Automatic Hebrew Transliteration Website

I just came across that website that automatically transliterates Hebrew text into English using a variety of transliteration systems including SBL Academic, SBL Simple, Brill Simple, Simplified Modern Israeli, and more. You can copy/paste in Hebrew, or you can use the Reference to enter a biblical text. Choose the transliteration scheme you want, click the button, and the result appears in a popup window that can be copied. Very handy!

HT: Peter Gurry on Twitter

LEXICITY update

lexicity

Identifying itself as "The first and only comprehensive index for ancient language resources on the internet," lexicity is now online in an updated version. (I seem to have missed the first one.) From the site:

Two years ago we launched Lexicity - a site dedicated to providing online study resources for ancient languages. We're happy to announce the second version of our site, which looks cleaner, runs more efficiently, and gets you to the resources faster.
With the second version, we're also committed to continual updates and expansion for language resources. We hope to include other languages soon as well, and we remain focused on creating an online community for learners of ancient languages.

As you can see from the graphic above, there are links to resources for: Akkadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Church Slavonic, Coptic, Egyptian, Elamite, Ethiopic, Etruscan, Gaulish, Georgian, Gothic, Greek, Hebrew, Hittite, Latin, Mayan, Old Chinese, Old English, Old French, Old Frisian, Old High German, Old Irish, Old Norse, Old Persian, Old Turkic, Sanskrit, Sumerian, Syriac, Ugartitic.

Clicking on any of the languages will bring you to a page for subsequent links to Dictionaries, Grammars, Charts & Aids, Texts, and Other Resources.
I did a quick survey of resources connected to Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and Syriac, and I think the site authors have done a great job of locating and linking available material. This is a great place to start if you are looking for resources in this ancient languages.

Logos releases Biblia Hebraica Westmonasteriensis with Westminster Hebrew Morphology 4.18

Logos announced a nice upgrade today of Biblia Hebraica Westmonasteriensis which is free to those who already owned Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia with Westminster 4.2 Morphology. (Note: the 4.18 is 4.eighteen as compared to the previous 4.two.)

What’s new since 4.2?

Since the release of the 4.2—nearly a decade ago—a dizzying array of corrections and improvements have been made to the Westminster Hebrew Morphology. Here are some of the biggest changes:

• Better integration with Koehler-Baumgartner-Stamm’s Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament
• Significant expansion of the quantity and quality of textual notes
• A review of accentuation and improvements in Hebrew accentuation throughout the text
• And much, much more! Check out the product page for a comprehensive list of updates and improvements.

Nice!

Working with Hebrew, Greek, and English in the MT and LXX - BibleWorks9 (and Logos5)

David Lang is writing about "Using the MT-LXX Parallel" in Accordance. If you use Accordance, you definitely want to check it out.

• First, Lang shows how Accordance has linked the Hebrew MT and the Greek LXX with English versions so that hovering over a Hebrew or Greek word will highlight the English word. He uses the example in Genesis 1.1 of שָּׁמַיִם and οὐρανὸν. The problem, however, is that though you can see the relationship of Hebrew>English and Greek>English, you cannot see the relationship between the Hebrew and Greek
• To see the connection between the Hebrew and Greek, Lang shows how to use the "MT-LXX Parallel" tool. (I'm assuming this is Tov's work or one similar to it.) This tool matches up each word in the Hebrew with the word(s) used to translate it (or not!) in the LXX.
• Since the Hebrew is not tagged in that resource, Lang then shows how to use a MERGE command to handle searches like: "Find every place where the LXX translates the Hebrew word tselem by some form of the word eikon." (This is the word usually translated in Genesis 1.26 with "image.")

Very helpful! Since I am a BibleWorks9 and Logos5 user, I wanted to see how they handle the tasks Lang is describing.

BibleWorks9

As an example, how is שָּׁמַיִם translated in the LXX and English versions? There is no easy way to see this visually in BibleWorks. The closest option I can think of is to find that the Hebrew word is assigned 08064 in Strong's. You could then use the Graphical Search Engine and search for this:

Run the search, and you will see this in the results:

This does let you see both words highlighted, but it only works with the MT and either the KJV or NASB (the only versions with Strong's coding). When hovering the mouse over the Strong's number, you can also see in the Analysis tab the usage statistics. Like Accordance, this kind of matched visual highlighting will not work for Hebrew MT and Greek LXX. So, similarly, BW9 offers Tov's Parallel Hebrew and LXX. (Click on the little icon with the Greek alpha and Hebrew aleph or find it under the Resources in the menu line.) Doing so will give you this:

One thing that should be noted here is that both the Hebrew and Greek are morphologically tagged. This will make it easier to answer Lang's question, "Find every place where the LXX translates the Hebrew word tselem by some form of the word eikon."
There are a number of ways to do this in BibleWorks.

