Best christian bible language studies according to redditors
We found 107 Reddit comments discussing the best christian bible language studies. We ranked the 50 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 107 Reddit comments discussing the best christian bible language studies. We ranked the 50 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
I almost feel like having a teacher is necessary. It is murder trying to learn this language on your own. A teacher will motivate you. A teacher will be able to drop useful information as you go, "Actually, this text says that 'ekklesia' means 'church', but the Romans first used the word to describe public meeting areas that recognized the Lordship of Caesar..." and that'll help keep you interested when you'd rather give up. A teacher helps keep you accountable.
That having been said, Mounce might be good for you. The textbook comes with a CD containing lectures and other study aids that you'll find helpful for learning the language on your own. You can buy the workbook here separately if you'd like, or scroll down to the "Frequently Bought Together" section and get the textbook, the workbook, and the flashcards for only $57.86.
There are simply a lot of resources available for this curriculum, and the CD that comes with the textbook is a passable substitute for a teacher in the absence of one.
Also check iTunes U, I'm pretty sure I've seen classes on Biblical Greek there. If you find one you particularly like, you might want to figure out what textbook they're using and get that.
Before you do though, consider that you don't need Greek to understand the Bible and that learning Koine Greek to the point that you actually glean original insights from the text that you otherwise wouldn't demands a life-long commitment to the study. I've taken two years at university and my handle of the language is, relative to others, deplorable. Most of the insights I've gotten from Greek have come from other more learned people pointing out things I wouldn't have noticed on my own.
Good luck.
Most editions of the NT don't include Loeb-style facing Greek and English texts. The most popular editions include Greek-only with an apparatus, footnotes, and dictionary. A Reader's Greek NT (amazon link below) has the best footnotes for the best price (mostly just uncommon words). There's also an interlinear lexicon available, if you want the extra help. It speeds up ease of reading, with common words listed by book and chapter, but you may not need it (link below).
As far as dialect goes, most people find Attic easier than Koine. The exception is that some vocabulary is context-driven, with meanings which are specific to the NT, Septuagint, or both (which is where Kubo is useful). Sometimes, authors use Hebrew expressions translated literally into Greek. I would start with John, and I John (and Mark is probably too easy), if you want to get a grasp of the style. Move into Luke/Acts if you want something that more resembles Attic style narrative (i.e. harder). Hebrews also resembles Attic grammar in some ways, but contains more Hebraisms.
If you are stuck on Greek/English interlinears in the Loeb style, you might want to consider reading Flavius Josephus (available in Loeb). His works on the History of the Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities use an Attic/Koine mix that might be more useful than trying to slog through new NT vocabulary. The Apostolic Fathers, which are post-NT Christian authors, are also available in Loeb, and they have similar themes and vocabulary to NT.
Ultimately, I would not recommend reading the NT unless your goal is to read the NT. If you want to get better at reading Attic, go read something written by native Athenians (Xenophon, Plato, etc.).
Links:
Reader's NT: https://www.amazon.com/Readers-Greek-New-Testament-Third/dp/0310516803/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1542997817&sr=8-5&keywords=greek+new+testament
Sakae Kubo: https://www.amazon.com/Readers-Greek-English-Testament-Zondervan-Reference/dp/0310269202/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1542998398&sr=8-1&keywords=sake+kubo
Josephus (War I-III): https://www.amazon.com/Josephus-Classical-Library-English-Ancient/dp/0674992237/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1542999070&sr=1-3&keywords=loeb+flavius+josephus
Apostolic Fathers I: https://www.amazon.com/Apostolic-Fathers-Vol-Ignatius-Classical/dp/0674996070
For me the constant crush for language class was vocab. I felt like the lectures were there to explain grammar. For my 2 cents:
The grammar will come through lectures and practice. If you know the concepts by being familiar with English grammar and build a good vocab bank, you'll take a lot of strain off your first month or two. That was my experience, anyway.
First, learn Hebrew. I'm unaware of any Aramaic textbook that doesn't already assume competency with Hebrew. I found the Pratico and Van Pelt book to be quite helpful.
Here are some book recommendations:
>As I said, I grew up as Catholic as one can.
You also said you attended seminary for four years. One would think that you have studied the Summa upon immediate entry into your pre-theology.
>I actually studied for a year the Acts of the Apostles.
