Free or not costly Biblical Greek, Latin, Hebrew Course

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Senyorico

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Good day! Do you guys know of any: 1. Biblical Greek 2. Latin 3. Hebrew Course online that I may take? I’m currently on a journey on deepening my faith and learning these languages would be of great help! 🙂 Thank you in advance and God Bless 🙂
 
Most introductory Classical language courses simply follow the format of an already published textbook, so there’s no great advantage to enrolling in a course (unless one needs accredited courses for whatever reason).

ibiblio.org and textkit.com are two good forums for original language resources (mostly Greek and Latin with a smattering of Hebrew). A lot of people use older textbooks, such as Mounce’s Biblical Greek. The advantage is that they’re free because they’re in the public domain, but the downside is that the pedagogy of these older resources is very much catered towards the late 19th/early 20th century: very formal and prescriptive and it presumes the student is already cognizant of English grammar (which isn’t likely to be the case). This is why I generally steer others towards more contemporary textbooks.

One question is whether or not you intend to read the Church Fathers (whether Greek or Latin). Most Church Fathers wrote in a high, literary register that is very, very different stylistically (and often grammatically) from the sort of Greek and Latin found in the Greek NT and Latin Vulgate: Biblical Greek is a very local Palestinian dialect of the wider Hellenistic Greek, and the Latin in the Vulgate is a very literal translation of this variety of Greek.

If you do want to read the Church Fathers, I think it’s important to begin with Classical Greek (4th century BC Athenian literary dialect) and Classical Latin (1st century BC Roman literary dialect).
 
Bithynian said:
If you do want to read the Church Fathers, I think it’s important to begin with Classical Greek (4th century BC Athenian literary dialect) and Classical Latin (1st century BC Roman literary dialect).
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Do you have any recommendations on what materials should I use? I tried to enroll on free training by Mounce, is it good?
 
For Koine Greek, Shirley Rollinson’s is the only book I’ve used. I’m still a beginner.
 
Yes, very. This is the first time I’ve attempted to learn a language on my own, just me and my computer. A classroom environment is certainly more effective, because the teacher is there to answer all your questions and to assess how much progress you’re making, day by day and week by week. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that this is a pretty good alternative.
 
Senyorico said:
Do you have any recommendations on what materials should I use? I tried to enroll on free training by Mounce, is it good?
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I haven’t tried Mounce before, so I can’t personally say. Although his textbooks have many satisfied users. In practice, you can’t go terribly wrong with any contemporary textbook. It’s worth going on Amazon and having a read of the reviews for a book to see what the user experience was like.

When I studied Classical Greek at university, we stuck quite closely to Mastronarde’s Attic Greek (an excellent book). For Classical Latin, I would recommend Keller and Russell’s Learn to Read Latin. For Hebrew, we used A First Hebrew Primer, but I found it a bit too descriptive: it often simplified (or didn’t mention at all) aspects of the grammar in order to avoid confusing the learner. But that often resulted in an incomplete understanding of what’s happening with the text. I would recommend Vance’s Classical Hebrew.

I wouldn’t recommend studying all three languages simultaneously, especially if you’re not familiar with grammar or Classical languages generally. I would recommend dividing it over three years, focussing on the introductory grammar of each language on separate years. This allows you disentangle, separate and soak the languages in your mind.
 
You’re welcome! And one other thing. As @Bithynian says, don’t start two languages at once. Take them one at a time. Also, I suspect it must be almost impossible to learn Hebrew by yourself, without a teacher. It’s so different from European languages, every little thing needs to be explained. I suggest you start with either Greek or Latin and leave Hebrew alone for the time being.
 
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BartholomewB said:
Also, I suspect it must be almost impossible to learn Hebrew by yourself, without a teacher. It’s so different from European languages, every little thing needs to be explained.
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Adding to this if you don’t mind @BartholomewB.

OP, I would also add that if you intend to learn Biblical Hebrew through studying the Hebrew Bible, it’s best to do so with the help of a rabbi or qualified teacher who can help you understand the context and proper interpretation of the text. Hebrew has many words that don’t have an exact translation in English and often point to a specific interpretation and it’s often easy to misunderstand certain verses on you own. Modern Hebrew may prove less difficult to study on one’s own as one can peruse simple online texts, but I presume you intend to study the Biblical form of the language.

Peace.
 
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