1. You could use the Graphical Search engine and conduct a search like this:
   
   In .08 seconds it will generate the 11 hits that match. Hmmm.... Lang came up with 26 or so hits. What's going on? It turns out that Tov's Parallel Hebrew-Greek does not distinguish between the Hebrew and Aramaic parts of the OT, but BibleWorks does separate them. And there a whole bunch of "images" in the Aramaic parts of Daniel! So, yourhttp://www.scrollandscreen.com/biblestudyresources/http://www.scrollandscreen.com/biblestudyresources/ Graphical Search engine query needs to look like this:
   
   (Note that the percentage sign % following the root indicates Aramaic and the at@ sign indicates Hebrew. If you want the QF file of this search, HERE it is.) Now I get the 30 hits in 23 verses in 0.14 seconds. This is good, but... it's not necessarily what you want. It's actually searching for verses where the Hebrew/Aramaic word appears and the Greek word also appears. It does not necessarily mean that the Greek is translating that particular Hebrew word.
2. Another way you might answer our question is by using Tov's Parallel again and take advantage of BW's morphological tagging of it. Click on the little binoculars with the א=α above it. When it opens, you can type in the Hebrew root, start the search and you will get this:
   
   This is a good way to look at all the ways that a Hebrew root is rendered in Greek (or, conversely, how a Greek lemma is rendering the Hebrew), but you also see that the results will need some closer inspection. (You see that the article or conjunctions or prepositions are sometimes listed. This is an issue w/ how Tov categorized things.)
3. SO, HERE IS THE BEST SOLUTION! Click on the line with the words you are interested in, and then click on the bigger binoculars in Tov, and the Alignment Search Window will appear. Now you can search according to particular Forms or Analysis or Lemmas. For the specific question we were asking, I did a little editing of the fields so that my search looked like this. (Note which boxes I checked.)
   
   The search takes a bit longer, but it gives exactly the results I want. I can also easily select all my results, send them to the main BW search window, and then generate a list of verses I want: Gen 1:26, 27; 5:3; 9:6; 2Ki 11:18; Psa 39:7; 73:20; Eze 7:20; 16:17; 23:14; Dan 2:31, 31, 34, 35; 3:1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18.
   Note that this is also the better way to generate all the instances of Hebrew>Greek or Greek<Hebrew. Unfortunately, I don't see any easy way of extracting and synthesizing the results to get the numbers of times a Hebrew word is being translated by particular Greek words.

So, to summarize how BibleWorks does for this kind of work:

• CONS:
  • There is no visual link of Hebrew, Greek, and English in the normal display mode.
  • There is not easy way to extract a count of how a Hebrew word is rendered by Greek words or a count of what Hebrew words are being translated by a Greek word.
• PROS:
  • BW offers a number of ways of working with the texts.
  • BW's implementation of Tov's parallel Hebrew and Greek is notable for its morphological tagging which allows for powerful searching capabilities.
  • It's easy to generate lists of verses that match search criteria.

Let me know if I've missed something! In the next post, I will show what Logos is capable of doing.

Greek and Hebrew on Google Drive and Android

 I have been using Google Docs more and more in my classes for students working collaboratively. I also use it for some documents that I want to have available irrespective of what computer I'm using. Google has been transitioning, so now it's all basically part of Google Drive.

One problem in my classroom work, however, is that Google Docs did a lousy job with Greek fonts. I had previously noted that Google had obtained rights to David Perry's great Cardo font, but that it did not include the full font set for Greek. If you used Cardo in MS Word on your local system and then tried to upload it into Google Docs, the Greek was a mess. I'm happy to report that the issue has now been remedied. You may need to do a little extra work to use it in your Google Docs, however. If you don't have Cardo in your Google Docs, here's what you need to do. As you can see in the screen shot below, click on the font drop-down, scroll to the bottom, and click on "Add fonts." This will pop up a screen, and you can search for Cardo and include it in your Google Docs collection. 

