounter this subject material in the most common of introductory grammars (13). In fairness, he does include a footnote which lists some grammars that do and the limited number of pages with which they address the subject. This is Futato’s motivation: to give the reader a basic knowledge of Hebrew accents. Futato believes this accomplishes two important necessities which are not being addressed for the student of the Bible in its original Hebrew script. One is that the reader be poised for further and more detailed study of the accentual system (14), and the other is to make everyone become a better reader of their Hebrew Bible (15).

In that this is a basic and introductory study of the Hebrew accents, Futado does well to assume the reader has no prior knowledge of the subject. Chapter one introduces the three tasks which each accent performs simultaneously with every occurrence. Each time an accent occurs it is telling the reader where to stress the word, “insight into the sense of the text,” and proper cantillation (22). For the purpose of this book, insight into the sense of the text is the primary focus for the study. However, the author does not neglect to give a brief explanation of the other two purposes for each accent. Additionally, the chapter closes with a mention of other Masoretic marks within

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the text. This mentioning safeguards any accusation of having neglected to address all of the accent system. The reader should know these other markings are miscellaneous rather than accents but still have an intimate relation to the accent system. Lastly, this chapter introduces the reader to the appearance of all of the accents, both disjunctive and conjunctive.

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