Then surely, as a former Seminarian, you have a Reverse Interlinear and a Greek Primer to study Scripture as in-depth as possible? Because, as every good seminarian knows, Scripture is written in Koine Greek, and we need to study various facets of language to understand the full meaning of what is recorded.
>Do I try to seek answers? Everyday I do. I visit /r/Christianity to check on discussions often
I would not qualify visiting an online forum as a means of seeking answers.
>I read a lot about the history of the Bible.
Whom have you read?
Surely, as a seminarian, you have read An Introduction to the New Testament by Brown and Reading the Old Testament by Boadt. Both are standard readings in seminary.
>I would never have known that creationism is a Jewish folklore.
Eh...I wouldn't say that "creationism if a Jewish folklore." I would say that Creationism is a non-Catholic interpretation of the Genesis myth (here I do not mean today's understanding of "myth").
I used this book for an introductory course I took in high school (yes, I was fortunate enough to take Koine in high school) and I can attest to its wonderful accessibility and ease of use despite its great age. I also borrowed an Interlinear Bible from my youth pastor, which was extremely helpful. I loved taking Classical Greek - it was and still is one of my favorite courses of study, valuable as much for its deeply historical roots as for its potential to open Scripture to you on a whole new level. I certainly don't profess to any level of current literacy, but nevertheless I found even my short study highly interesting and rewarding in many lasting ways.
The first Hebrew primer is the bulk of our class. We have been using third edition because it also has flash cards, an answer key, and a boatload of other add ons I highly recommend.
Teach yourself to read hebrew is super helpful for pronunciation and it comes with an audio book you can purchase on Audible. I highly recommend the audio book.
A lot of people in my class use this cheat sheet. I personally don't like it, but if you like cheat sheets it's super helpful.
Lastly Quizlet is full of free flash card sets of Hebrew words, it's my go to for practicing words besides the word flash cards First Hebrew Primer has.
As far as an internet resource for biblical Hebrew, this is top to bottom, the best. Videos taking you from the very basics up.
He also has a book teaching biblical Hebrew that I believe this video instruction follows.
Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek + its workbook is kind of a standard at seminaries, and the one I used. I think its okay, but I don't really like the limited number of sentence translations.
Athenaze is one I'm currently trying out to better my Greek skillz. So far I really like this one, it teaches you Greek by making you read through it, along with a continuous story.
Wow! Good on you for taking that time and putting it to use. And you taught yourself Arabic last time! You sound like an impressive person! So remember that the Old Testament or the Tanakh was written in Biblical Hebrew that is not exactly the same as modern Hebrew. So here's what I would recommend. First get the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible. This is the scrolls put into a book with vowels so as to make each word more more distinguishable (the original scrolls do not have vowels, just consonants). So make sure the Hebrew Bible you get is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS), because that's the text us academics use for translation purposes. This is usually the cheapest option or this one if you need bigger print. Many, many people complain when they're learning Biblical Hebrew about the small Hebrew print and how it gets in the way of the learning process! You'd be amazed. I've been teaching Biblical Hebrew for a while and in my modest opinion the best book and workbook to learn Biblical Hebrew is Seow's book
and workbook. It's intense and demanding, but somehow I think you might be okay with that. You sound like a determined person. If you'd prefer a book that demands a slower pace or doesn't go in too much depth, then I'd suggest Pratico and Van Pelt's Basics of Biblical Hebrew and its workbook. They have a really helpful Laminated Sheet that's like a helpful cheat sheet. Another thing I would suggest is focusing on narrative in the Hebrew Bible and, at least in the beginning, staying away from poetry and songs. Those are a genre of their own and are much harder to translate. Focus first on narrative (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Ruth and others). This link talks a little bit more about which books are which genre. Start with narrative and once you get a handle of that you can move on to poems like Lamentations or songs like the Psalms or the Song of Solomon. I hope this helps! If you have any questions at all please feel free to pm me!
If you're familiar with another language or two, then you know how language learning goes: Pick up some vocabulary and very basic grammar, and practice. Assuming you're willing to practice, Mounce's Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar is a great place to start.
Once you learn the alphabet and start recognizing basic vocabulary words, you'll want to get a copy of the Greek-English New Testament - it's got Greek on one side and English on the facing page. Since you already pretty much know what the scripture says, you can read it aloud phonetically in Greek, and your vocabulary will grow automatically.