All good! Yes! No... As you can see with the graphic at the top of the screen, both Greek and Hebrew look great in Google. Hebrew works right-to-left properly and everything. Greek and Hebrew looks good in both TimesNewRoman and Cardo. You may be wondering why bother with Cardo at all if TimesNewRoman works ok. Depending on a variety of operating system issues, I have simply found Cardo is the best choice, and it includes all the Hebrew, Greek, and text critical characters and more.

Still not all good, however... Google has recently made Google Drive docs editable on your Android and iStuff. Excellent! But here's where the font issue arises again. I can't speak for iPhone/iPad, but on my Android (using a Droid X with 2.3.4), neither TimesNewRoman nor Cardo can display the Greek properly. (Hebrew displays fine, but my Android can't handle right-to-left.) So, what to do? I have just discovered that the Ubuntu font will give you the Greek display that you want as you can see in the graphic at the top.

Great! So now you want to use Ubuntu in documents that you will be sharing on your Google Drive, but... you don't have Ubuntu on your local system. So, here's what you do:

• Go to the Google Web Fonts page, 
• Search for Ubuntu,
• Click Add to Collection
• At the bottom of the screen, click on Use
• On the next screen, click the styles you want to have, then
• Click on "Download your Collection" (upper right)
• Go ahead and download, unzip, and install, and you are good to go!

BOTTOM LINE: For docs I'm sharing on Google Drive where I want Greek (and Hebrew) to show up properly I can now use Cardo. If I also want it on my mobile device, use Ubuntu.

Typing Unicode Greek, Hebrew, and more

 Limited Time Tavultesoft Keyman Special Pricing! Details below

I have posted previously about the various options for typing Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and other biblical languages using Unicode. Here's an update and a link to a good deal on Keyman...

• The Tyndale Unicode Font Kit is one good option, but I don't really like the way it requires you to type the Greek accents and breathings before you type the vowel. (The Greek Polytonic keyboard that can be installed through the Windows system is similar.) The Hebrew keyboard is different but reasonable. What's nice about this kit is that it has good documentation with installations for various Windows systems as well as Macs. It also helpfully installs the Cardo Unicode font which is great, free font for biblical studies since it includes a full set of Hebrew, Greek, transliteration, and critical marker characters. For my less tech-savvy students, I just have them use this kit.
• The keyboards offered by Logos are another good option for Windows users and come with helpful installation and layout guides. Keyboards are available for Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, and also a Transliteration keyboard. If you do a lot of transliterating of Greek or Hebrew, that last one is very helpful as a replacement for the standard US keyboard. (There is, however, a minor issue with the Greek Unicode due to its Beta Code background. E.g., to get an eta with a rough breathing, acute accent, and iota subscript, you need to enter the characters exactly in that order to get a proper combined character made of the four different elements. Using Keyman as I describe below, it doesn't matter which order you use after entering the vowel, and the result is the proper and preferred precomposed character.) The Hebrew keyboard is a bit different, but it can be easily learned. If you regularly type in both Hebrew and Syriac, this is probably the best way to go, because the Syriac keyboard matches the Hebrew as much as possible.
• Logos does offer the wonderful standalone Shibboleth program which is free. (Windows only) It provides a fully graphical way to type Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Greek, Coptic, Ugaritic, Armenian, South Arabian, Transliteration, Hieroglyphs, Akkadian, Hittite, and Old Persian. It's a copy/paste process, but if you only type infrequently in any of these languages, this is your best option. (The same quirk with Greek Unicode occurs as described in the previous bullet, but the graphical interface guides you to enter the elements in the correct order. You still get the combined instead of the precomposed character.)
• There are web options for typing Greek. You will want to remember at least one of these, because it doesn't matter what operating system you are using, and if you are not at your own machine, you can go to one of these sites to get the proper Greek you need.You simply type and then use copy/paste to get the text into your document.
• TypeGreek: TypeGreek does not require Beta Code ordering of diacritic entry and returns the proper precomposed character. The only thing I don't like about this site is that to get keyboard help, when you click on the button, it takes you a different page, and you lose everything you have already entered.
• Greek Inputter: This one does use Beta Code ordering, but it provides good keyboard help just below the input window.
• KeymanWeb Notepad: This is a great way to gain access to hundreds of left-to-right language keyboards. It is a type/copy/paste option, but you do have a popup keyboard to help.
  
