By George Athas

In January, I had the opportunity of introducing students to Hebrew at George Whitefield College in Cape Town, South Africa. This was part of GWC’s summer school program, which occurs annually just before the academic year begins in South Africa. It’s not my first visit to GWC, but as usual I had the privilege of enjoying their warm Christian fellowship and seeing people take their first ‘steps’ in Hebrew. Straight after that, I came back to Sydney to Moore College’s summer school, where I taught intermediate Hebrew to a group of our second year students. We have started dealing with some of the more irregular features of the language, as well as the kind of syntax they can encounter in reading and translating the Hebrew Old Testament. Since the semester has gotten underway, I’ve begun a unit with some of our fourth year students that will take them through the book of Zechariah in Hebrew. I’ve also been initiating a large group of our first year students into Hebrew for the first time. At this stage, we are still making our way through the alphabet (or rather, the ‘aleph-beth), and students are still surprising themselves as their mouths perform gymnastics they never before thought possible in the exercise of pronunciation. Yes, Hebrew has some interesting sounds! And some of the more interesting ones are yet to come. In short, it’s been a very ‘Hebraic’ beginning to the year.

As I’ve been engaged in teaching Hebrew, I’ve had opportunity, albeit brief, to reflect on the whole endeavour. Why do we learn Hebrew? Is it because we have a penchant for intricate linguistic analysis of obscure books from antiquity? Is it merely an academic exercise? Is it because we want to build an ivory tower in which we can sit and pontificate? No. We learn Hebrew because the Old Testament, which gives us the unfolding revelation of God from early antiquity, is mostly in Hebrew. Yes, the books of the Old Testament have been translated into English and other languages. However, as evangelicals, we want to get as close as possible to the texts that God has graciously given us in the process of disclosing himself. We want to plumb their depths, understand the subtleties as well as the broad outlines, and have as clear a picture of the God who inspired these texts as we possibly can. After all, if the Bible is the authority, then we will do our very best to understand it. We want many men and women to come to us who will be able to enact one of the mottos of the Reformation: ad fontes (‘to the sources!’). We want them to be able to handle the Word in season and out of season, in changing and challenging contexts. The Church is gathered by God around his Word. If our teachers are able to understand and appreciate the Bible in all its aspects, including its ‘BC’ element, then they will be motivated to present it clearly and faithfully to others who haven’t had the opportunity of learning Hebrew and studying the Bible in its original languages. And those others will, in turn, be nourished well.

A friend of mine who pastors a congregation told me of a young man in his church who was heading off to study at a theological college. This young man approached my friend for advice on making a choice: should he study Greek when he got to college, or should he study Hebrew? My friend’s response was legendary: “Well,” he said, “when you finish college and get up into your pulpit, do you want to be wearing only your shirt, or only your pants?” Since not many of us should presume to be teachers, we should do our best to make sure that our teachers are as well equipped as possible. Hebrew is just one of the tools of the trade.

But why don’t we just settle for English translations of the Bible? Why bother going through the pain of studying a foreign language or two, especially since we have some pretty good translations out there, and most adults tend to struggle learning a new language?

Well, imagine this scenario, if you will. You’ve just arrived at university and are sitting in your very first Latin literature class. You’ve always loved Roman history and wanted to understand it and its literature better. That’s why you’re there in the lecture room. Suppose then that the professor shows up to teach the course and he mentions that he doesn’t know a single thing about Latin. At this point you are probably wondering whether you’ll get the most out of the course, and whether the professor will be able to do justice to the subject you’ve wanted to know so much about.

It’s similar (though not entirely the same) with the original languages and the Bible. Our teachers in our churches, our theologians and Christian scholars, our Bible translators and missionaries, will inspire more confidence when they’ve done the hard yards of understanding the biblical texts — the authoritative Word of God — in the original languages. It’s not a guarantee to good teaching or sound theology, but it certainly is a good step in the right direction. It’s the responsible act of going back to the sources. It’s why, as evangelicals, we put such an emphasis on language learning and exegesis. And those students who take the difficult decision to do Hebrew (as well as Greek) and go through the struggle of persisting with this foreign antique language are to be commended for their efforts. Please pray for them, whether they are in Australia or Africa, Asia or South America.

<he turns to the first year Hebrew class> “OK class, let’s get introduced to the Hebrew letter ‘ayin’.”

George Athas is Director of Postgraduate Studies and lectures in Old Testament, Hebrew, and Early Church History.