Below is a short review of the Nook version without the glossary for those who may be interested.

Synopsis (from the book description):

Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is a complete Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in its original Hebrew and Aramaic shown in an aesthetically pleasing Hebrew/Aramaic script. It contains all of the consonants, vowels (nequddot), and cantillation marks.

This digital edition of the Hebrew Bible follows the text of the Leningrad Codex (Codex Leningradensis) as digitized by the J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research, version 4.14. This is the same codex used in printing Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and Biblia Hebraica Quinta.

——————————-

Overview:
One could not ask for a more visually pleasing text from which to read the Hebrew Bible. The few minor peccadilloes are overwhelmed by the tremendous quality and value of the book. This offering provides a giant leap forward for eReaders and a must have for everyone from the casual student to the serious scholar.

In the Beginning:
I purchased the book on BN.com. After an initial failed attempt, I was able to download the book over the Nook 3G network in about 3-4 mins. It opened quickly without difficulty thereafter. After a detailed description of the five different navigation methods for getting around the massive volume (4000 total pages!), the Hebrew text began as one would expect with the first chapter of Genesis as one would find in a standard printed edition but without Masoretic notes.

Font:
Overall one could not hope for a more aesthetically pleasing font type or size. The font-type is similar to that used in BHS and BHQ and the font-size is comparable to a large-print edition of BHS—easily readable when placed at arms distance. This is important as the font size cannot be varied dynamically.

The screen holds on average seven verses (approx. seven words across each line by fourteen lines), and each number is amply sized to find a specific verse when scanning down.

As claimed in the description, the consonants, vowels, and cantillation marks are all displayed. They are properly oriented on the screen in right-to-left fashion with each vowel and accent appropriately placed as one would find in a printed version. Overall the spacing is outstanding. An overly scrupulous reader may notice an ever so slight extra space with a very small number of character combinations; however, these minor variations do not detract at all from the pleasing format of the text.

Navigation:
The pages are ordered in a recto-verso orientation typical of an English book (so the right arrow navigates to the next page and the left arrow to the previous). This may at first bother some readers as being backwards from the typical printed Hebrew version which is verso-recto, but it follows the regular navigation orientation of the eReader format.

Possibly the main drawback to the volume is the time it takes to turn the pages or jump to a specific passage. A page turn between chapters is executed quickly in about a second, but when moving from one chapter to another it takes 3-4 seconds. Navigation back and skipping to a specific verse requires even longer. Page turning speed, of course, is a broader problem for eReaders, but hopefully continued software and hardware developments will decrease this issue in the near future.

See the following related news items:

–Martha Roth discussing “The Final Chapter” (video) and How we wrote the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary (JNES article via JSTOR)

–Anna Steinhelper provides an apt portrayal of the feat in the most recent OI News & Notes (Winter 2011).

Seeing examples of early writing from these four areas together in one place, you can’t fail to be impressed by the wonder of human creativity in these independent inventions that fundamentally transformed the very nature of civilization

With more videos:

Babel Flashcards works on all computer platforms with Java and includes card decks which are keyed to major grammars (like Bill Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar and more to come) as well as excellent tools to produce card lists based on lexeme frequency, English glosses, part of speech, Biblical passage or any combination thereof!

Several of the other features of this program will be highlighted in future posts, but you can take advantage of a special RELEASE SALE of 20% off with the promo code release1010 for a limited time right now.

I'm a PC.  But on a day when Apple introduces an exciting new product, it is difficult not to peer on with interest and even a bit of glee.  By combining features of the netbook and the Kindle, the iPad is primed to launch the tablet into the mainstream.  That said, one thing I found extremely interesting about the aforementioned device is its physical form.

Does this remind you of something else?

(Cornell University Library)

Notice that the beveled back and flat front are analogous to that of the cuneiform tablet.  Unlike the molded plastic, glass, and aluminum of the iPad, the clay tablet's shape is determined pragmatically by the conditions of its composition—upon completion, a tablet typically was left to dry with the recto (i.e. the reverse) facing upwards, thus gravity would pull the edges downward forming the characteristic shape of a flat front side and curved back.  It should be noted, though, that Steve Jobs is not the first to copy this shape in a non-clay medium, imitations of the distinctive contour were made in stone and bronze in the ancient near east, and now it has been replicated in the iPad three millennium after the extinction of the original form.  Let no one say that cultural memory is short! 