• Keyman Bookmarklet: This is your all-language solution, because you can use any of the hundreds of keyboards in Keyman, including right-to-left languages. The bookmarklet is saved as a bookmark with your browser bookmarks. Regardless of the web page you are on, you can click it and type in your chosen language. Popup keyboard help as well. (More info and an example of how you can embed on a personal web page here. HT: Jim Darlack for reminding me of these last 2 options.) 
•  Tavultesoft Keyman: The reason for trying to get this post up is that there is a great sale on Keyman only good through 19 September 2012. Keyman is for Windows only, but it really is the most elegant way to type in Greek and Hebrew (and a multitude of other languages). I like the Greek keyboard layout, and it properly creates the precomposed characters. You have the option of having an onscreen keyboard popup when you type which is a great help. (Cf. the graphic at top) It has yet another Hebrew layout which is reasonable enough, and you do have the onscreen keyboard help. Installation is a little more involved than I would like (but it perhaps was due to the other keyboards I had already installed). Keyman kind of comes between you and operating system (unlike the Logos keyboards which become part of it), so if you look at your Greek and Hebrew keyboards in your Regional Language settings, they will say that you are using a US (or whatever your default language is) keyboard. Personally, I set up a macro in MS Word which I then assigned to a hotkey so that when I hit Shift-Alt-G, I activate the Greek keyboard and switch to Cardo font. Hitting that hotkey again toggles me back to English and the default fault. There must be hundreds of keyboards available for languages throughout the world. For Greek and Hebrew, I recommend using the Galaxie BibleScript Mnemonic Keyboards. (If you also type in Syriac, your best bet is the basic Syriac Phonetic keyboard, but it does not exactly match the Hebrew. You might be better off looking at the Logos keyboards.) If you do a lot of typing in Hebrew and Greek this is a great solution. BTW, you can download an evaluation version that's good for 30 days. And, until 19 September 2012 you can get Keyman at a great price that is 70% off. The Light version is only $9 (or $14 for 2 licenses - each system needs its own license), and the Professional version is $25 ($40 for 2 licenses). The most important difference between the Light and Professional is that you are limited to only two keyboards in the Light version. USE THIS LINK to get the discount.

BOTTOM LINE: I bought 2 licenses of Keyman (one for home, one for school system). I use Shibboleth for occasional typing in other biblical languages. I use TypeGreek when I'm not working on one of my own systems.

Digital Dead Sea Scrolls Online

This is great! It was announced today that five Dead Sea Scrolls have been published online as part of The Digital Dead Seas Scrolls project.

It’s taken 24 centuries, the work of archaeologists, scholars and historians, and the advent of the Internet to make the Dead Sea Scrolls accessible to anyone in the world. Today, as the new year approaches on the Hebrew calendar, we’re celebrating the launch of the Dead Sea Scrolls online; a project of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem powered by Google technology.

The five scrolls posted for now are: the Great Isaiah Scroll, Temple Scroll, War Scroll,     Community Rule Scroll, and Commentary on the Habakkuk Scroll. Resolution on the images is outstanding with zooming, and navigation is easy. With the default view of the Isaiah Scroll, there are mouse hover highlights indicating the chapter:verse. Clicking on the highlight will bring a popup with an English translation of the Masoretic text. (I.e., it is an English translation of the MT, not of the scroll. A start at comparing the two is provided here. For the Isaiah Scroll, at least, you may want to consult the older Great Isaiah Scroll Directory which has a low-res, bw image, a description of the scroll, and line by line translation.)

Check out The Digital Dead Seas Scrolls project!

[HT: JS & BS]

Greek and Hebrew in Google Docs and Windows Live SkyDrive

I've used Google Docs for some time and recently Microsoft placed a version of its Office suite online under the Windows Live SkyDrive banner. One of the important considerations for me is how well they handle Greek and Hebrew. I ran through a number of configurations, and if you want to see how they look, you can check them out HERE along with additional comments. For a simple summary of what works or not, here's what I've been able to determine.

