I haven’t had much time to write much over the past week. I’ve been extremely busy as of late. After finishing VLI in the spring, I’ve been itching to go back to school. There is a church in Columbus called Beth Messiah and they have a school called Messianic Studies Institute. They have some high quality courses and rock bottom prices.
I enrolled in Hebrew I and Greek I this quarter. They cover Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek, as opposed to Modern Hebrew and Modern Greek. There are similarities between Biblical and Modern, of course, but we’re only going to be learning everything we need to know to exegete the Bible. We’re not going to be learning words like “bathroom” and “computer”. So in a sense, it’s going to be easier than learning a modern language because we are limited to a closed body of text, which means fewer vocabulary words.
So you might be asking yourself, “Why did you enroll in both at the same time? Are you nuts?” The short answer is: YES! Now for the long answer…
At the beginning of this year, I made a new years resolution to start learning Hebrew. Since I made that promise to myself, it’s just a matter of principle that I don’t weasel my way out of a promise just because the task will be difficult. It’s a character development thing. Sure, I had good reasons for not starting Hebrew this Fall, but I knew that if I didn’t start this Fall, I wouldn’t renew my promise to learn the language when it’s offered next Fall.
As for Greek, it is the ONLY class is being taught by Henri Goulet this quarter. That means nothing to you because you don’t know who he is. I’ve gotten to know Henri over the past year and he is one of the most passionate persons I have ever met. In a sense, I see him as a Spiritual Father. You know, someone who models Jesus in such a way that you can’t help but have a bit of Jesus rub off on you when you’re around him. Let’s just say that I want a double portion of his mantle. Reason #2: Henri is also an excellent teacher. Reason #3: I truly do want to learn Greek so I can understand the Bible better.
You might find me posting some Greek and Hebrew-related posts over the next 10 weeks or so. I love sharing what I learn with others. 
Monday, 10. November 2008
Good luck with your Hebrew and Greek. I am just learning Greek. I decided to try to learn the way a child does, but listening and imitating what I hear. Check out my new website. I have posted some of the audio files that I’m learning from. I was set back a bit this week when a guy emailed me that my audio files were not authentic Greek, and that was upsetting, as I have put a lot of work into setting up my web site and learning how the convert the files to Flash. But I called the Greek professor at our local Christian college and the recited Koine Greek for me, and it sounded just like what I have on my website. Hurray! I feel too intimidated to learn all the grammer and parsing, but I love reading aloud.