Finally, see if there's a Greek church near you - there may be a whole community of folks who worship in the same language as the New Testament, and they may be very happy to help you learn :-)
My professor in college (20 years ago) used Machen. It's a classic, and available for cheap.
My professor did try a modern book, but since the modern book didn't teach accents, he ultimately rejected it. And we switched to Machen.
>I honestly have never gone to far into the source material for all this, so I can't offer much help up there if your question is regarding source material.
Thanks, but I have. ;-) If you'd like a primer, wikipedia has a decent intro for the NT, but the OT info is kind of lacking. You can click around the sidebar on the right all day and learn a lot though if you're interested.
The short version is our NT is pretty good but still has some open questions, but the OT, while probably pretty good in a few books, is horrible on many others, and we're fairly sure we often don't really know what the original source was. Of course, many scholars think there wasn't really a single original source at all, that it was compiled and redacted over the course of many years.
For the NT, this is an excellent intro to the field. There's not one standout good book for the OT that I know of, but that's partly because of the difficulties of the text and partly because I've studied the NT much more. ;-) The Septuagint (which the NT writers used)and the Masoretic text are in many of their books quite different in length and content, while being still different from the Dead Sea Scrolls which is sometimes closer to the Samaritan Pentateuch. We have few OT manuscripts, and they're all fairly modern, and we've lost touch with the originals so much that trying to pull them out from history is difficult.
If you want good bible study tools, I highly recommend Accordance if you have a Mac, or Logos if you don't. They co$t though. Blue Letter Bible is quite good for being free. If you're serious, you'll eventially want to learn at least basic biblical Greek though, as the greek tenses are different from ours and contain a lot of the useful information.
For learning Ancient Greek (as an autodidact), start by signing up for The Great Courses Plus and take the Ancient Greek course, taught by Hans-Friedrich Meuller:
Greek 101: Learning an Ancient Language | The Great Courses Plus
You can sign up for a free trial on The Great Courses, for just long enough to complete the Greek course. But I think it’s totally worth paying for ALL of the content.
I recommend downloading the guidebook and doing ALL of the homework. Copy and paste the exercises into a Word doc and type out the answers/translations. Take the course as many times as you can for mastery.
I’ve created a couple of free courses on Memrise for Ancient Greek verbs that (I hope) people may find helpful. I use (my best attempt at) Modern Greek pronunciation. Audio can be disabled by anyone who has a problem with that. My Memrise account (Diachronix) has some other Modern Greek courses.
Paradigms of Ancient Greek Verbs
Principal Parts of Ancient Greek verbs
Professor Al Duncan produced an excellent series of Ancient Greek videos (on Youtube: Learn Attic Greek with Al Duncan - YouTube), which follows along the exercises in chapters 1–10 and 30–34 of Cynthia Shelmerdine’s Introduction to Greek.
That textbook is a bit error-prone, but it’s still pretty good for beginners. I recommend using it to follow along in Professor Duncan’s videos, at least until they cut off at chapter 10. But you’re on your own between chapters 11 and 29. Again, I recommend typing out ALL of the exercises.
The Athenaze Book 1 and Athenaze Book 2 are good self-study resources for intermediate learners, with a lot of excellent reading material. I also have a Memrise course for the vocabulary in these texbooks.
Athenaze: Book 1
Athenaze: Book 2
Leonard Muellner (Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies at Brandeis University) has a Youtube series on Ancient Greek: Learn Ancient Greek, with Prof. Leonard Muellner - YouTube
Unfortunately the audio throughout most of this series is terrible. But if you manage to listen closely (and not fall asleep), it’s quite edifying. Meullner is a genius. The course follows along the Greek: An Intensive Course textbook by Hansen & Quinn. You could try getting that textbook and following along, but I would recommend this last. I just can’t imagine most people having the patience for it. And I’ve heard mixed reviews on Hansen & Quinn, which professor Meullner criticizes ad nauseam throughout his videos.
Another resource I really like is the online version of ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΙΚΗ ΤΗΣ ΑΡΧΑΙΑΣ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΗΣ by ΟΙΚΟΝΟΜΟΥ. You can turn the audio in the bottom right and a robot reads it out-loud. It’s helpful to learn the grammatical terminology in Greek and, if you can manage reading demotic Greek, you can experience the way the Greeks approach Ancient Greek (and observe the notable differences). They have interesting grammatical category distinctions that we don’t have in the West, many of which are quite handy. But this textbook doesn’t have any engaging reading material, aside from bland descriptions of the language. So it’s not for everyone.