• It makes a difference whether you use Firefox or Internet Explorer. There are some differences in line spacing, but more important differences are based on how you have your font settings. For my test, I had switched my default Greek font in Firefox to Cardo but had left IE8's Greek default to TimesNewRoman.
  In FF, use Tools - Options - Content tab - Fonts and Colors - Advanced. Choose Greek from the dropdown and choose your desired font.
  In IE8, use Tools - Options - General tab - Fonts - Choose Hebrew or Greek Language script and choose your desired font.
  I still recommend the free Cardo font.
• Google has acquired rights to Cardo, but it is not yet implemented with a full set of characters to do Greek/English editing.
• SkyDrive likes to use Microsoft's Calibri font as an English default for composing or editing. Calibri is not available in GDocs, and it uses Arial instead.
• If you have Greek or Hebrew Unicode keyboards installed, you can type directly in Greek/Hebrew in either SkyDrive or GDocs. It is also possible to copy/paste.
• Saving my mixed English/Hebrew/Greek file in SkyDrive regularly crashed it (i.e., the SkyDrive tab, not the browser.) It was an easy and quick matter to restart but a bit of a pain nonetheless.
• Note that the option to open and edit an online document in SkyDrive in MSWord on your computer requires that you be running it in IE8.
• If you have a Unicode Syriac font installed and a Syriac keyboard, you can compose in Syriac as well. 
• The only font you can count on for a consistent display of Greek (i.e., all the characters are in that font) is Tahoma.
• Other fonts may look a bit strange with the font substitutions for accented characters, but the Unicode is accurately preserved. So, when you apply an appropriate Greek Unicode font offline in your local word processor, everything will look fine.
• Note that some of the Hebrew does not display correctly (e.g.  אֱלֹהִים - the holem takes up its own space), but when used offline and a font like Cardo is applied, it will appear accurately.
• In GDocs, you can right align text, but it does not allow for right to left orientation. In SkyDrive, you can apply right to left orientation, so, if you are doing a lot of typing in Hebrew, SkyDrive is more helpful.

BOTTOM LINE: You can work in Greek or Hebrew (or Syriac) in either GoogleDocs or Windows Live SkyDrive. I don't see a huge advantage of one over the other. If you want to have multiple persons working on a document at the same time, however, use GDocs. If you are familiar with MSOffice and its editing ribbon, SkyDrive will be very familiar. If you are mainly working in Hebrew, SkyDrive is better.

Hebrew Legacy Fonts Converters

Hebrew Legacy Fonts Converters

I have previously tried to list "Greek Legacy Fonts to Unicode Converters." Here are the Hebrew legacy fonts converters of which I am aware. If you know of others, please add a comment, and I will update this post.

Ken Penner's SPTiberian (SBL legacy TrueType) to Unicode (Word macro)

• This is a MS Word macro from Ken Penner, author of Flash! Pro Vocabulary Memorization Software
• You need to understand how to paste text into the Word Macro editor. This is a text file of coding to paste in.
• Thanks to Ken for sharing this!

Galaxie BibleScript (Word macro/template)

• Use the Windows Installer to install Galaxie Greek/Hebrew fonts and Word template
• Involves a two-step process converting legacy fonts to Galaxie fonts and then to Unicode
• Hebrew fonts handled: Hebraica/II,
  Bwhebb (BibleWorks), SuperHebrew, SHebrew (Bibloi)
• Greek fonts handled: Alexandria,
  Koine, Gideon, Mounce, Bwgrkl, SymbolGreekP, Graeca, WinGreek, GraecaII, SuperGreek, Sgreek

SHebrew (from Silver Mountain; used in BibleWindows and Bibloi)

• Bibloi 8.0 includes a Unicode Type Assistant for SHebrew to Unicode

SIL  (Word template and standalone SILConverters 3.1)

• This package provides tools through which you can change the encoding, font, and/or script of text in Microsoft Word and other Office documents, XML documents, and SFM text and lexicon documents. It also installs a system-wide repository to manage your encoding converters and transliterators.
• Among many others, it contains encoding converter map(s) for the following encoding/fonts:
  
  
  • SIL Ezra to/from Unicode
  • Hebrew Unicode 4.0 to/from Hebrew Unicode 5.0

Greek and Hebrew Encoding Converter (Ken Penner - online: copy/paste textbox)

• From: SPTiberian, Linguist HebraicaII, B-Hebrew transliteration, Unicode, SPIonic, Greek BETA, SGreek, LaserGreek, AG, Greek Unicode NFD, Unaccented Greek Unicode, Greek Code Page
• To: Unicode, Code Page 1255 (Hebrew Windows), SPTiberian, B-Hebrew transliteration, SuperHebrew, Unaccented Greek Unicode, Greek Unicode NFD, Greek BETA, Unaccented B-Greek,

JBLC (paid conversion service for RTF files)

• Transforms texts with legacy fonts like SuperHebrew, SPIonic, SuperGreek, Bwgrkl, and others to any Unicode font

LaserHebrew Converter

• $79.95 available for Win or Mac from Linguist's Software
• LaserHebrew and LaserHebrew II to LaserHebrew in Unicode
• Note that the Jerusalem font uses the same key mapping as LaserHebrew.

