Do I understand Greek and Hebrew? Otherwise, how can I undertake, as every Minister does, not only to explain books which are written therein but to defend them against all opponents? Am I not at the mercy of everyone who does understand, or even pretends to understand, the original? For which way can I confute his pretense? Do I understand the language of the Old Testament? critically? at all? Can I read into English one of David’s Psalms, or even the first chapter of Genesis? Do I understand the language of the New Testament? Am I a critical master of it? Have I enough of it even to read into English the first chapter of St. Luke? If not, how many years did I spend at school? How many at the University? And what was I doing all those years? Ought not shame to cover my face?”
John Wesley, “An Address to the Clergy,” in Works X:491. (HT: The Biblical World)
I would add that I was very glad that I already had my basic biblical languages at the undergraduate level, because that meant I was able to spend my time in graduate school doing exegesis and advanced language study. I felt that learning the basics of Greek or Hebrew from those professors would have meant wasting some of the precious time I had to learn from them.
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