Why I Started This Journey

The Beginning: 2012-2015

Central to any journey is the motivation to begin. Like many people who study Ancient Hebrew (and Greek), I wanted to learn the scripture better. When I learned that there were other languages behind the English translations, I HAD to find a way to learn them. I loved studying the Bible, and I knew that the languages of the original texts were the gateway to knowing it better. I had taken a particular interest in the Old Testament and then a great fascination with Hebrew was birthed. I am not sure why I preferred the Hebrew Bible, but I definitely did.

College: 2015-2019

Fast Forward to college, I spent my first 2 years of undergrad taking classes about the background and literary features of the Bible, but I still hadn’t learned Hebrew.  Then, my academic advisor (Duane Smith) told me he was going to be teaching Hebrew for the first time since I had been a student at the college, I was STOKED. The following three semesters working though Thomas Lambdin’s Introduction to Biblical Hebrew officially began my journey with Hebrew. Though it was frustrating at times, I managed to make it through Lambdin’s exercises. My last semester of college we didn’t have an official class, but I would occasionally get together with Dr. Smith to read Hebrew together, while I tried to keep up on my own. 

Grad School: 2019-2021

After my time in college, I would go on to do a Master’s program, where I would do 3 more semesters of formal Hebrew study (and begin 2 semesters of Greek). The first 2 semesters we worked through Seow’s A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, and the third semester was a Hebrew Readings course. Going over the language again helped solidify certain details of the language. My reading was still choppy, but I was finally able to study the Hebrew text with others and talk about what I saw! 

Post-Grad School: 2021-2023

After I finished my Master’s program, I would read regularly (maybe daily) from my Hebrew Bible, but I started noticing a trend. I was “reading Hebrew,” but I couldn’t really tell what I was reading without translating it into English. This was definitely an improvement from highschool, but I found I was unsatisfied with my reading ability. I was also constantly concerned about forgetting everything I had learned. In addition to these concerns, now that I had graduated and returned home from school, I didn’t have anyone around me with whom to read. 

Around this time, I was listening to a podcast called OnScript, and they had Kevin Grasso on to talk about the app that he was making to help people learn the Biblical languages in a way that they would internalize the language. Using SLA (Second-Language Acquisition) methods, they were teaching folks to not just learn the grammar of the languages, but to actually acquire the language, as well. Here was an answer to the exact thing that I felt was deficient in my Hebrew (and Greek). The app actually tasked me with producing the language. It took my learning to the next level. Everything I had tried previously helped, but didn’t get me much further than the last. Biblingo was different. I felt my ability in the languages skyrocket, and it was due to actually having acquired the language through their SLA-backed approach.

New Communities: 2023-Present

Language is for communicating with others. We do this through textual and aural means. While I had the biblical text to read from, I didn’t have anyone to practice with now that I wasn’t in school. I figured I would build the community around me. So, I offered to teach my friends Greek and Hebrew for nearly a year, but there were no takers. Then, around the winter of 2023-24, I found my way into two separate language learning communities.

The Hebrew Cafe (whose blog you are reading right now) was doing Live reading sessions on YouTube and they posted the livestreams in the Nerdy Biblical Language Majors Facebook group, where I was first introduced to them. Since I first started watching, Jason has added a Discord for the community to gather on, as well. The Hebrew Cafe has been a vital part of my Hebrew journey. Besides Jason being a fabulous teacher, the community that he and Jonathan have built is something I am grateful to be a part of. Additionally, Around the same time, Biblingo had started an online language-learning community for those subscribed to their Accelerator plan where they held reading groups, Q&As, and special events. I went from having a dearth of communal language opportunities to a surplus in a couple of months. I have been a consistent feature in these communities for more than a year now. I should say, I am now an employee at Biblingo, and lead the Biblingo Accelerator community, and we offer more learning opportunities in the community than we ever have.  

Conclusion

So why did I share this? I hope anyone who resonates with some part of my story knows they can find a community here, or at Biblingo, or somewhere else online, even if you don’t have people in your immediate vicinity with whom you can study. Or if you feel like you aren’t making progress with the traditional textbook model, try something new and branch out. There are so many people who are doing this with you. You just need to find them.