Accordit from Accordance Bible Software (look for it near the bottom of the page)

• Check AccordIt 2.0 User's Guide
• Converts LaserHebrew (Linguist's) or Jerusalem (MacBible-Zondervan) to Yehudit (both are non-Unicode)
• Converts Hebrew to Hebraica II

BibleWorks BWHEBB to Unicode

• Section 59 on "OLE and DDE" in the BibleWorks8 Help file provides the MSWord macro text to conduct the conversion

Typing Biblical Hebrew

What are the best ways to type biblical Hebrew? Personally, while I have strong preferences about how my polytonic Greek keyboard is laid out, I haven't typed frequently enough in Hebrew to have clear preferences. For example, 

• Do you want to use an English keyboard which matches the Hebrew phonetically? Or do you prefer an Israeli keyboard?
• Should the shift state serve to provide final forms or doubled forms? 
• Where do the vowel points go? Try to match them with English phonetically? Or put them all on special keys (123...)?
• Where is the aleph key? (I'm always searching for it if it's not on the "a".) Or the vav/waw? Or the het or tet?

That's only one set of issues related to the keyboards. You also have to consider whether/how Hebrew with its right-to-left typing is handled in your word processor. Or maybe you want to compose all your Hebrew in your Bible software and copy/paste it into your documents. Or do you want a system-wide switch so you can type in Hebrew in your word processor, email, web page...

I'll try to sort out some of the options, but in all cases I will assume that you are wanting to end up with Unicode Hebrew using a font like Cardo or SBL Hebrew. Even if you go with transliteration, you will need some help to get the special characters... I'm also providing screenshots of keyboard layouts where possible so you have a better idea of the layout philosophy of the various options. (Click on the graphics to enlarge them.)

System-wide Hebrew Keyboard

The idea here is that your operating system understands that you want to type in Hebrew and switches to a Hebrew keyboard and a Unicode Hebrew font using right-to-left formatting. (For Windows users, at least, this is going to mean enabling a buried regional parameter to allow the right-to-left typing.) Do note that most English users are not going to want to use an Israeli keyboard but rather one that is laid out for an English keyboard and optimized for biblical Hebrew needs. An advantage in using a Windows system keyboard is that you also can use the onscreen keyboard which is included for free. (It is part of the accessibility options in Windows. For WinXP see here or here and for Win7 see here. [HT: bkMitchell]) What about Macs? I don't have much experience with Macs, but I have noted some solutions below. 

TYNDALE UNICODE FONT KIT

One of the easiest ways to get started typing in Hebrew is to use the Tyndale Unicode Font Kit. It provides clear instructions for installing everything, the fine Cardo font, and an installer. It's available for WinXP, WinVista (& 7, I presume), and Mac. For the Hebrew keyboard, it uses a combination of sound-alike and look-alike positions. (E.g., note that the aleph is on the "x", shin is on the "w", and vowels go with their sound-alikes.) Cf. the graphic above. (A transliteration keyboard is included in the Greek keyboard using the Cardo font and activated by turning on caps lock.)

TAVULTESOFT KEYMAN

Another excellent way to type in Hebrew (and other languages) is Tavultesoft's Keyman program. (Pricing is $19 for 2 keyboards. Windows only) Once you have the program, then get Galaxie's BibleScript Greek and Hebrew Keyboard. (Here is a PDF of the installation manual and keyboard layouts.) As you can see in the graphic above, the shift state is used for doubling and most of the vowels are on the shifted number row. It's a bit of a trick finding the final form. A nice feature is that it does include a pop-up keyboard if you need help.

SBL HEBREW SIL KEYBOARD

In addition to the fine SBL Hebrew font, SBL also provides Hebrew keyboards. Here is the SIL keyboard manual. It's mainly phonetically based, but the aleph and ayin are on the shifted angle brackets, and you'll find the het on the "x" and the tet on the "v".

SBL HEBREW TIRO KEYBOARD

SBL also provides a Tiro Hebrew keyboard. Here is the Tiro keyboard manual. It's mainly based on the Israeli standard keyboard, so it is probably not a preferred keyboard for those not familiar with that layout.

