Category Archives: Biblical Language programs

Biblical Language programs, Greek Language, Hebrew Language

Hebrew: the EASY language?

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Just posted this today at the HBU School of Christian Thought blog. Reblogging for those who don’t catch the SCT site regularly.

School of Christian Thought

Hebrew

One of our MA in Biblical Languages students did an undergrad degree in French at the University of Oklahoma.  While on a brief visit to his old alma mater recently, he snapped this picture of one of the bulletin boards in the language department. Especially intriguing is the green flyer. So . . . Hebrew is a fun, EASY language! Who knew?

Of course, my students who are in the middle of learning first-year Hebrew don’t think it’s easy (although I have heard from a number of them that they do think it’s fun).  How easy is Hebrew compared to, say, Greek? Hebrew is simpler than Greek in a number of ways, and often simpler is easier. So here are a few tidbits for the interested reader. In my Koine Greek class, we learn 24 forms of the definite article (the). In Hebrew, we learn one basic form…

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Biblical Language programs, Linguistics
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Here’s a piece that I just posted on our School of Christian Thought website at Houston Baptist University. I explore briefly what linguistics is, and why it is beneficial to study linguistics.

School of Christian Thought

Here at HBU we have a Biblical Languages program, which includes both an undergraduate degree in biblical languages (just Greek and Hebrew) and an MA in biblical languages (Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic).  One of the requirements that we insist on for both programs is a course in General Linguistics.  As the Director of the MABL program, sometimes I am asked questions like What is linguistics? and Why is it important to study linguistics?  In this post I will attempt to provide some brief answers to those questions.

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Biblical Language programs, Handouts, Linguistics

Linguistics Handouts

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This spring I’m teaching a General Linguistics course at HBU that provides an entrée into the main subfields of linguistics: speech production (phonetics), sound patterns (phonology), word formation (morphology), sentence structure (syntax), aspects of meaning (semantics and pragmatics), and language change (historical and comparative linguistics). Our goal is to enable our BA and MA students to engage in linguistic analyses of Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek.

For those taking the course, and for those who aren’t but are interested in what we’re doing here at HBU, I’m making the handouts available here.

If you’re interested in our MABL (Master of Arts in Biblical Languages), go here.  Information on the BA in Biblical Languages can be found here.

Biblical Language programs, Degrees

Official Announcement: HBU to begin MA in Biblical Languages in Aug 2009

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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.