Most other learning material I could recommend is mentioned in the various links above. But here are some key items for building a collection of self-study material:
*Geoffrey Horrocks’ “Greek - A History of the Language and Its Speakers” (MUST READ)
Plato: A Transitional Reader
Kaegi’s Greek Grammar
Smyth’s Greek Grammar
Plato Apology
Homeric Greek - A Book for Beginners
Rouse’s Greek Boy - A Reader
Basics of Biblical Greek
A Graded Reader of Biblical Greek
Geoffrey Steadman’s Ancient Greek reader SERIES
The whole half of the sentence is kai ho logos en pros ton theon kai theos en ho logos.
You are right, the ho before logos makes it more definite in focus than theos, which makes it the subject of the predicate noun. This means that the correct translation, if you were writing an exam for early Greek classes, is "the Word was God," not "God was the Word." It is because logos is the subject that the definite article was likely left off of theos, but you would need to argue this based on context
We are talking about two distinct clauses here. Grammatically, there is no reason to translate this as "and the word was with [the] God and the word was [the] God." You could translate this as "and the word was with [the] God, and the word was [a] god."
In fact, if taken in isolation, the latter would probably be a better translation. If, for example, you read the sentence kai ho oikos en pros ton anthropos kai anthropos en ho oikos. the slightly better translation would be "and the house was with The Man and the house was a man."
So, in summary, greek grammar doesn't tell you one way or another if the second clause should be read "[a] god" or "[the] God." It is a judgement call the translator needs to make based on context. And the context is glaringly obvious (IMO) that the correct translation is "[the] God." However, that can't be backed up using grammar, only allowed.
Are you teaching yourself greek, or taking a class? Might I suggest getting this if you are? It is a unique resource that is by far one of the best things you can own if you want to start reading the NT quickly.
Usually what happens is you memorize a whole lot of words , but never get all of them down. Naturally, you focus on the words you will use the most (I memorized all words appearing 25 times or less in the NT, if I were to do Greek again I would limit it to words appearing 40+ times). The problem is, every few clauses or so you encounter a word you don't know and waste lots of time flipping through or typing into a lexicon. This book does away with that. It has every word appearing 50 or less times in the NT. The catch is, it puts these words in the order in which they appear. So, if you have all the words appearing 50+ times memorized (which you really should do) and are translating Romans 5, all you do is open up this book to Romans 5. Now, every time you encounter a word you do not know, it will be the next word on your list. Seriously, I cannot recommend getting this book enough If you are going to spend serious time in the Greek NT, it will save you hours and hours and hours of useless work. </tangent>
Buy or make vocab cards. Just do it and study them. My biggest advice is buying this bad boy. Seriously, I'm a Hebrew tutor and I tell all of my students to get this. It helps condense all of the information and is super helpful when you get to translating.
My textbook is this: http://www.amazon.com/Learn-Read-New-Testament-Greek/dp/0805444939
My prof (Dr. Robert Plummer at SBTS) is supposed to be really good at teaching Greek. I've watched a couple lectures ahead of this week and I'm ready to go!
Are you also working through the workbook? Or just the text?
The workbook uses actual verses from the bible to give you practice as you go.
You should absolutely get The First Hebrew Primer: The Adult Beginner's Path to Biblical Hebrew, and pick up a BDB, and perhaps Lambdin's Introduction to Biblical Hebrew.
Here's a list of resources I put together on my bible blog. Basics of Biblical Greek by Mounce has been widely favored, and he now offers video lectures which I found to be a helpful supplement.
Hope this helps!
Visual Greek. Learn using cartoons!!!! A similar method is Greek To Me. Again, learn using cartoons! I've read most of the book and it was a HUGE help. Also, both are Koine, and the visual greek method uses Mounce's book, which is THE standard intro. Mounce also wrote an easier intro for people who just want to know enough to do basic bible studies and use some of the better Greek tools out there, it's called Greek for the rest of us. Other books that take it easy on you are Learn Biblical Greek by John Dobson and English Grammar to Ace New Testament Greek. If you're wondering "Why grammar?" it is because you need to know how grammar works. If you know how it works in your language, you'll have a better grasp of grammar in other languages (at least you'll know what the books you read mean when they talk about active and passive verbs etc...).
