Learning Biblical Hebrew is rewarding, the greatest benefits of which is the ability to read Biblical scholarship and understand more of what they’re talking about.
I started learning it during the pandemic. Actually, I tried learning Hebrew and Greek on my own about a decade earlier, but hit a stumbling block. Languages aren’t like coding or math were I can learn on my own (or watch Youtube videos). My teacher is now a high-level influencer. He’s now very openly secular in his approach, though during the pandemic he was the head of scripture translation at my church. I recently submitted a paper to my church’s think tank for review.
Hebrew’s a VSO language, and it’s fairly consistent in its grammar. There are no cases, just construct and absolute (you’ll find out what they are later). Verbs are conjugated, and consider not only number but gender.
I’ve gone through the following resources:
This is all over the place. They introduce vocabulary at random places and then don’t use them after the introduction. My first instructor used this because they have a lot of passages for you to read in case you’re one of those people who can’t wait.
This is perfect. Introduces vocab then uses them right away. The issue was that my instructor wasn’t organized, and he quit teaching, but I kept using the book to learn on my own.
This is a good book for review after you’re done with the Eisenbrauns one. The author is Singaporean and teaches at Princeton Seminary (which is independent from Princeton University).
Greek. Greek is wackier and doesn’t follow rules. I decided to give up because (1) my church uses the Old Testament more than other churches, and (2) the New Testament is beautiful enough in English.
Aramaic. Aramaic is important because (1) it’s what Jesus spoke and (2) it was the lingua franca during most of the time of both the New and Old Testaments.
Ugaritic. The tablets we’ve uncovered in Ugarit shed lots of light on the Bible. Some verses in Ugaritic religion are verse-by-verse verbatim the same as the Hebrew Bible. It’s the language closest to Hebrew, and the theology of its religion
Akkadian. The Assyrians and the Babylonians were the regional superpowers, so they’re influence is important. For example, the Enuma Elish Babylonian creation story has an influence on
Arabic. I don’t think this language is used outside the book of Job, which was written by some linguistic genius. I learned some because I’d like to read the Qur’an some day.
Here’s my little discussion with Chat GPT today. I had to question and question again to finally get to this summary. This was a discussion on the first beatitude, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Here’s a summary of what we’ve worked out together so far:
Greek text & romanization
The phrase “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3) in Greek is: Μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι (Makárioi hoi ptōchoí tō pneúmati).
Makárioi (Μακάριοι)
Commonly translated “blessed,” but in context it carries the sense of “congratulations,” “fortunate,” or “enviable.”
It’s a declaration of present reality, not just a future blessing.
Ptōchoí (πτωχοί)
Means “the poor” in the strongest sense — not just lacking, but beggarly, utterly dependent.
In the Beatitude, it’s plural: “the poor [ones].”
Tō pneúmati (τῷ πνεύματι)
“In spirit” = referring to inner disposition, humility before God.
Not weakness, but an acknowledgment of spiritual poverty — total dependence on God.
Meaning of “poor in spirit”
To recognize one’s spiritual bankruptcy and rely entirely on God’s grace, rather than self-sufficiency.
The nuance of “blessed/congratulations”
Instead of asking “Why are they blessed?” the Beatitude reads more like an announcement: “Congratulations to the poor in spirit — they’re the ones who have the kingdom of heaven!”
This flips normal human values: those society might pity or overlook are actually the fortunate ones in God’s kingdom.
2 Timothy 3:2
For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy.
“Lovers of their own selves” is one word in the Greek text—philautos. Now in the Greek word philautos, the additional word philos is added to the notion of oneself (autos). Philos is the common Greek word for love and signifies the kind of love that comes from the emotions of the heart. When we are attracted to something or feel emotionally drawn to someone, we are experiencing philos. Basically, philos is what turns us on. Therefore, when added to the word autos, this compound word indicates that the thing which turns us on is ourselves—philautos. This, the Apostle Paul says, will be the most defining element of the last days culture—people will be “lovers of their own selves” (philautos).