If You Don’t Know Greek and Hebrew
… you don’t know Greek and Hebrew, and there are certain things you cannot do, like, well, reading Greek and Hebrew. I don’t think this means you can’t read the Bible, or that your opinions don’t matter, but it’s a simple fact.
When people pretend to know the Biblical languages, as they often do using tools such as Strong’s Concordance and associated tools coded to Strong’s numbers, they tend to introduce many more errors than they would if they stuck to English, or whatever language it is that they actually do read.
If they don’t know the languages, that doesn’t mean they are stupid or even ignorant. There are simply some things they can’t do. No big deal, right?
Well, Douglas Mangum wrote a perfectly reasonable post on the topic, deploring some tools such as I’ve described, which are advertised in a way that is at least questionable, and it appears that he has been called an elitist.
The only reason I jumped in here is that I’m a strong advocate of lay Bible study. I don’t believe my knowledge of Biblical languages gives me an exclusive on Biblical interpretation. I believe that anyone can get involved, and anyone can have valid opinions. But that doesn’t make everyone’s opinion valid. Use of Biblical languages tools without the proper training is one of the best ways to get nearly everything wrong.
Let each use what knowledge and skill he or she has, and depend on the proper experts where such skill is lacking.
Henry, you’re absolutely right. Thanks for the support. To be fair to Nick, the “elitist” part was directed at the fact that I widened my complaint to appear to include anyone without formal education in biblical studies. My real gripe, though, is exactly what you’ve described-the misuse of language tools giving people a false confidence in their ability to know the “original.”
I read the comments at Nick’s blog, but then I re-read your post, and I never really heard the broader language in your post. The principle would apply to other areas, though, in my opinion, such as historical background. If you don’t study it, you don’t know it. That study can be formal or informal, but the need for the knowledge remains.
I guess I would say, yes, non-scholars can and should study the Bible, but they have to study the Bible, not pretend.
Hi there!
I am VERY new to Bible study having just read the Bible passively for about 10 years. I am educated (in music) and well read but have no formal training in Bible study. I am working through the Living By The Book text and workbook by Howard Hendricks. My question is, (and I am asking sincerely as I really want to do this well!) how do I best use a concordance and Vine’s to enhance my study? I know to consult secondary sources 2nd. 🙂 But I have already found Vine’s helpful while working through the Hendrick’s study methods. I must add that I have already noticed how helpful A cross reference such as the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge can be!!
Thank you for your time.
I have just joined this blog because I want to become more familiar with the ideas of those who have formal education in bible studies. I have been studying and writing about the bible for over 25 years. I have recently started a blog to share my methods http://bibleunlocked.blogspot.com/. Knowledge of Greek and Hebrew is an important key to unlocking the bible, but equally important is an understanding of developing human consciousness. It is the latter that interests me the most and many people who receive my weekly reflections tell me that I have indeed unlocked the bible for them, and in some cases reunited them with the bible when it had been torn away from them by narrow interpretations.
Thank you for creating this wonderful resource and I look forward to reading it.