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These flash cards correspond with Mounce's book and are extremely helpful.
Not free, but not expensive either: all the Greek I know comes from John Dobson's Learn New Testament Greek, which is a pretty good introductory text. The accompanying CD is pretty good too for practicing pronunciation.
As I said above, I think your better off focusing on your Greek studies. Learning Greek well through self-study is challenging enough, Hebrew promises to be much more difficult and less rewarding. I think Hebrew in particular benefits greatly from a classroom teacher. If you do want to learn Hebrew now, I'd try to find a local one. All that said, here are some online options I've heard good things about (but no direct experience):
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/7_home.html for Hebrew
http://www.ntgreek.net/ for Greek
More dedication than I could possibly muster to get it done!
For Greek you might want to consider Mounce's Book and workbooks. When we learned Greek in Seminary, we used Wenham but I imagine he's probably out of print now. For hebrew we use La Sor which was great. It used to come in two volumes which was handy, as you basically wind up tearing the one volume book in half to be able to switch between the teaching and the exercise part of the book. I also own Gary Pratico's Basics of Biblical Hebrew and found it helpful trying to recapture some of my lost languages. Overall, my learning style is better matched to the books/workbooks model if I can't get into an actual teacher led class - more than online lessons, but naturally, your mileage may vary.
This book: http://www.amazon.com/Basics-Biblical-Grammar-William-Mounce/dp/0310287685/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1415037619&amp;sr=1-3&amp;keywords=new+testament+greek
I suggest studying Biblical Greek. I used an older edition of
https://www.amazon.com/Basics-Biblical-Grammar-William-Mounce/dp/0310287685
and I found it helpful. (I have forgotten most of it now.)
I'm trying to learn Hebrew from the Bible as well currently, and have found a couple of resources: Hebrew for Christians
Has a lot of the basics and some helpful information like grammar and help with a lot of info. It's got a lot of free information.
I've been using Bible hubs' interlinear bible which has some translation and pronunciation with links to Strong's and occurrences of words in other verses. There is also text analysis. A lot of really good, powerful tools for Bible study and teaching yourself Hebrew. I've been trying to find a guide for the pronunciation marks they use, but so far no luck.
Also, just google "Learn Biblical Hebrew" or "learn torah hebrew" or "learn hebrew tenakh" Lot's of sources. Some sites I've used a little bit:
http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/
http://www.jewfaq.org/index.shtml
Some resources are on Amazon as well. Pratico and Van Pelt are commonly used by seminaries. Here's a study guide they put out: http://www.amazon.com/Biblical-Hebrew-Laminated-Zondervan-Guides/dp/031026295X/
Click on the picture to "take a look inside" for basic information.
Hope that gives you some ideas on where to begin. Good luck, fellow student!
I've used Mounce's and I do think it has good content, but I strongly dislike the sequence used. Also the exercises come straight from New Testament, which is also not helpful, because if you're like me once you've translated the first few words of the verse, there really is no secret as to what the rest of the verse is going to say. I personally prefer Machen's New Testament Greek for Beginners. The sequence is much better, in my opinion, and all of the exercises were composed by Machen. One downside is that Machen's may be somewhat difficult to go through without a teacher.
Highly recommended.
For entry-level Hebrew insights into scripture? a year, maybe. For serious hardcore academic exegesis? A PhD.
I just finished two semesters of Hebrew at university. I would be totally willing to sell you my textbook "Beginning Biblical Hebrew" It's a wonderfully accessible entry point to Biblical Hebrew. If you are even casually interested in learning a little Hebrew. You might also consider buying a good Hebrew-English parallel Tanakh
If not, you could always just read articles and scholarship published by people who do study Hebrew exegesis. You can find a lot for free on the webs.
It's certainly possible, but you would have to keep in mind that they are different. I'd recommend starting with Modern Hebrew. (I'm not sure exactly which book to use, but Ha-Yesod looks decent.) After you've done the equivalent of two college semesters of Modern Hebrew, use Biblical Hebrew for Students of Modern Israeli Hebrew by Marc Brettler to learn Biblical Hebrew.