HEBREW QWERTY KEYBOARD

Based on a Hebrew keyboard for the Mac, this Hebrew QWERTY keyboard has been made available for Windows. (Link is to a ZIP file. Extract all files and run the .msi file. [HT: Mikhtav]) There a few 'qwirks' to this layout, but it may work for you...

LOGOS KEYBOARDS

Logos provides a Hebrew keyboard for use in Windows. The placement is  largely phonetic (but the aleph on ") and the shift state is used for finals and for related letters. (E.g., t is tav, and Shift+t is tet. A transliteration keyboard is also available on that page.)

MULTIKEY

MultiKey by Stefan Hagel is a free program that supports Unicode input in many Windows programs. (I.e., it isn't exactly a system keyboard like the ones listed above.) It includes keyboard tables for Hebrew and 17 other languages using Unicode and 3 older Hebrew keyboard tables. (WL Hebrew, WinGreek Hebrew, BWHEBB) You can customize your keyboards, but it will take some work since it's primarily geared for modern Hebrew. (E.g., I can't find the final forms...) 

DO IT YOURSELF (OR MODIFY EXISTING ONES)

Don't like a keyboard layout? Tyndale provides some instructions for changing the layout using SIL's Ukelele program for the Mac or the Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator for Windows. Basically these allow you to assign Unicode characters to keystrokes, but matters are complicated with Hebrew (and Greek) because you will want to add vowels and accents and such and have the keyboard reference the proper precombined character. You will probably want to get familiar with BabelMap which is a great free Unicode character mapping program for Windows.

... and for Macs
TYNDALE UNICODE FONT KIT 
Cf. the description above.

HEBREW QWERTY KEYBOARD

Here is a good place to start for some basic information on installing and using a Hebrew keyboard. Info is given on how to activate the Keyboard Viewer. Instead of using the standard Hebrew keyboard layout, it is recommended that you use the Hebrew QWERTY keyboard displayed above.

SBL HEBREW KEYBOARD DRIVERS

SBL provides Hebrew keyboard Drivers for SIL and Tiro (OS X) Cf. graphics above for these keyboards.


HEBREW-ZC KEYBOARD

Bill / Ze'ev Clementson provides his own well-considered Hebrew-ZC Keyboard. It's well-considered, because he has tried to incorporate the best of both the SIL and Tiro keyboards as well as frequency of Hebrew character and vowel stats. The keyboard download, installation instructions, and layout diagrams are on that page.

Independent Hebrew Typing Aids

SHIBBOLETH

Shibboleth is a great free tool from Logos I have previously mentioned for entering text in 10 languages as well as a transliteration mode. Logos states:

Shibboleth is a tool for typing Unicode text in ancient scripts. It was designed to help people unfamiliar with a script easily enter the correct characters, and then copy text to the clipboard in Unicode or another format.
While a keyboard layout is provided for several scripts, the emphasis is on helping the user recognize and select the proper characters. To that end, user input is shown in both typed and rendered format, with multiple font options, and all of the characters for each script are selectable from a well organized palette on the right side of the application window.

You can enter text using your keyboard or pointing/clicking on the characters you want. This is particularly helpful if you need to include cantillation marks and have trouble remembering where to locate them on a keyboard. Do note that the output is actually in XML, so when you paste your text you will see the XML Hebrew encoding indicators. In a word processing document, you will probably want to delete those. It works great in a web page since you will only see the text, as I am demonstrating here: בּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִם. (In a word processor you would see angle brackets enclosing "he" and "/he" codes.)
Note also that Shibboleth does require Microsoft's .NET Framework 4 Client to run. Also available on the download page are other fonts you can install to use your output in other applications.

KEYMAN WEB

Keyman Web is a free, online notepad from Tavultesoft for typing in just about any language and then copy/paste into your document. For Hebrew, you can choose to use the Galaxie Hebrew keyboard described above as part of the Tavultesoft Keyman program. As you can see in the graphic, you can activate an onscreen keyboard. (But it won't show you all the vowels on the shift state.) You can see that the אֱלֹהִים doesn't look correctly spaced, but when you paste it into your word processor, it will be fine.

HEBREW KEYBOARD BOOKMARKLETS
Here's a clever idea if you are needing to input Hebrew on a web page, and you are not using your own computer. Hebrew Keyboard Bookmarklets from Bill (Ze'ev) Clementson provides your choice of four Hebrew keyboards (Tiro, SIL, QWERTY, or his own ZC--cf. above) that you can activate (using javascript) as a bookmarklet. You are also provided bookmarklets to turn off the Hebrew keyboard and adjust LtR or RtL text direction.

