Introduction

1.1. Introduction
Why study a biblical language? A student once made the following comment:
O, Latin is a dead tongue,
As dead as it can be.
It killed the ancient Romans;
And now it’s killing me.
For many people, learning biblical languages is like that. Biblical languages in their original form are dead, and it seems like they are also killing those who learn them.
Some people, therefore, are not prepared to study these languages. On top of that, research has shown that more than 70% of the people who studied Hebrew and Greek at seminary are not using them once they finished their training. During their years in seminary, they spent many hours every week studying and memorising Hebrew and Greek forms. They finally passed their exams and completed their studies. And yet, most of them will not go beyond using a few Hebrew and Greek words during a sermon. They do not make full use of the Hebrew and Greek grammar. They only do ‘word studies’. Seminaries have had students who failed their Hebrew and Greek exams many times and could not graduate. If this is the case, why do seminaries focus so much on biblical languages? Why not offer a course on how to do word studies? There are many examples of great preachers who have not studied Greek or Hebrew. There are equally many scholars who are well versed in Greek and Hebrew who have caused serious damage to the church. So why pay attention to the original languages?
Christians believe that God gave us His word in these languages. It is therefore critical for the church to be able to read and study the word of God in the original language. We cannot just base our beliefs on a translation. And, if we do not study the languages, how are we going to continue with the work of Bible translation?
It is important for us to go back to the source languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Christian scholars who depend on the Holy Spirit’s guidance for understanding the Scriptures will reap much fruit from their knowledge of biblical languages.
Interpretation of the Bible depends on far more than just a study of the original languages. It depends principally on a vital connection with the author of the book and a continual dependence on the Holy Spirit (Clark 1983:215).
It has proved to be correct that some of the great Christian preachers in the history of Christianity were able to use the word of God in its original languages. In fact, William Carey, the great missionary to India, who was not well educated, taught himself biblical languages. He used that knowledge to translate the word of God into many languages in India. Martin Luther knew Greek and Hebrew. He was able to see what the Scripture really said about the doctrine of justification by faith. John Calvin knew Greek and Hebrew. The great evangelist Billy Graham studied the word in Greek, and was able to explain it so that simple people could understand it. Frederick F Bruce, Gordon Fee, John Macarthur and many great preachers and teachers of our generation are firm believers in the importance for preachers of the original languages of the word of God.
It is important, however, to find ways to teach and study the biblical languages, so that it will be attractive and easier to use them in the busy life of Christian ministry. Memorising forms and paradigms of the Greek and Hebrew language is not a divinely inspired method for language study. Fortunately, there are people who saw the need for another approach to the languages, and contributed to it. Dr William Mounce wrote a Greek grammar that became the standard for theological students: Basics of Biblical Greek: Grammar and Workbook 3rd edition (2009). But Mounce realised that not everybody learns Greek in the way he presented in his book. He therefore wrote another volume called Greek for the Rest of Us (2003). Lee Fields wrote a companion for Hebrew called Hebrew for the Rest of Us (2008).
Earlier in 1976, Professor Edward W Goodrick wrote a book called Do it Yourself Hebrew and Greek: A guide to Biblical Language Tools. Professor Goodrick taught Greek for many years at a theological school. Just like many teachers, he realised the need for a book that would help most of us. In 1983, Walter J Clark published his How to Use New Testament Greek Study Aids.
This course takes a different approach. Two free computer programs, E-Sword (ES) and The Word (TW), are being used to introduce you to the use of the languages. The principles taught here will also help when using commercial software such as BibleWorks and Libronix. These two programs come with much more and more up to date resources than ES and TW. They also have audio capacity (see Jabini 2010). For the student at the beginners level, ES and TW are the places to start.
Thousands of people are using ES and TW on a daily basis. E-Sword was developed by Rick Meyers. He was born in 1962 in California in the USA. He became a Christian when he was eighteen years old. He started the project in 2000. His motto is: ‘Freely you received, freely give’ (Matt. 10:8).
By mid-2009, the number of downloads for the program reached nine million. In 2010, the program was downloaded from 225 countries around the world. Its interface was translated into many languages. E-Sword comes with sound Bible-based resources.
Costas Stergiou released the first version of The Word in 2003. Costas lives in Greece and worked for a telecommunications company, as a programmer. What started as a program for personal use became an international software program. Costas’ vision is:
To provide top quality software to aid fellow believers in the teaching and proclamation of God's Word free of charge.
These programs have some wonderful resources that can be a great help in learning and working with the original languages. The purpose of this course is to help you to make better use of the Greek and Hebrew resources which are available in these programs. It will help students of the word to go deeper into the word. It will help preachers to preach the word of God, based on a careful study. Sometimes preachers come up with fanciful explanations of the word that are not based on a careful analysis of the text under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Have you heard sermons on the differences between the Greek words for love? Have you heard messages on the differences between the Greek words logos and rhēma? And, are they correct?