The reason I recommend starting with Modern Hebrew is because Marc Brettler's rocking awesome textbook assumes you've stared with Modern Hebrew. Additionally, you're probably more likely to find resources about Modern Hebrew aimed at a new learner, much like how anyone might start to learn a new language. In contrast, in my small experience (seriously, it's small, because I learned in Hebrew school instead of online or through a book), beginner's Biblical Hebrew will likely be taught as if it's some Latin-like dead language without the usual practices and with using confusing, archaic descriptions.
> I was wondering if anyone has some solid, unbiased sources for serious Bible study?
They don't exist. Everyone has biases. The very best scholars are those who can divulge their biases and give reasons for them and reasons against the biases of others. That's part of the scholarly conversation.
For background stuff, maybe check out:
David Aune's The New Testament in Its Literary Environment
I liked Shaye Cohen's From the Maccabees to the Mishnah when it comes to understanding "Judaism" in the first century AD.
NT Wright's The New Testament and the People of God is very good.
I also really liked Brant Pitre's Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of Exile - a reworking of his Ph.D dissertation at Notre Dame (under David Aune).
Mark Goodacre's work on Q is good. I read it early in my academic career and it has kept me from believing in the Q theory since.
The biggest journal in the field is probably Journal of Biblical Studies. New Testament Studies is another big one (from Cambridge).
Edit: Also, learn Greek. There are grammars specifically for New Testament Greek (Koine) like David Alan Black's Learn to Read New Testament Greek - which is fine for an NT Greek grammar (though he barely covers the optative since it's so little used in the NT). I would just learn Classical Greek using something like Hansen and Quinn. If you can read Classical Greek, nothing in the Bible (either LXX or NT) will give you a problem.
Mostly what /u/koine_lingua said. I think a lot of people have recommended this book and the accompanying materials. I minored in Ancient Greek, so my preference is to study Attic Greek.
Since you will be on your own, I would recommend this vocab book. It will break vocab up into manageable sections and if you learn all the words in the book, BOOM, you know like 75% of the most frequent words. The Mounce materials have accompanying flash cards.
I'd see if any churches in your area have any classes or search YouTube for some grammar videos (I know of at least one series that does a fairly decent job).
All that being said, I'd caution you against any preconceived notions that you will obtain some esoteric hidden knowledge by learning this magical language. It's not necessary at all to understand the Bible. I enjoyed the language and in reading Homer, the plays, and some other documents. I also enjoy the knowledge base I have to better understand textual criticism, but it's not like I possess some mystical insight into God's revelation. That's Gnosticism.
Edit: I can't spell in English.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310287685/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0310287685&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=drmicsheihom-20&amp;linkId=A4GYGIZVB4WCZP3N
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805444939/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0805444939&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=drmicsheihom-20&amp;linkId=MP6OQRFHYWQ76PVZ
These are recommended from a biblical scholar off of this page:
http://drmsh.com/recommended-reading/#ANELanguages
>Mostly what u/koine_lingua said. I think a lot of people have recommended this book and the accompanying materials. I minored in Ancient Greek, so my preference is to study Attic Greek.
Since you will be on your own, I would recommend this vocab book. It will break vocab up into manageable sections and if you learn all the words in the book, BOOM, you know like 75% of the most frequent words. The Mounce materials have accompanying flash cards.
I'd see if any churches in your area have any classes or search YouTube for some grammar videos (I know of at least one series that does a fairly decen job).
All that being said, I'd caution you against any preconceived notions that you will obtain some esoteric hidden knowledge by learning this magical language. It's not necessary at all to understand the Bible. I enjoyed the language and in reading Homer, the plays, and some other documents. I also enjoy the knowledge base I have to better understand textual criticism, but it's not like I possess some mystical insight into God's revelation. That's Gnosticism.
FTFY
> There's evidence from lots.....
There's some limited evidence in some random communities, but no semetic language, again to my knowledge, use the letter consistently. My point is that at least as far back as the first temple, Samakh and Sin were pronounced the same. There's also some theological significance to this as in Sefer Yetzirah, Shin is not counted among the double letters. This is because the other sound was found in Sin. The 7th double letter was Resh which is either a trill or a flap depending on a condition I haven't yet figured out. I'm beginning to think it has to do with cantillation and grammar rather than word form.
> But how could you read the Samaritans as meaning anything other than things being different in the past? They clearly can say the s sound in sin, but pronounced samekh without it (amusingly, I think the Shibolet story wouldn't quite work with Samaritans, since שבולת and סבולת would be the same).
