How to Study with the Greek NT: L9

The Other Original Tongue

πάντων δέ καταπεσόντων ἡμῶν εἰς τὴν γῆν ἤκουσα φωνὴν λαλοῦσαν πρός με καὶ λέγουσαν τῇ Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ Σαοὺλ Σαούλ τί με διώκεις σκληρόν σοι πρὸς κέντρα λακτίζειν.

—ΠΡΑΞΕΙΣ ΤΩΝ ΑΠΟΣΤΟΛΩΝ 26:14 [i]

And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks”.

—Acts 26:14 [ii]

Hebraic Greek

As we have discovered, the more familiar we are with NT Greek, the more we will understand the NT and, ultimately, the entire Bible. Although it is certainly a large part of it, this greater understanding is not just a result of an increase in our understanding of the meanings of the original words of the NT, but also because of an increase in our understanding of the cultural milieu in which the GNT was written. Culture and language are inextricably related, and one cannot study the language of a particular time and place without also studying the culture that created that language. The more we learn of the language of the NT, the more we will have to learn about the culture of the NT, and the more we learn of the culture of the NT, the better our overall understanding of the Word of God will be.

That being said, one of the main aspects of the culture which produced the Greek of the NT is the Hebrew culture of the 1^st Century. NT Greek is Hebraized Greek. Proof of this this fact is in the GNT word for “week” is σαββατον, which is a Hellenized form of the Hebrew word שַׁבָּת [Shabbath]. Shabbath was the Hebrew word for the last day of the week and was only used in Israel and among Jews. The Greeks named the last day of the week ἡμέρα Xρόνου (day of Chronos) after the god Chronos (the personification of time); the Romans named it dies Saturni (day of Saturn), after the God Saturn—from whence our Saturday. So, clearly, being familiar with 1^st Century Hebrew culture cannot fail to reap rewards for the student of the NT.

In this lesson, we will take a small, first step towards familiarising ourselves with the Hebrew culture of the 1^st Century: We will learn how to read the Hebrew language by learning the Hebrew Alphabet and how to sound Hebrew words. Our ninth General Principle is therefore Learn about the Other Original Tongue.

Hebrew Alphabet

Hebrew is a Semitic language and is read from right to left. The Hebrew alphabet, the Aleph Beyt—is based on the Phoenician alphabet; as was the Greek alphabet. The earliest Hebrew alphabet, Proto-Hebrew, was a pictographic script. The familiar block script we think of as Hebrew today is a Babylonian script which was not adopted by the scribes until the Babylonian Exile. This is the script we will learn to recognize today. This script is the basic Print Script found in Hebrew magazines, books and, of course, the Scriptures. We will also learn what is called Hebrew Cursive. This is the common handwriting script taught in schools.

There are two good reasons to learn the cursive, or handwriting, script: The letters are not as similar to one another, so there’s less chance of confusing them; and they are quicker and easier to write, making recording them that much easier.

There 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet are all consonants; there are no vowels in Hebrew. There are vowel markings called “nikkud” or “vowel points”. If the letters in a given text has vowel points, it is called “pointed text”. Pointed text is used primarily in Scripture, instructional signs and in children’s books.

There is an ornate script reserved for the Torah Scrolls. It is known by the acronym STAM [סת״מ]; which stands for Sefrei Torah, Tefillin, Mezuzot (Torah scrolls, Phylacteries, Mezuzahs). It is the script with little crowns, called “tagin”, on some of the letters. Here is what those crowned letters look like:

Here are the 22 letters written from top left to bottom right in common Print Script. The transliterated names of the letters are not rigidly standardized, so you will see slight variations from those shown here:

Kaph	Yod	Tet	Chet	Zayin	Vav	Hey	Dalet	Gimel	Beyt	Aleph
כ	י	ט	ח	ז	ו	ה	ד	ג	ב	א
ך
Tav	Shin	Reysh	Qoph	Tsade	Pey	Ayin	Samekh	Nun	Mem	Lamed
ת	ש	ר	ק	צ	פ	ע	ס	נ	מ	ל
				ץ	ף			ן	ם

As mentioned above, each of these letters is a consonant, however, three of them—Hey, Vav and Yod—do double-duty as consonantal vowels. When they’re used as consonantal vowels, they lose their own sounds and only make the sound of the vowel they carry. As well, Aleph and Ayin also double as vowel markers. As a matter of fact, these two letters have no actual sound of their own (anymore) and simply take the sound of the vowel attributed to it. You can remember this by noting that Aleph and Ayin are the only letters to start with the “ah” sound. The rest of the letters’ names are loosely phonological—they start with the sound the letter makes. For example, Pey makes a “p” sound.

