Hebrew, why bother?

Years ago when I first started blogging, I wrote a post entitled, Greek, why bother? This was in response to a fellow blogger who wrote an article about the reliability of modern Bible translations. He thought that it wasn’t good for Christians to learn the original Greek in which the New Testament was written, because by doing so they were likely to pit themselves against the translators and subject the scriptures to an even deeper risk of poor personal interpretation than before. This opinion was voiced not by an Orthodox Christian but by a Protestant, reacting perhaps to the excesses that a ‘sola scriptura’ belief can produce. For me, as an Orthodox, I accept the teaching of the Church as a given, and without question, in the essentials of the faith, in the knowledge that the Word of God speaks to us as individuals in particulars that fit our time and place, and that we can hold to these particulars without departing from the Holy Tradition, what has been handed over to us by Christ and the Apostles. With this in mind, I have pursued the study of biblical Greek and biblical Hebrew as best I can for one of my education and station in life.

Having the advantages of belonging to the Greek Orthodox community has helped me considerably, since in our worship the Greek that we use is not the modern dialect, the dhimotiká, but rather the kiní (koiné, as it is usually spelled) which is itself very similar to the ‘high Greek’, the katharévousa of scholars even today. When we speak about God and the spiritual life in modern Greek, we find ourselves speaking a mixture of dialects, weighted in favor of ‘high Greek’ and ‘koiné’. Why is this? Because all the words that we use come from the scriptures. Hence, modern ‘Christian’ Greek can be almost considered another dialect. And when we speak modern ‘Christian Orthodox’ English, we find ourselves using the same biblical Greek vocabulary. Why? Because the usual English words carry too much dubitable cultural baggage. And we keep expanding this ‘Christian Orthodox’ vocabulary, the more we become familiar with the scriptures in their original tongues. As my oldest son Jacob once remarked, “I will be learning Greek for the rest of my life,” so I also add, “and Hebrew too!”

If it is not beyond you to study and pray the scriptures in the original languages, then take it up, but you will never know until you try. As I said, it is an advantage to belong to the Church that has preserved the biblical Greek in its active mind, but if that isn’t possible, to have friends who do. To visit a Greek church from time to time can be very helpful. With the study of Hebrew, we did a similar thing, since we are not Jews and cannot belong to the synagogue. When we first started studying Hebrew in earnest, we attended the local Sephardic synagogue for shabbat evening services, so that we could get a feeling for the language as it is pronounced. After that, we obtained a copy of the entire Old Testament on CD, read by a Sephardic rabbi in Israel. Having that audio Tanakh (T=Torah, law, N=Nevi’im, prophets, K=Ketuvim, writings) is like having a Jewish friend who you can always rely on to help you. Listening to the Hebrew psalms read by the rabbi is what I use to gauge my progress, not only in pronunciation but in understanding.

Now, why did I start reading and studying the Greek New Testament? I wanted to hear exactly what the apostles and evangelists had really written, and understand it as they wrote it. I wanted to hear their voices. And yes, I even wanted to hear the voice of the resurrected Jesus Christ, who speaks Greek to John the Revelator, who faithfully records what He heard. Εγω ειμι το αλφα και το ω λεγει κυριος ο θεος ο ων και ο ην και ο ερχομενος ο παντοκρατωρ, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Revelation 1:8). Bible scholars write volumes of commentary on the meaning of verses just like this one. If you know the Greek of the bible, you know all its connexions and its implications, and so you understand, so to speak, what is ‘written between the lines’ without having the burden of all those commentaries. I know that some will dispute this, and ask me to prove it, but I am more interested in reading and understanding than in writing commentaries. Those who know Greek know what I am saying. It’s only esoteric if you want it to be.

Back to Hebrew, why bother? Yes, a good question. I’ve been able to read Hebrew falteringly since a young teenager, but only in the past couple of years have I been studying (and praying in) it with daily consistency. My prayer life has centered on the Psalms for my entire adult Christian life, and now, I pray them in Hebrew almost every day as well. I am always amazed, the more I read, the more I learn, at how concise and simple Hebrew is as a language. So small a vocabulary compared to Greek, yet such a wealth of meanings and how poetic!

A very good example of why studying the Word of God in Hebrew is an advantage comes from the name of Jesus, in Hebrew, Yeshua. We Greek speakers had to be told by the apostles (who were all Jews) that this name means ‘salvation’ and so even Christ’s personal name speaks of His mission. But when you know Hebrew, you see how deep and pervasive this idea goes. We discovered this when we started attending synagogue services. We were surprised to hear the Jews constantly singing about Jesus! At least, they kept saying His name quite a lot in their prayers. Studying their prayer book, which had Hebrew on one page and English on the facing page, we saw what they were singing and praying. It wasn’t about Jesus (that they knew of) but of being saved by God. After worshipping with them for two months, we departed, as our presence among them (we could see) was causing them some confusion: They knew we were Christians, but they couldn’t understand why we would want to be with them. Following the fire and the cloud, it moved, and so did we.

One more example of the heightened experience of the Hebrew bible (and there are too many to describe them all here), comes from the story of Jacob and Esau. In Genesis 25:24-26 their birth and their naming are described. Esau is born and described as reddish in color and hairy; that much, everyone who reads the bible knows. Jacob is described as coming out with his hand clutching Esau’s heel. Now, the word ‘heel’ in Hebrew is achív and it is related to the name Jacob, in Hebrew Ya’akóv, which means ‘heel-holder’ and has no negative connotation. In English translation this has come down as ‘supplanter’ with a definitely negative connotation. We wonder how God could be so unfair, as we read the rest of the story, and show His favor to Jacob, the trickster, the supplanter, that conniving son of Rebecca, that momma’s boy. But we have been told that God can do what He wants, and therefore, we look the other way and let God do what He pleases (!)… But going further into the Hebrew text of the story, we find that the usual translation of certain words seems to have been done with a prejudiced attitude about Jacob. When in the text he is described as tam (Hebrew for ‘perfect’ but in the sense of ‘blameless’ or ‘without blemish’), we find that word is translated ‘quiet’. He was a ‘quiet’ man, contrasted with Esau, who was a man’s man, an outdoors kind of sportsman, rugged, manly, honest. Jacob is described as one ‘dwelling in tents’ who stays home and cooks, again an unfavorable contrast with Esau. But what is understood in the Hebrew is a contrast, yes, but simply that between a man who was a shepherd, living a settled life, a householder, in contrast to one who was a wandering man of the field, a hunter.

The above example is just the tip of an iceberg, and a tantalizing sip of the luscious wine of God’s Word as it has been pressed from His fruit of the vine, the Lógos tou Theoú (in Greek), the D’var ha-Elohím (in Hebrew). Now, having written a little about it, and being tantalized myself beyond endurance, let me go and offer up a psalm, a mizmor, and let the manna fall.

God is good, and everything He is, does, says and gives, is good, good beyond measure, and free to all who come to Him, who says, “you have only to open your mouth for Me to fill it” (Psalm 81:10 Jerusalem Bible).