Now if only the Apps store had a copy of the Ba'al Cycle…

The bibliography is a work in progress (about 3000 entries to-date), so please email, or comment, about entries that you would like to be added.

A – B – C – D – E – F – G – H – I – J – K – L – M – N – O – P – Q – R – S – T – U – V – W – X – Y – Z

Zaborski, A, "Archaic Semitic in Light of Hamito-Semitic," ZAH 7 (1994) 234-44.

Zaborski, A., "Biconsonantal Roots and Triconsonantal Root Variation in Semitic: Solutions and Prospects," Semitic Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau on the Occasion of his Eighty-fifth Birthday (ed. A. S. Kaye; 2 vols.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1991) 2.1675-1703.

Zaborski, A., "Biconsonantal Verbal Roots in Semitic," Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagiellonskiego 269 = Prace jezykoznawcze 35 (1971) 4-96.

Zaborski, A., "Exceptional Incompatability Rules and Verbal Root Structure in Semitic," Semitic and Cushite Studies (ed. G. Goldenberg and S. Raz; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994) 1-18.

Zaborski, A., "Prefixes, Root Determinatives and the Problem of Biconsonantal Roots in Semitic," Folia Orientalia 11 (1970) 307-313.

Zadok, R., "On the Amorite Material from Mesopotamia," The Tablet and the Scroll: Near Eastern Studies in Honor of William H. Hallo (ed. M. E. Cohen, D. C. Snell and D. B. Weisberg; Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 1993) 315-33.

Zadok, R., "On the Prosopography and Onomastics of Syria-Palestine and Adjacent Regions," UF 32 (2000) 599-674.

Zadok, R., On West Semites in Babylonia during the Chaldean and Achaemenian Periods: An Onomastic Study (Jerusalem: Wanaarta/Tel Aviv University, 1977).

Zadok, R., The Earliest Diaspora: Israelites and Judeans in Pre-Hellenistic Mesopotamia (Publications of the Diaspora Research Institute, 151; Tel Aviv: Diaspora Rsearch Institute, Tel Aviv University, 2002).

Zadok, R., The Jews in Babylonia during the Chaldean and Achaemenian Periods: According to the Babylonian Sources (Haifa: University of Haifa, 1979).

Zadok, R., The Pre-Hellenistic Israelite Anthroponymy and Prosopography (OLA 28; Leuven: Peeters, 1988).

Zatelli, I., "Analysis of Lexemes from a Conversational Prose Text: hnh as Signal of a Performative Utterance in 1 Sam. 25:41," ZAH 7 (1994) 5-11.

Zatelli, I., "Functional Languages and Their Importance to the Semantics of Ancient Hebrew," Studies in Ancient Hebrew Semantics (ed. T. Muraoka; AbrN Supplement 4; Leuven: Peeters, 1995) 55-64.

Zatelli, I., "Pragmalinguistics and Speech-Act Theory as Applied to Classical Hebrew," ZAH 6 (1993) 60-74.

Zatelli, I., Il campo lessicale degli aggettivi di purita in ebraico biblico (Quaderni di Semitistica 7; Florence: Università di Firenze, 1978).

Zehnder, M., "Zentrale Aspekte der Semantik der hebräischen Weg-Lexeme," Studien zur hebräischen Grammatik (ed. A. Wagner; OBO 156; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997) 155-70.

Zemánek, P., Ugaritischer Wortformenindex (Lexicographie Orientalis 4; Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag, 1995).

Zevit, Z., "A Chapter in the History of Israelite Personal Names," BASOR 250 (1983) 1-16.

Zevit, Z., "Converging Lines of Evidence Bearing on the Date of P," ZAW 94 (1982) 481-511.

Zevit, Z., "How Do You Say 'Noble' in Phoenician Biblical Hebrew and in Ugaritic?" SemiticStudies in Honor of Wolf Leslau on the Occasion of his Eighty-fifth Birthday (ed. A. S. Kaye; 2 vols.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1991) 2.1704-715.

Zevit, Z., "Nondistinctive Stress, Syllabic Constraints, and Wortmetrik in Ugaritic Poetry," UF 15 (1983) 291-98.

Zevit, Z., "Onomastic Gleanings from Recently Published Bullae," IEJ 38 (1988) 227-34.

Zevit, Z., "Talking Funny in Biblical Henglish and Solving a Problem of the YAQTUL Past Tense," HS 29 (1988) 25-33.

