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Practice Greek Like a Master Violinist

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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 without use.

The problem is this: nobody ever taught me in seminary, in my MA program, nor in my doctoral studies how to properly go about studying the ancient languages on a daily basis. What are the best practices I should employ every day to master, not simply “maintain,” ancient Greek (or any other “dead” language)? [Read more…]

A Strategic Approach to Reading Background Texts of the New Testament

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While 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, more importantly, a lack of familiarity with the ideas and historical contexts of Early Jewish, Greco-Roman, and Early Christian authors and texts.

My belief (and I’m not alone in this) is that, as a NT and Early Christian scholar, I must do more than be mindful of the vast body of literature outside the NT; I actually have to read it. [Read more…]

The meaning of words (Part 1): words and concepts

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Introduction

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 of their sermon all on their own. [Read more…]

How to Use the Dead Sea Scrolls in Biblical Studies

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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 scrolls at all.

In this post, I have two objectives: first, I’m going to introduce you to two of the best ways to study the DSS; second, I’ll show you how to use these resources by looking at two brief examples. [Read more…]