Does anyone here know/understand the Biblical language(s)?

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sorrowful1

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The original language of the Bible was in the Hebrew, apart from Aramaic and (Koine) Greek, wasn’t it?

Has anyone of the fellow Catholics here studied the language (at university or just in private as a personal lesiure) ? If yes, how difficult are they? I’ve this keen desire to go back to uni to pursue the Biblical language (one of them) but it looks like an extremely difficult task to accomplish.
These days my nose is stuck with books exploring everything associated with the Bible and the deeper I go, the more I crave.

Recently, in my dream I saw two "divine " figures holding an open book that (supposedly) was written in Hebrew. Of course, I’m not saying that because I had such a dream, my passion to study the language has grown intense. It was an “interesting” dream nonetheless.

Care to share what it’s like to study this ancient language?
 
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@Montrose oops …it was the “autocorrect” of my dumb smartphone.
 
We are privileged to have several experts among our regular posters here, including @OddBird and @Bithynian.

I did a beginner’s course in Hebrew a few years ago, and I was pleased to find it was easier than I had expected. It’s baffling at first, because it’s so completely unlike any European language, but with a good teacher you very quickly get the hang of it.
 
I’m not a Biblical linguist but as far as I know the Old Testament was written Hebrew, the New Testament in Koine Greek, possibly the Gospel of Matthew was first in Aramaic (but not definitive).
 
Montrose said:
I’m not a Biblical linguist but as far as I know the Old Testament was written Hebrew
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All the books of the Protestant Old Testament were written in Hebrew, with the exception of around half of Daniel, which is in Aramaic. But some of the deuterocanonicals were written in Greek, such as 2 Maccabees.
 
BartholomewB said:
We are privileged to have several experts among our regular posters here, including @OddBird and @Bithynian.
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Thank you for the tag!

@sorrowful1 I did my undergraduate in Classics (that is, Classical Greek and Latin languages) and I also did further study in Classical Hebrew and Syriac (which is a dialect of Aramaic). I’m relatively fluent - for a layperson - in all four languages (more so Greek and Latin).

I think learning Hebrew presents three challenges:

(1) As @BartholomewB noted, Hebrew is very different from European languages in most respects (especially morphology, that is, how words are constructed). This is not dissimilar from having to learn a non-European modern language, such as Japanese or Swahili.

(2) Most classical languages of antiquity (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Sanskrit, etc.) are usually taught very differently from modern languages due to the different priorities. Instruction in ancient languages usually emphasises reading comprehension, and so little focus is spent on speaking or composing. Likewise, there’s a heavy emphasis on formal grammar while being gradually acclimated to short and simplified excerpts from the Bible. Usually mid-way in the 2nd year of study, one can read very slowly through an entire biblical book with the aid of a dictionary.

(3) If you aren’t familiar with grammar in general (e.g. concepts like time, aspect, predication, subordination, etc.) then that’s another challenge.

All in all, learning a classical language is difficult, and it demands consistency over many years beyond formal study to achieve an appreciable fluency. But that’s part of the enjoyment. I also think learning a language is greatly enhanced in a formal setting since it tends to encourage more motivation and consistency. This is unlike my Introduction to Japanese Grammar book which has sat idle on my bookshelf for 15+ years because I can never muster up the effort in solitary study to move beyond the first chapter.
 
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Thank you @Bithynian @BartholomewB for the insight.

Grammar intimidates me most when it comes to learning a foreign language – that too, an obsolete and ancient. I did study Sanskrit for a while when I was still practising Hinduism. Though very difficult (had to start off with Devanagari that is still prevalent in modern India) it eventually became fruitful as I could enjoy reading the verses written in Sanskrit. Writing it (in full intelligible sentences) however, was another thing – an alienated mission, not to mention, grammar.

So, having an acquaintance with at least one ancient language, I thought Hebrew might not, perhaps, be such a Herculean task but attaboy!!! I felt like a dunce when I actually went through the most basic of it. It was then, there I decided I should go to uni to be properly guided.

@Bithynian Wonderful to be able to speak one!!!
 
Yes, grammar can be awfully challenging. I think it’s just one of those facets of learning that requires time and consistent commitment. There’s no ‘aha!’ moment.

An additional challenge for Classical Hebrew is that there are two competing grammar systems in place for understanding verbs. There’s the older system that uses Indo-European terminology, such as perfect, imperfect and whatnot. The newer system (which is increasingly becoming standard) uses indigenous Hebrew terminology as qatal and wayyiqtol. But because the shift isn’t wholly complete yet, often instructors will teach both.

With that being said, it’s important not to get overly bogged down in grammar. There’s nearly infinite permutations of obscure grammatical rules in every language, and the goal for a beginner should ideally be to gain a firm understanding of the most important and common elements.

The good thing about learning a biblical language is that we’re generally very familiar with biblical narratives in our native languages. So we can often infer from our memory what is happening in the Hebrew or Greek on a page, and this can ease the difficulty in acclimating to the ancient language. But it’s important not to rest on this crutch too much.
 