Zevit, Z., "The Linguistic and Contextual Arguments in Support of a Hebrew 3 m. s. Suffix -y," UF 9 (1977) 315-28.

Zevit, Z., "The Question of Case Endings on Ugaritic Nouns in Status Constructus," JSS 28 (1983) 225-32.

Zevit, Z., "The So-Called Interchangeability of the Prepositions b, l, and m(n) in Northwest Semitic," JANES 7 (1975) 105-11.

Zevit, Z., Matres Lectionis in Ancient Hebrew Epigraphs (ASOR Monograph Series 2; Cambridge: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1980).

Zevit, Z., The Anterior Construction in Classical Hebrew: Literary Applications and Implications for Hebrew Grammar (SBLMS 50; Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1998)

Zewi, T., "Interrupted Syntactical Structures in Biblical Hebrew," ZAH 12 (1999) 83-95.

Zewi, T., "Is There a Tripartite Nominal Sentence in Biblical Hebrew?" JNSL 26 (2000) 51-63.

Zewi, T., "On Similar Syntactical Roles of inuma in El Amarna and הנה, והנה and הן in Biblical Hebrew," JANES 25 (1997) 71-86.

Zewi, T., "On Similar Syntactical Roles of inuma in El Amarna and hnh, hnhw and hn in Biblical Hebrew," JANES 25 (1997) 71-86.

Zewi, T., "Subjects Preceded by the Preposition 'et in Biblical Hebrew," Studien zur hebräischen Grammatik (ed. A. Wagner; OBO 156; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag; Göttingen: vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997) 171-81.

Zewi, T., "Subordinate Nominal Clauses Involving Prolepsis in Biblical Hebrew," JSS 41 (1996) 1-20.

Zewi, T., "The Definiton of the Copula and the Role of the 3^rd Independent Personal Pronouns in Nominal Sentences of Semitic Languages," Folia Linguistica Historia 17 (1996) 41-55.

Zewi, T., "The Nominal Sentence in Biblical Hebrew," Semitic and Cushitic Studies (ed. G. Goldenberg and S. Raz; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1994) 145-67.

Zewi, T., "The Particles hinneh and wehinneh in Biblical Hebrew," HS 37 (1996) 21-38.

Zewi, T., "The Syntactical Status of Exceptive Clauses in Biblical Hebrew," Bib 79 (1998) 542-48.

Zewi, T., "The Syntactical Status of Exceptive Phrases in Biblical Hebrew," Bib 79 (1998) 542-48.

Zewi, T., "Time in Nominal Sentences in the Semitic Languages," JSS 44 (1999) 195-214.

Zewi, T., "Tripartite Nominal Clauses and Appositional Clauses in Biblical Hebrew," Ancient Near Eastern Studies 36 (1999) 36-47.

Zewi, T., A Syntactical Study of Verbal Forms Affixed by -n(n) Endings in Classical Arabic, Biblical Hebrew, El-Amarna Akkadian and Ugaritic (AOAT 260; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 1999).

Zewi, T., and C. H. J. van der Merwe, "Biblical Hebrew Nominal Clause: Definitions of Subject and Predicate," JNSL 27 (2001) 81-99.

Zewi, T.,"The Particles hinneh and wehinneh in Biblical Hebrew," HS 37 (1996) 21-38.

Zewi, T.., "Biblical Word Order and Saadya Gaon's Translation of the Pentateuch," Ancient Near Eastern Studies 38 (2001) 42-57.

Zinkuratire, V. "Morphological and Syntactical Similarities between Hebrew and Bantu Languages," Newsletter on African Old Testament Scholarship 4 (1998) 14-19.

Zoran, Y., "The Language of Greatness – The Majestic Plural," Beit Miqra 143 (1995) 402-3 (Heb.).

Zorell, F., "Gibt es im Hebräischen ein 'ki recitativum'?" Bib 14 (1933) 465-69.

Zorell, F., "Zu Ps. 18:27," Bib 9 (1928) 224.

Zuber, B., "Das 'Nun paragogicum'," Dielheimer Blätter zum Alten Testament 27 (1991) 17-45.

Zuber, B., Das Tempussystem des biblischen Hebräisch (BZAW 164; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1986).

Zukerman, A., & Shai, I., "'The Royal City of the Philistines' in the 'Azekah Inscription' and the History of Gath in the Eighth Century BCE," UF 38 (2006) 729-78.