Tavis BohlingerLearning to read Koine (or biblical) Greek is essential, if you are training for church ministry, an academically focused career in biblical studies, or simply as a means to reading the New Testament in its original language. Even while I was in...
by Tavis Bohlinger* Yesterday we celebrated International LXX Day by publishing an essay on The Origin of the LXX. Today we are pleased to present the second half of that essay, because, well, we just love the Septuagint here at Logos (this proves...
by Tavis Bohlinger* The following essay is published in recognition of International LXX Day, celebrated yearly on February 8, and is also a part of our long-form essay series here on theLAB. To celebrate the 12th annual LXX Day, Logos is offering a...
by the Revd Dr Alan Garrow Alan’s work recently enjoyed attention as the focus of the $1,000 Synoptic Problem Challenge—as taken up by Mark Goodacre on Bart Ehrman’s blog (we covered the debate here, here, and here). While having an interest in the...
by William Ross, Doctoral Candidate, University of Cambridge To say that interest in Septuagint studies is growing rapidly has been a favorite pastime of Septuagint scholars at least since the foundation of the IOSCS nearly fifty years ago. While...
Rick BrannanUsing a commentary like you use a lexicon — it’s not really a far-fetched idea. There are scads of context-sensitive discussions of Greek and Hebrew words locked away in commentaries.
We are honored to have Drs. Peter Williams and Dirk Jongkind of Tyndale House, Cambridge, join us on theLAB to discuss the Tyndale House Edition of the Greek New Testament (THGNT).
Max BotnerThe fuller version of this article was just published in the Journal of Biblical Literature as “The Messiah Is ‘the Holy One’:ὁ ἅγιος τοῦ θεοῦ as a Messianic Title in Mark 1:24” JBL 136, no. 2 (2017): 417–433. The Messiah is the Holy One of God...
Daniel StevensIt is inevitable that every student of ancient Greek will find a time when they feel out of their depth. Greek literature, as with literature in any language, ranges from relatively easy to read to frustratingly complex. And, since literary Greek...
toddscacewaterWhy the Apostles Rarely Mention the Kingdom You may have noticed that “kingdom” language is frequent in the Gospels and in Jesus’ teaching particularly, but that it almost disappears in the rest of the NT. After examining every instance of βασιλεία...
Mark WardἈγωνίζομαι is a Greek word commonly abused by Bible interpreters; and I think it raises an interesting test case for what to do when major Bible translations differ. In this post, I want to try to discern what that word is used to mean in its...
Steve RungeDependent adverbial clauses are a common feature of Koine Greek, generally categorized based on the kind of content conveyed (e.g., conditional, comparative, spatial, temporal, reason/result, etc.) While many spatial and temporal adverbial clauses...
I daily contemplate how I can improve my reading ability in Greek and Hebrew (as well as Latin, German and French). These languages are essential to my career as a biblical scholar. But like muscles without exercise, language abilities atrophy...
Shawn WilhiteWhile many NT scholars may know a whole lot about Matthew–Revelation, many lack the ability to pick up and read Josephus and Clement in the original Greek, or Seneca and Cicero in Latin. This reveals not just a severe lack of language ability, but...
Kris LyleThe first time I attended SBL, back in November 2015, I was fortunate to be in company with eight other colleagues who also had papers accepted. My own was co-authored with Jeremy Thompson and was presented in the Biblical Hebrew and Lexicography...
Paul HimesIntroduction A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, especially when it comes to biblical words in the original Hebrew and Greek. Quite often preachers of God’s Word put too heavy a load on biblical words, expecting them to carry a major point...
We’ve had a few significant posts on the Dead Sea Scrolls here on theLAB the last few weeks, including Craig Evans’s breaking news of the discovery of Cave 12, and then a follow-up post that asked the question of the importance of studying the...
Josh WestburyIn this post we look at the particular oath formula used in Ruth. 1:17. This will help us see how a better understanding of oath formulas sheds light on some thorny linguistic issues that have long puzzled both grammarians and translators alike.
Marieke Dhont (PhD, KU Leuven & Université catholique de Louvain) is a Visiting Fellow at St. John’s College (University of Manitoba, Winnipeg) and specializes in Hellenistic Judaism. February 8 marks International Septuagint day, a day to...
Paul Overland (PhD, Brandeis University) is Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages at Ashland Theological Seminary.
There is a huge problem in the way that biblical Hebrew is currently taught: it doesn’t stick.
The following is Part 1 of a two-part guest post by Josh Westbury (PhD, Stellenbosch), a scholar-in-residence at Logos Bible Software. What comes to mind when you hear the word “Oath”? Perhaps you think of a politician taking an oath of office, or a...
theLAB was just made aware of an exciting opportunity on offer this summer in Austria. World-reknowned Septuagint scholar Kristin de Troyer is running a course titled, “The Hebrew and Greek Texts of Esther” at Universität Salzburg. This topic is...
The following is a guest post by Paul Nitz, who teaches at the Lutheran Bible Institute, Lilongwe, Malawi. From Seminary to Africa I took the requisite four years of New Testament Greek at a ministerial college. After some more Greek at seminary, I...
Faithlife StaffThis post is by Josh Westbury, a scholar-in-residence at Faithlife. Instructions are a vital part of everyday life. Imagine driving to a new place without directions, or baking an intricate dessert without a recipe, or—heaven forbid—having to put...
Jacob CeroneYou could tell I was one of them. The hole-punched cards hanging from a steel ring on my belt loop gave me away. I was an ancient language student. The cards were my flashcards, and I didn’t go anywhere without them: to class, to the student dining...
This post is by Josh Westbury, a scholar-in-residence at Faithlife. In addition to being a Hall of Fame baseball player, Yogi Berra is perhaps remembered most for his pithy witticisms, affectionately known as “Yogi-isms”. These short sayings often...
The languages of the world are often represented in a family-tree diagram in which “parent” languages such as Proto-Slavic branch out into “child” languages such as Russian, Polish, and Croatian. Just as in real-life human lineages, the parents may...
I was somewhat surprised, after I posted about Jesus’ use of the diminutive κυνάριον in his delightful conversation with the Syrophoenician woman (Matt 15:26–27), to have several people make comments like this one: Was the historical Jesus really...
I’m going to give you two sets of overlapping opinions on this issue, one set you should listen to and then my own set. This post is aiming mostly for the person who has no opinions on the issue, and was only dimly aware that opinions existed. You...
Plenty of Bible interpreters treat New Testament Greek the way my three-year-old girl treats my one-year-old boy: with well-meaning, blundering over-attention that ends up making him cry. Evangelical scholar and linguist Moisés Silva has a hilarious...