AM HA-ARETZ

Now only available on Internet Archive, Am ha-Aretz is another notepad type of online app that allows you to type / copy / paste. There is an Internet Explorer version that works well and an "other browser" version that works with Firefox but not very well.

Integrated English-Hebrew Word Processors

Another option is to use a word processor that is designed for scholarly work that requires a variety of  fonts including a mix of left-to-right and right-to-left languages.

NOTA BENE LINGUA

Nota Bene Lingua is much more than a word processor, but it is incredibly easy to use for typing in Hebrew and handles mixing typing direction well. It has popup keyboards and smart characters that automatically convert to final forms as you type where appropriate. It uses a largely phonetic layout, but vowels are accessed through using F6 and then selecting the one you want.

DAVKAWRITER

DavkaWriter is "the world's most innovative Hebrew / English Word Processor." I personally have never used it, but I have only heard positive comments from people who do. (It appears to be Windows only.)

MELLEL

"Mellel is the leading word processor for Mac OS X designed especially for creative and technical writing, scholars and anyone who wants a reliable word processor." "If right-to-left languages, or languages related to biblical studies are important to your work, Mellel is probably what you need."

CLASSICAL TEXT EDITOR

Classical Text Editor is "the word-processor for critical editions, commentaries and parallel texts..." Allows for any number of notes and apparatus, bidirectional text. Created by Stefan Hagel. (Cf. MultiKey above) For Windows and Macintosh with emulated Windows.


MICROSOFT WORD

You can actually do quite well in MSWord using a system keyboard as described above. The graphic shows how I can type in Hebrew mixed in with English and Greek. I have activated the on-screen keyboard (also described above) and am using the Logos Hebrew keyboard which I activated by using the ALT-SHIFT strike to toggle through my available keyboards. (Cf. the "HE" for Hebrew in my system bar at the bottom near the right.)

OTHER WORD PROCESSORS [UPDATED]
As indicated in the comments, Nisus Writer Pro (Mac) reportedly does well with right to left fonts and NeoOffice (Mac) is also usable. OpenOffice (Windows, Mac, Linux) is also an excellent choice.

UNITYPE

I have no experience with Unitype, but you can buy this program (starting at $150USD) as part of either the standalone Global Writer or Global Office which integrates with MS Word.

ANTIOCH

Antioch "is a utility which allows you to type classical Greek and Hebrew in Word. It includes fully programmable Greek and Hebrew keyboards, a uniquely simple and flexible system for handling diacritics and vowel points, an elegant font with all necessary characters, and converters for documents in many other formats." It works with all versions of MS Word (including 2010) for Windows. Vowels are on the number row and also on the keypad. It allows for personalization of the characters. Cost is US$50.

Bible Software Editors

If you have one of the major Bible software programs, you can use their built-in editors and then copy/paste into other applications or documents.

Accordance

Accordance provides a good explanation of font usage in this PDF file. The font used for Hebrew is Yehudit. Keyboard diagrams are provided. Accordance does not actually use Unicode, but it can export Unicode.

BibleWorks

BibleWorks has a rather robust editor that allows for typing either in its own BWHEBB font (shown above) or in Unicode. (When using the Unicode Hebrew, it actually uses the Hebrew system keyboard you have installed.) The 'busy' buttonbar shown can be simplified, and the editing works for both the editor and chapter/verse notes entries. The files are actually RTF files, so you could do your work in the editor and then open the file in your word processor.

LOGOS

Logos works entirely with Unicode, so anything you type will use the system keyboard you have installed (cf. the choices above), and you can easily copy/paste text into documents outside Logos in full Unicode beauty.

BOTTOM LINE
Well... pulling this info together took way longer than I anticipated, but I am gearing up for a writing project that does involve a lot of Hebrew, and so I wanted to get myself properly situated. For that project, I may try to do everything in Nota Bene. For now, I've been using the Logos Hebrew keyboard in MSWord and also in the BibleWorks editor. When I've gotten frustrated with finding vowels or other markings, I've pulled up Shibboleth. Keyman Web is another quick option, and I am considering whether I should go ahead and buy the Keyman Desktop program, since it really does the best job with polytonic Greek. I've provided graphics of the keyboard layouts, because that really is the most important factor.

At least now you know many of your choices, but I have to suppose I've missed other options out there. Please post a comment on your preferred way of typing Hebrew, and I will try to update this entry. Thanks.