Saturday, April 19, 2008

on learning the biblical languages

Eric Sowell over at Archaic Christianity has a couple of really good post on learning the biblical languages.

Should you learn Greek or Hebrew? Here is a key quote that is important to take in:
Let me make this very clear, though it should be obvious to everyone. Learning a foreign language well is a time-consuming process. There is no getting around that. There is no fast-track to learning a language in two weeks. There is no surgery for language gain. There are no pills you can take that will make it quick and painless. I think it is worth it, but you need to be ready for the amount it work it will take.

Do you "know" Greek or Hebrew? Here is a significant quote to consider:
However, we all need to be humble when it comes to what we think we know about the original languages. We should think of ourself rightly, accurately. We shouldn't teach with bravado from a text, disagree with the translations and say "but they're wrong because the original says x" and whatnot, unless we are really good at the language. It's kind of hard to measure that, but I'll give you a hint. If you've only studied the language for a couple of years, you're not. If you took classes in it and have been studying it off and on for a decade or so, you are probably not really good at it. When will you get there? Well, it takes a lot of time and effort. For some it takes more than others. What you need to be is very humble about it until you've spent a long time in the language.
Check it out. Let me know what you think!

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1 Comments:

At 3:14 PM, Blogger tcrob said...

I've learned that over the years. I have my Greek down, but Hebrew is giving me a scare.

 

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