Like you, @Bithynian, sitting down to learn a new language from a textbook alone without a teacher is something I keep meaning to do but, for one reason or another, I keep postponing. In my case the language is Biblical Greek and the textbook is this one, made freely available online by the author, Shirley Rollinson, a professor at Eastern New Mexico University at Portales, NM. If you have time, please take a look at it and tell me what you think.

http://www.drshirley.org/greek/textbook02/contents.html
 
BartholomewB said:
If you have time, please take a look at it and tell me what you think.
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I had a look and it seems quite excellent. It also has a well thought out structure: indirect discourse early because so much of the NT involves that construction. Likewise there’s a vocabulary and exercises too! Doing tedious exercises are the meat in the language acquisition process.

It’s interesting to note that she included accentuation.

Accentuation occupies a very peculiar place in the curriculum. In many countries, instruction in Classical Greek at the high school level as well as Biblical Greek at the seminary level rarely includes learning accents. But instruction in Classical Greek at the university level requires learning accentuation mostly because it guides scansion of (pre-Christian) formal prosody.

At the same time, I’ve noticed many seminary teachers returning it to their curriculum. I think this is largely because accentuation is such a long-standing (~1,700 year) convention that published ancient Greek just looks weird without it. That and it’s often simpler to learn accentuation right at the start when you’re acquiring new vocabulary, rather than attempting to do so later at an advanced stage of learning.
 
Thank you. And what do you think of the basic idea of learning Biblical Greek from the word go, instead of starting with Classical Greek?
 
Thanks for the tag, @BartholomewB !

I have not much to add to what @Bithynian already said, except that if you like learning languages, then Biblical languages are really rewarding – you get to taste the particular flavor of the Bible in a special way.
BartholomewB said:
And what do you think of the basic idea of learning Biblical Greek from the word go, instead of starting with Classical Greek?
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That’s what I did. While on the whole I’m proficient enough for Biblical exegesis, I always run into this or that question where I dearly wish I’d learned Classical Greek as well. I manage round that usually, because there are good Classical Greek resources available nowadays, and also because I happen to have married a Greek philosophy major who specialized in Aristotle. It certainly is a useful background to have, if you can.

Actually I wanted to learn Classical Greek in high school, but when I submitted my registration the secretary said : “We don’t have Greek this year, you’ll do Latin” – which I don’t regret at all.
 
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I know bits and pieces of Koine Greek. Hebrew and Aramaic on the other hand…I mean, those scripts just get me. That being said, if someone makes a claim about biblical language to try to get it to support their position, I will look up what the word means in the original language.
 
adamhovey1988 said:
…I mean, those scripts just get me.
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Don’t worry about it. Give yourself one morning to learn the Hebrew alphabet used in printing and then, a few days later, a second morning to learn the handwritten letters. But for the handwriting it’s best to have a teacher to correct your mistakes!

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BartholomewB said:
And what do you think of the basic idea of learning Biblical Greek from the word go, instead of starting with Classical Greek?
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I think it depends on your goals. If your inclination is to read anything outside of the NT, whether it’s pre-Christian literature or post-biblical Church Fathers, then I think it’s more helpful to begin with Classical.

Much of Biblical Greek (both in respect to grammar and overall style) is a simplification of Classical, and on account of this it’s often much harder to learn Classical after Biblical than it is to learn it first.

One example is indirect speech: Biblical Greek uses a simpler, analytic manner of constructing it, using the particle ὃτι hoti. Classical Greek, in addition to hoti, also used a synthetic construction of infinitives, subjunctives and optatives (this verb mood is essentially extinct in Koine) whose tenses followed a rather complex system.

I started my Classical Greek year studies about a year before I entered into Biblical Greek, and thereafter I studied both programs simultaneously. The transition to Biblical after Classical was very, very easy.
 
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There are interlinear apps that you can download to your phone that will help with exposure. I don’t have an interlinear Greek on my own phone, because right now I’m concentrating on Hebrew, but the OT interlinear is called “Hebrew Interlinear OT” (big surprise there). Check it out on the app store.

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I would recommend learning Greek. All the New Testament is in Greek. Reading the New Testament is obviously more important for a Christian, since it is the way of learning about Christ. Learning Hebrew is more difficult than learning Greek, as I found. However, learning Hebrew would be the second Biblical language to learn, because almost all the Old Testament is in Hebrew.
 
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My Greek professor said “the climb is hard, but the view from the top is superb”
 
Yeah, I think I’ve found Classical Greek a lot easier to start off with. My brain is still finding it very difficult to process the Hebrew scripts/fonts!! They look like random pictures drawn by our ancestors (ah, no-- I’m not making fun of it). But it’s quite an exercise for the mind so wouldn’t mind if it takes another month to get comfortable and familiar with Hebrew basics.
 
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