Strategy for Reading the Biblical Languages
The "One-a-Day" Method
If you’ve learned the biblical languages, whether in seminary or self-taught through many of the great resources out there today,1 the hard part can be keeping the biblical languages. Once you are familiar with the regular morphology, syntax, and grammar of the languages, what is the next step to proficiency?
The next step is, I believe, to read lots and lots of the Bible in Greek and Hebrew (and Aramaic). By so doing, you will gain more and more familiarity and competency with these languages. And, you should want to read the Bible in Greek and Hebrew, not academically to pass a test, but devotionally in communication with God as God’s Word was meant to be read. You want your ability with the Greek and Hebrew language to become good enough so that your original-language Bible reading can replace your English Bible reading. In other words, you want your quiet times to be done in the original languages. That should be the goal.
But, if you’re wired like me, here comes the problem.
As you’re reading, trying to cover lots and lots of Greek and Hebrew to improve your abilities, you notice an unfamiliar form, or you notice some strange syntax that doesn’t line up what you learned in the textbook, or you come across a rare, irregular, weak Hebrew verb form, or you’ve forgotten a vocabulary word and you need to look it up, or there is a textual variant you want to examine, etc., etc. And, before long, an hour has passed and you’ve maybe made it halfway through a verse of the Bible. True story.
It will be hard to take in lots of text in Greek and Hebrew at that pace. And you won’t grow in competency of the biblical languages if you move at that pace. Moreover, it is hard to replace your Bible intake in English with such small quantities. It’s true, I have been edified by an hour spent in a single verse, but it will not lead to growing competency in the biblical languages nor will it result in you regularly reading all of God’s Word in the original languages.
So last year I tried something new, which I called the “one-a-day” method and it seemed to work well.
In sum, I simply limited myself to one rabbit trail (be it textual, grammatical, morphological, theological, etc.) per day. Initially it was frustrating having to simply “skip past” syntax or morphology I didn’t fully understand. But in the long run, I’ve been able to get through more Bible in the original language this way. The method is helping me accomplish my goal of getting through more of the biblical text in the original language. And, rather than turning to the scholar’s answer in the Greek or Hebrew grammar, I’ve now been immersed in the syntax and grammar. I don’t just know the grammar works “like that” because the textbook said so, I’ve seen it for myself over and over again. And so, oddities that I might have once stopped to look up have, ironically, now become more familiar because I’ve forced myself to move on and, as a result, I’ve covered more text.
Other things that have helped me cover more text and stick to the one-a-day method are as follows:
1. I replaced reading the Biblia Sacra (BHS and NA27), which have all the standard textual notes, with a Greek and Hebrew reader.2 This has removed the temptation to follow every textual rabbit trail and has the added benefit of providing glosses for all the rare vocabulary. So now I don’t have to stop reading to look up words in a lexicon but can keep moving through the text.
2. I also began utilizing a digital grammar in Accordance so I can look up an oddity quickly. I still like reading a physical Bible, so I simply keep Accordance open beside me so I can click quickly to track down that “one-a-day” oddity I’ve permitted myself to chase. Brian Davidson’s lesson “Accordance as the Ultimate Reading Companion” was incredibly helpful in setting up my Accordance workspace to get the most out of it, while also keeping me reading lots of text.3
3. I also have a two Word-docs called “One-a-Day Greek” and “One-a-Day Hebrew” where I enter in the one thing I’ve learned. Part of this is simply pedagogical, forcing myself to type it out reinforces what I’ve learned into my memory. Additionally, I’ll scan back through my notes every once in a while for further reinforcement. It was drilled into me as a student, that if you spend 30–45 minutes untying a difficult “gordian knot” in the biblical languages, you should document your work so you don’t have to do it again and again. You’ll never make progress if you have to keep redoing your work. So, then, upon a second time reading through a biblical book, I’ll have my digital notes open, and won’t have to chase down the same oddity, but can simply read over what I documented the first time and then use my “one-a-day” permission on something new.
4. I’ve added to my “one-a-day” method to also learn one new vocabulary word a day. So I purchased a deck of blank flashcards and I’ll write out one new Greek and one new Hebrew word a day. I simply use the gloss provided in the reader. I also note on the flashcard the Bible reference as this aids with memory to remember the context in which the word occurs. So I’m learning new vocabulary, but I don’t have to learn all the new words in the passage I’m reading. (So I guess I get “two-a-day”; one vocabulary gloss item and one grammatical/textual/syntactical/lexical rabbit trail).
You don’t have to copy this method exactly, I actually encourage you to build your own and do what works for you, that way it will stick. But, whatever the method, try to balance continual learning (in my case, allowing myself one new thing to learn a day) and covering lots of text.
Truly perfection was the enemy of my progress. I wanted perfection early in reading the biblical languages, to know the semantics and etymology of every vocabulary word, I tracked down every morphological oddity fumbling through the German of Bauer and Leander, I looked up every grammatical difficulty, I was looking at Kennicott and De Rossi and Field’s Hexapla for textual variants, etc., and the result was I was reading at a rate of 1–2 verses a day.
That type of studious reading certainly has benefits, but it did not help with my goal of getting through lots of biblical text. And so, shifting to “one-a-day” allows me to keep looking up morphology, grammar, etc., but in a more sustainable way. If I, which I plan to, keep reading the biblical languages for the next 40+ years, hopefully I’ll have worked through the Bible multiple times and documented all of the oddities along the way. I’m playing the long game. Moreover, by immersing myself in that much text, hopefully my “feel” for the languages, and competency, will have drastically increased. And, above all, hopefully my intimacy with the Lord will continue to deepen through attention to his inspired Word.
For example, through an online course via BibleMesh, or through working at your own pace with physical copies of Zondervan’s Basics of Biblical Greek and Basics of Biblical Hebrew instructional pack with flashcards, DVD lectures, or free immersion resources like Aleph with Beth on YouTube etc. And I would encourage those not in seminary to consider learning a biblical language using their “hobby time.” What better skill to learn to dive deep into God’s Word?
I use Zondervan’s all in one Greek and Hebrew reader. I sent mine to be leather-bound, an investment to keep my commitment to stay in the biblical languages.
You can access it on YouTube here: