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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