Houston Baptist University has announced the inauguration of her newest M.A. program: the Master of Arts in Biblical Languages (MABL):
“Houston Baptist University will begin offering its tenth master’s degree program, the Master of Arts in Biblical Languages, in August 2009. In addition to permitting students to establish a master’s level proficiency in both Hebrew and Greek, the program will include work in linguistics, hermeneutics and Aramaic.
Students completing the 30 hours in biblical languages required to earn the degree will learn from three nationally and internationally recognized linguists who each work in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic. The Master of Arts in Biblical Languages program will equip graduates to read the Bible and related literature in their original languages with an understanding of grammatical, syntactical, semantic, discursive, rhetorical, exegetical and hermeneutical issues.”
Read the whole press release here.
For a basic intro to the MABL, go here.
To apply for the program, go here.
To see program requirements, go here.
For MABL faculty, go here.
BIBLICAL LANGUAGES 
Only one linguistics class…?
Hi Mike. Thanks for stopping by. Yes, only one linguistics class. That’s why we’re not calling it an MA in *Linguistics and* Biblical Languages. Of course, having one formal linguistics course does not mean that linguistics is restricted to that one course. Since the program’s prereqs require several Greek and Hebrew courses to enter, a knowledge of general grammatical concepts (in the source languages) is presupposed, and that will allow us to conduct the Greek and Hebrew reading classes at a higher level with applications/discussion from a linguistic perspective. If you’re familiar with the MABL in Stellenbosch where Christo van der Merwe teaches, our program is self-consciously an Americanized version. Dr. Jamie Johns spent time in South Africa this summer consulting with Christo on the best way to develop a rigorous linguistics course within our program, since he’ll be teaching the linguistics course for us.
Warmly,
Phillip Marshall
“Thirty hours” of instruction in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic to earn a Masters degree? How does that work? Is that the amount of time, effort and experience it takes to get a degree in Biblical languages these days? It takes longer than that to go through an average book + CD set, let alone getting a degree at the end.
Thanks for commenting. To clarify, “thirty hours” does not mean thirty hours simpliciter. It means thirty *credit-hours* in a semester system. A student who takes a 3-hour Greek class, then, meets for class three hours per week for 15 weeks. That’s 45 hours of class time to complete just three of the thirty required hours. For all 30 credit hours of the program, the student will have been in class 450 actual hours. And that’s just class time. I’d expect the student to be studying an extra 2-3 hours outside of class for every course hour he takes, so anywhere from 6-9 hours minimum of outside study per week per 3-hour Greek class. Does that help?
Like the new layout and header. Very nice!
Thanks! Can you guess which codex and which passage this is from? :p
It’s Joshua 1:1 from the Aleppo Codex.
Chris,
You da man! I was beginning to think that you had cheated and heard me mention it in class today. But actually, it was in my Greek Reading class that someone was trying to identify it, and I eventually spilled the beans. So kudos to you–you got it, without helps.
Hey I stumbled across your blog when searching google for MABL stuff – glad I found it! And thanks for all your help yesterday.
Thanks, Jessica! It was a pleasure to meet you yesterday. Blessings on your studies!
I am happy to read this news today. How can I enrol for this course. I will be clearing my Bachelor of Theology at kenya Highlands Evangelical University by December 2012 and would like to do masters of arts in Biblical Languages in 2013. Manase Ogola-kenya
Thanks for your note, and I’m glad you found us! Yes, we are in full swing with our MABL program, and we’d love to talk with you more about your desire to continue studying the biblical languages. We just updated and rolled out a brand new website for HBU, so I have just noticed that my links are broken on the initial post about this. Here is an updated link to get you started:
http://www.hbu.edu/Choosing-HBU/Academics/Colleges-Schools/College-of-Arts-Humanities/Graduate-Degrees-and-Programs/Majors/Master-of-Arts-in-Biblical-Languages.aspx
Please feel free to send me an email at my official HBU email address, which you’ll find here:
http://www.hbu.edu/Choosing-HBU/Academics/Colleges-Schools/College-of-Arts-Humanities/Departments/School-of-Theology/Faculty/Phillip-Marshall.aspx