Because of Kuthic influence. It's not that they couldn't pronounce the samakh, it's that they pronounced it differently. They had a ɬ sound and needed a letter for it. They had the s sound and needed a different letter for it. It seems that for a short period of time, Shin did the same double duty until they lost the ʃ sound leaving the shin being simply s, and the samakh being the ɬ. Which, I've seen in some modern videos, they are pretty much now entirely the same making shin and samakh basically the same letter. But that happened due to arabic influence.
> If you've got a chart of how the vowel symbols compare to the IPA vowel symbols, could you show me it?
I don't, but I'll just write it out real quick. These long and short defiantly exist because they effect the pronunciation voiced shwas and the doubling of beged kefet letters. Ashkenazim tend to omit voiced shewas (compare sphardi with sephardi, and brukha with berukha), but if you read psalms where the number of syllables is known, you'll see this checks out.
.
Petah - Short a (a)
Qamatz - Long a (ɔ) it may possibly be (ɑ)
.
Segol - Short e (ɛ)
Tzere - Long e (e)
.
Hiriq - Short i (ɪ)
Hiriq - Long i (i) when stressed, with metag, or with mater
.
Qamatz Katan - Short o (o) may possibly be (ɔ) this may resolve the conflict with qamatz
Holam - Long o (o) may possibly be (ø) but I find it unlikely and it may just be a regional dialect. it also breaks some of the predictions the vowel/mater match up makes
.
Kubutz - Short u (ʊ) may also be a long u based on the same rules as hiriq when spelled defective
Shurek - Long u (u)
.
> As an aside, do you daven using reconstructed pronunciation?
I do, but nobody as really noticed. I keep it quiet enough to myself that people either haven't noticed or haven't said anything. In the rare event I'm reading in front of people, I use the pronunciation that they are accustomed to so as not to stand out. If I'm at a conservative shul, I use modern. If I'm at an Ashkenazi shul I use Ashkenazi with the exception of the holam because toyrah just makes me giggle.
> segol and what's a tzere without looking at the symbols since there isn't a phonetic system to figure out which is which since they aren't allophonic.
It's actually pretty easy to figure out. Once you learn the difference between long vowels and short vowels, and learn the stress rules, hebrew starts to make much more sense. There's definitely a system and you'll see weird anomalies start to come together. Seow's biblical hebrew grammar, while it teaches modern pronunciation in passing, does distinguish between short and long vowels in transliteration, and teaches all the rules for distinguishing short and long vowels, adjusting for stress, and so on and so forth.
Thanks!
>I have never tried in the Greek.
You should! It's quite rewarding.
As for what I'm using. I thankfully was a step ahead, as I'd studied Classical Attic when I was in college. That was awhile ago, but the alphabet and basic grammar was still floating around my memory. Vocabulary was and is my biggest shortcoming.
To refresh my grammar (and help me with changes in the language from Athens ca. 600 BC to the 1st century Roman Empire), I bought this textbook: Reading Koine Greek by Rodney Decker. It's an introductory one, so I was able to blow through the early lessons quickly enough, while focusing mainly on vocabulary. He structures his vocab lists based on word frequency in the New Testament and Septuagint, meaning you learn more common words first, which in turn helps to quickly build reading comprehension. It also focuses on the grammar of that time period and specifically early Christian writing (with reading exercises mostly from the NT, but occasionally the Septuagint or something like the Apostolic Fathers).
Once I was ready for some more advanced references, I picked up Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, which is a more general reference book (focused on the NT) recommended by Prof. Decker. I also splurged, thanks to some spare cash, and bought myself the BDAG, an incredibly thorough dictionary of Biblical Greek. The amount of scholarship in that one book is nothing short of mind-boggling. It has an incredible number of references to both the New Testament and tons of other contemporary usage, as well as citing to journal articles about certain words, the works. Oh yeah, I also got a dual-language (Greek and English) edition of the Apostolic Fathers somewhere along the line, although I haven't read it much yet.
So that's where I am. As I said, it's slow going for now since my vocabulary is still pretty bad, but it's improving. And I find that learning by seeing things in context is much better for me than just trying to do flashcards or something (although I may supplement with those).
