(Part 2) Best christian bible language studies according to redditors

I’ve learned both Hebrew and Greek. It is like reading in full color, as opposed to black and white. Much is lost in translation into English. It adds to the precision and clarity of the text. If everyone knew how to read them, there would be no KJV only advocates since it doesn’t take long to realize how much the interpretive process is at play and loses data.

Comparing the variance between KJV, NKJV, ESV, NASB on different verses can really help demonstrate where there is variation in interpretive possibility. To some extent, reading and comparing multiple translations can mitigate the need to learn a language, but there are always insights that are harder to notice without a better working knowledge of the underlying languages.

It is slow going though, as there’s a lot more to it than vocab with the complexity of both grammars. If you’re interested in learning, the best textbook I know of is this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/031053349X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_CKbWDbXN62NMH

There is a Greek equivalent as well by Mounce. Here are some helpful charts (available for both languages) for the word inflection memorization process: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MQ3LJJZ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_JLbWDbWVB7JGW

Yes absolutely!

Thanks for asking.

Here’s a few links:

The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521176670/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_bsxzDbT284DPQ

Everyman's Talmud: The Major Teachings of the Rabbinic Sages

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805210326/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_VsxzDbR6AG841

Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393005348/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_RtxzDbS4V0Q07

Let This Mind Be In You: An historical study of the differences between Greek and Hebrew thought

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017I1JE9Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_VxxzDbP8JXNWA

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!

Ultimately, Biblical Scholarship as it is now is a fairly modern enterprise, although the Bible has been studied (obviously) for millennia.

It is essentially the scientific study of the Bible. Like other sciences, it has undergone drastic changes in the last few centuries, which would cause many to categorize it differently than the biblical theology of the patristic and medieval periods.

It employs tools which are often referred to as "historical criticism" to attempt to get the historical and literary meaning of the texts of the bible. Often, it dissects those texts and separates them from one another, though some scholars employ tools such as narrative criticism and canonical criticism which take the texts as whole units and the canon of the Bible as a whole unit.

One such tool is Textual Criticism, which compares and contrasts different manuscripts of the particular texts. Many Christians don't realize this, but there are differing "versions" of the oldest manuscripts of biblical texts, so scholars try and figure out which are original and which were corrupted/changed.

Another is Source Criticism, which seeks to discover what sources were used compile individual texts. For example, similarities among the canonical gospels show scholars that they likely copied each other or perhaps other text(s). There are many different hypotheses about which copied from which, and what was copied from source(s) which we no longer have access to.

These are just some of the tools of Biblical Scholarship. I guess what biblical scholarship actually is, is the body of study which employs these tools for scientific study of the Bible. Normally, biblical scholars have at least one doctorate in some related field, and submit their study for peer review (like other sciences). Many would claim that Theology is distinct from the literary/historical study of the bible, but I don't think so. I emphasize my opinion on that pretty often both in this and other subs. Though this sub in particular is formed around the idea that theology and historical/literary biblical scholarship are distinct and separate endeavors.

Hey there!


First off, I'm glad you're trying to learn Koine it is a TOUGH undertaking!

I have some bad news for you. You can't be immersed in Koine Greek because it's dead.
That's like asking to be immersed in Old English, you can't be because no one speaks it anymore.

Modern Greek came from Koine in the same way that Modern English came from Old English but they have changed so much that you couldn't understand the original Beowulf as a modern native English speaker in the same way that a modern native Greek speaker couldn't understand the original Odyssey.

It is thought that of all the languages that came out of Greek, Tsakonian has changed the least but that evolved from Doric Greek not Koine. If you're just starting out I HIGHLY recommend Keep Your Greek, here's a link.

I learned Koine at Mattersey Hall and our textbook was Wenham's Elements of NT Greek which was ok, provided you already had a perfect understanding of English grammar and language in general. I distinctly recall my entire class finding it hilarious that Wenham "helpfully" pointed out that to remember that "eleeo" means "to have mercy upon", the student should merely recollect that the English word "eleemosynary" means "pertaining to charity"...

So perhaps Wenham's not the best starting point these days!

A better bet might be the book our teacher, Dr Glenn Balfour wrote from his course notes: A Step-by-step Introduction to NT Greek. I don't have a copy, but knowing Glenn, it'll be precise, clear and demonstrating his heart for educating people in the study of God's word.

Having worked through a book like that, you should be able to make good use of an interlinear and an analytical lexicon like this one. It's my most used reference book.

