From Exegetical Question to Query: SHEBANQ in the OT Exegesis Classroom

Students of Hebrew and Old Testament exegesis at the university do no only learn the more classical exegetical methods that have been developed over centuries. They also have to learn to work with all kinds of Bible software and electronic concordances. At Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam students learn to work with the ETCBC database (http://shebanq.ancient-data.org), which can be accessed freely online. Despite the easy accessibility of SHEBANQ as electronic analysis tool for Biblical Hebrew texts students find it hard to translate exegetical questions that arise from the Hebrew Bible and sources such as Midrash, commentaries and translations into SHEBANQ queries that can help answer them. Moreover, when students miss a methodology to move back and forth from question to query important information could be lost.

In this contribution a few case studies will be presented of how the different functionalities of SHEBANQ can aid students from a simple to a more advanced level in their exegetical process and study the text more thoroughly. The first case study will move from the Hebrew text to a simple search in SHEBANQ. Second, on the basis of a case in a Midrash a query will be written and executed. Third, a statement from a modern commentary will be checked with a query. Lastly, an advanced query in SHEBANQ will shed light on the translation of consecutive verb forms.