Notice the five forms in red. These are final forms called “sofit”. Just like the Greek lowercase Sigma, these five letters have a separate form when they end a word. For example, the word Mem in Hebrew script makes use of both forms (the two little dots under the first Mem are the vowel points mentioned above. These indicate the short-e sound):

מֵם

Obviously, the sofit letters are not written in a different colour normally; they’re only in red here to help you distinguish them from the medial forms.

Here are the equivalent English letter sounds:

b/v

sh /s

p/f

Notice that three letters have two different sounds: Beyt, Pey and Shin. When these three letters are carrying the second sound, their names change to Veyt, Phey and Sin accordingly. These differences are shown in pointed text with the use of various dots. In the Beyt and Pey, a single dot is placed in the centre of the letter:

Beyt with dagesh: בּ

Veyt without: ב

Pey with dagesh: פּ

Phey without: פ

Pey sofit always makes an “f”-sound.

The Shin dot goes on the top of either the right point or the left. When over the right, the letter is pronounced “sh”; when over the left point, the letter is pronounced “s”:

Shin with dot on the right: שׁ

Sin with dot on the left: שׂ

Nikkud

As mentioned above, the vowel sounds in Hebrew are indicated by nikkud, or vowel points. We will not be covering all the rules governing the vowels points here, just the basic form, placement and sound each one indicates. The student wishing to know more is directed to the website Hebrew for Christians[1] or any grammar of his choosing.

Most of the vowels points are written beneath the consonant carrying the vowel sound; one is written in the middle; and one is written above. The vowels points are all written around an Aleph for demonstration purposes. Take note of the nikkud-consonantal vowel combinations.

These vowels points indicate the “a” sound as in the word “apt”:

אָה אָ אַ

These vowels points indicate the “e” sound as in the word “they”:

אֵי אֵ אֶי

These vowels points indicate the “e” sound as in the word “red”:

אֱ אֶ

These vowels points indicate the “ee” sound as in the word “green”:

אִ אִי

These vowels points indicate the “u” sound as in the word “flu”:

אֻ אוּ

These vowels points indicate the “o” sound as in the word “go”:

אֳ אֺ אוֺ

There is a special vowel point called a Sheva. It can be either silent or vocal. When vocal it makes a glottal-stop, an “uh” sound like the first “e” in the word “beneath”:

אְ

The consonants to which the vowels points are attached are pronounced first. For example, this is the Hebrew spelling of the 12^th letter, Lamed:

לָמֶד

However, if a word ends in Hey or Chet, the following “a”-sound vowel point is pronounced first:

מָשִׁיחַ

This is the Hebrew word for Messiah and is pronounced “Ma-Shee-aCh”, with the final “a” sounded before the final Chet.

Cursive

As with English handwriting, most people develop their own style of Hebrew cursive, but, in general, they will conform to the following basic shapes:

Conclusion

We have all learned that culture and language are inseparable; you cannot learn one without learning something of the other. The Koine Greek of the NT was formed in a Jewish cultural milieu. So for this reason, if we wish to understand the New Testament better, we have to be familiar with the Hebrew culture which formed the language in which it was written. A good first step to doing that is by becoming familiar with the Hebrew language. This is why, in order to study the Bible with the GNT, we should Learn about the Other Original Tongue.

[1] http://www.hebrew4christians.com/

[i] All Greek citations from THE NEW TESTAMENT IN GREEK ACCORDING TO THE TEXT FOLLOWED IN THE AUTHORISED VERSION TOGETHER WITH THE VARIATIONS ADOPTED IN THE REVISED VERSION, edited by F.H.A. Scrivener; CAMBRIDGE: At the University Press 1949.

[ii] Whilst all English Bible verses are taken from the King James Version, modern punctuation and quotation markings will often be used where appropriate without reference (I.e. Capitalization after question marks; double inverted commas on opening quotes, then single inverted commas for internal quotations.).

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L9