I use Olivetree Bible Reader on my iPhone as my primary Bible, and I keep umming-and-ahhing about buying their Greek NT with Mounce's morphology in there, but it's pretty expensive and never included in their (infrequent) sales for some reason. So, I switch to this site for specific lookups when I need to. Part of me thinks that not having the Greek text so readily available to me, say, in Church, is a good thing - because there's a very thin line between listening "critically" in the good sense and becoming critical in the bad sense if you see what I mean... but that said, gaining a reasonable measure of understanding of the Greek text, the ability to use reference tools properly, and most of all, enough knowledge to admit how much you don't know (and therefore not make the same appalling mistakes we've all heard from the pulpit sometimes), are all things which will help you appreciate the beauty of God's word all the more... of course then the struggle is to be a doer and not just a reader, but that's another story...!

Hope these ramblings help - learning NT Greek is very worthwhile!

(originally posted in this thread which might be useful to you as well)

I used to do my daily devotion in Koine Greek, but lately I've been getting lazy, and I've been reading a bit of the OT as well. (I don't know Hebrew, so if I want to read anything from the Old Testament, I have to use a translation.)

I wouldn't say it made any deep impact for me in my Christian walk. Even Koine Greek is still just a translation of Jesus' words. But it made me more aware of what decisions translators have had to make, and at least it's getting very close to the original of what Paul wrote.

Where it has helped a lot is for apologetics. When I get told that there are hundreds of different versions of the original manuscripts and they all disagree (usually by atheists, but occasionally by Christians) I can flip open a Greek New Testament and go through a few examples of why that's, well sort of true, but essentially irrelevant.

I picked up a 19th century Greek New Testament at a garage sale for $1 when I was a teenager (I started learning when I was 14) which I used for a while, but now I generally use an electronic version. That said,
[http://www.amazon.com/Refresh-Your-Greek-Wesley-Perschbacher/dp/0802433529](Refresh Your Greek) is really, really worthwhile buying. A pastor friend of mine borrowed it from me about a decade ago and promised to return it the moment he stopped using it. He's still using it!

Other comments are correct- BHS and NA28. You should also get a Septuagint. There's a reader's edition of the LXX coming out later this year.

I don't know of an interlinear Bible with parsing. However, your best bet may be John Joseph Owens' Analytical Key To the Old Testament in 4 volumes, which parses every word in the Hebrew Scriptures. The link is to Amazon, but you might be able to find it cheaper elsewhere.

Assuming biblical Hebrew, there is nothing quite the same. But this is close: Handbook of Biblical Hebrew: An Inductive Approach Based on the Hebrew Text of Esther. Short lessons based on Esther using an inductive style.

[Menahem Mansoor, Biblical Hebrew: Step by Step Volume. 1 & 2]
(http://www.amazon.com/Biblical-Hebrew-Step/dp/0801060419/), the second volume is a semi-inductive study of passages in Genesis.

I used both profitably to review Hebrew after a few years away from the language.

I really liked using this book to do just a few easy pages per day for a couple months, to "get used to the water", before using the Mounce-authored books for the real learning.
With a more difficult language like Greek, I think, having the first steps be easy is wise.

Try to get a clean new copy, recently printed, that hasn't been already written in.

Start with a Greek New Testament edition 4 or 5 rather than a Novum Testamentum Graece.

For NT study -

Syntax Guide

Reader's Lexicon

I'd recommend checking out Chadwick's Decipherment of Linear B. It provides a great overview of the discovery of the script, archaeological and linguistic theories and, of course, the decipherment.

No problem at all! I'm happy to talk about it!

This is the textbook I started with and it has loads of charts that I use.

This is my favorite lexicon.

To clarify the pronunciation thing, we definitely learn to say the words, but its just not really important/you just have to be understood. I do the chet with the guttural noise, like 'ch' in Loch or the German 'ch'. Begedkefet: bet/vet as b/v, gimmel is always a 'g' as in 'good', dalet is always 'd', kaph as k/ch, like k in kitten and then 'ch' like a chet, tav as t/th. For ayin, we were told that it is a glottal stop sort of thing, but we just pronounce it the same as an aleph because we can't say it properly. Does that make sense?

Feel free to ask more questions! I really don't mind, I love this stuff.

I had a good experience with Hackett https://www.amazon.com/Basic-Introduction-Biblical-Hebrew-English/dp/159856028X/ref=mp_s_a_1_70?keywords=biblical+hebrew&qid=1559084162&s=gateway&sr=8-70

Agreed. My Greek professor gave me an Interlinear after four semesters "until you get your own Greek New Testament."

That's a great version for translating but just ignore the footnotes.

That's a huge request. Could you ask about a specific chart that you've found online? The grammar of any language is going to be difficult if you don't start somewhere manageable. Have you considered going beyond what you find online? There are plenty of grammar books that will help you.

If you're looking for biblical Hebrew, there is a new grammar-workbook pair that has just been released. You can find the grammar here and the workbook here on Amazon. If you would like more recommendations or to ask a more specific question, don't hesitate to respond.