I have two more books on the way: Metzger's Textual Commentary (where he talks about the decisions that went into which reading they chose in the UBS edition of the NT), and the most recent edition of his The Text of the New Testament (as updated by Bart Ehrman), which is an introduction to NT textual criticism and a kind of summary of various scholarly research on the subject.
So yeah, it's quite an undertaking!
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This book will get you a long way.
It's syntax and grammar. I'm not going to give you a third year Greek course on Reddit. Grab Dan Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics and make it your best friend.
After that, grab Moises Silva's Biblical Words and their Meaning. And remember the central rule - just because it's the first definition listed doesn't mean it's the definition of the word you're looking at.
Finally, grab a copy of D.A. Carson's Exegetical Fallacies. That'll help you out quite a bit.
That's assuming that you would actually read non-Watchtower approved materials. I know how touchy they get when people branch out from the approved list.
I used the book Introducing Biblical Hebrew by Allen Ross which I thought was excellent.
I don't have any sources on Greek, but during my undergrad in religious studies with a focus on OT and ANE texts, my mentor had me studying through Seow's A Grammar for Biblical Hebrew. It presupposes a lot of linguistic knowledge on the reader's part, but nothing that's indigestible. Good exercises at the end of chapters, but I'd you've never studied a language before, it may take some heavy chewing to digest. Definitely a good resource nonetheless.
From Thayer's Greek Lexicon, bold emphasis is mine, and pertinent to the discussion
So God, without the article ("the") can and does refer directly to God as the divine entity, not simply his counsels and interests.
So...
>But you can see clearly that Theos means a plethora of things
Yes, I can. And in John 1:1 it refers at least to divine qualities, that which is divinity, and most probably to God himself, given the context of the verse containing the article in each other instance. To better understand why there isn't an article in the third part of the verse, I'll refer to Wallace (pages 266-267):
>► 6. Application of Colwell’s Construction to John 1:1
>
>John 1:1 states: ᾽Εν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. In the last part of the verse, the clause καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (John 1:1c), θεός is the PN. It is anarthrous and comes before the verb. Therefore, it fits Colwell’s construction, though it might not fit the rule (for the rule states that definiteness is determined or indicated by the context, not by the grammar). Whether it is indefinite, qualitative, or definite is the issue at hand.
>
>c. Is Θεός in John 1:1c Qualitative?
>
>The most likely candidate for θεός is qualitative. This is true both grammatically (for the largest proportion of pre-verbal anarthrous predicate nominatives fall into this category) and theologically (both the theology of the Fourth Gospel and of the NT as a whole). There is a balance between the Word’s deity, which was already present in the beginning (ἐν ἀρχῇ . . . θεὸς ἦν [1:1], and his humanity, which was added later (σὰρξ ἐγένετο [1:14]). The grammatical structure of these two statements mirrors each other; both emphasize the nature of the Word, rather than his identity. But θεός was his nature from eternity (hence, εἰμί is used), while σάρξ was added at the incarnation (hence, γίνομαι is used).
>
>Such an option does not at all impugn the deity of Christ. Rather, it stresses that, although the person of Christ is not the person of the Father, their essence is identical. Possible translations are as follows: “What God was, the Word was” (NEB), or “the Word was divine” (a modified Moffatt). In this second translation, “divine” is acceptable only if it is a term that can be applied only to true deity. However, in modern English, we use it with reference to angels, theologians, even a meal! Thus “divine” could be misleading in an English translation. The idea of a qualitative θεός here is that the Word had all the attributes and qualities that “the God” (of 1:1b) had. In other words, he shared the essence of the Father, though they differed in person. The construction the evangelist chose to express this idea was the most concise way he could have stated that the Word was God and yet was distinct from the Father.
Hope that's helpful.
As was mentioned, Ashkenazi Hebrew / Sephardic Hebrew are really just pronunciation differences, there's no real syntactic or grammatical differences.
To put simply (and avoiding the question of what exactly Biblical Hebrew is as it is not necessarily a unified language but a hobgoblin of various significantly diverse dialects and Aramaic) , Biblical Hebrew is to Modern Hebrew as Shakespearean English is to Modern English. Learning Modern Hebrew will make it exponentially easier to learn Biblical Hebrew. And, once you learn it I would suggest this book: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0300084404/?tag=stackoverfl08-20
And when you're ready for it ... it's time to get serious.
My university utilizes New Testament Greek for Beginners to teach Koine Greek. Perhaps working through it will be some help to you!