Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Michael Abernathy <mabernathy AT isot.com>]

Kevin,
I will not claim that I speak for anyone else. I attended Bible College 
and three different conservative seminaries. Those institutions did not 
require that we agree with them. In fact, our reading list included as 
many if not more liberal scholars than conservative scholars. Yes, we 
would be required to demonstrate that we actually paid attention in 
class and could expound the professor's arguments on any given point. I 
do not feel that it is appropriate to discuss the relative prejudices of 
evangelical versus liberal scholars in this list as that has little to 
do with Hebrew.

I will comment on my experience in learning Biblical languages in 
evangelical schools 20+ years ago. Although I have been told that some 
Seminaries are more likely to require a good German course than the 
Biblical languages, my undergraduate school required at least a 
foundation in Greek. They also offered but did not require Hebrew. First 
year Greek was an intensive 16 hour course (8 hours per semester) which 
did include the basics of textual criticism. None of the  schools I 
attended actually required any  instruction in  Hebrew or other semitic 
languages. The Seminaries required us to pass a proficiency test in 
Greek  before we were accepted as students. Needless to say, no similar 
tests were required for Hebrew.

I hope that seminaries now place a higher priority on the Biblical 
languages. Nevertheless, I should like to add that my experience has led 
to me the conclusion that expertise in those languages is not 
suffiicient by itself if the goal is interpreting the text.
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy


Kevin wrote:
Sure he could. He would just have to get a "doctorate" from some Bible 
college. A "theological seminary" of some sort. They tend to put 
theology first and foremost. Whatever Greek and Hebrew they learn must 
come prepackaged so that it doesn't offend their theological 
sensibilities. The "education" they receive is tainted with theological 
persuasion.



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