Jay, over at mu-pàd-da, has some interesting thoughts on language work within academic sub-disciplines. I found his thoughts worthwhile, and I’d encourage others to visit his blog and comment.
I have noticed something related to Jay’s thoughts in regards to studying the Hebrew Bible. Most students who set out to study the Hebrew Bible will also study another major area in their PhD work. Most of those students will opt for Akkadian, whereas a relatively small number will opt for either Egyptian or intensive work in Northwest Semitic dialects. I’ve also found this fascinating for several reasons. First, when I was an undergrad student, I naively believed that becoming an Old Testament scholar required a sound knowledge of Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic. Greek–I believed–was for those who studied the Jesus Festschrift (HT: Jim Getz). Now, of course, I know better. In fact, by the time I graduate from GCTS I’ll have at least some proficiency in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Ugaritic, Moabite (if you consider this to be separate from Hebrew), Middle Egyptian and Akkadian (if knowing some basic grammar and vocabulary counts as “proficiency”).
This actually brings me to the second reason that I find Jay’s thoughts so fascinating: those of us who work with ancient documents, specifically those from the ancient near east, learn a very large number of languages. I find this to be a helpful and fun pursuit, though I doubt everyone feels that way. I’m not sure what a PhD program in Classics looks like, but I would assume that it does not expect the same number of ancient languages to be mastered.1 I’m not making a judgment on whether this is good or bad, simply observing that I find it interesting.
- Since I had a few moments to look, I compared Johns Hopkins Hebrew Bible program with its Classics program. The Classics program requires Latin and Greek (obviously), JHU’s Hebrew Bible program requires Hebrew, Akkadian or Egyptian, Ugaritic, Aramaic, and NWS epigraphy–it also mentions three optional languages, Coptic, Rabbinic Hebrew, and Syriac. ↩
I would hardly call the level of proficiency required of all these languages “mastery”.I think “exposure” would be a more appropriate word in most instances. Compare the rigor of a classics department’s language learning, where composition courses are typical, with your average Hebrew or biblical Greek track—big difference.
Luke, I would absolutely agree. Though we might want to pick a word between “mastery” and “exposure” (perhaps the ambiguous “proficiency?”).
One might even argue that by requiring/encouraging such a breadth of languages the programs in our field doom one to knowing each language to a lesser extent that classicists know Greek and Latin. That’s not really an argument I want to engage in; but I do still find the number of languages expect to be interesting.
Yes, the difference between what university ‘scholars’ think they know when they have are ‘proficient’ in a Biblical language is shocking. To me, being proficient in a language like Hebrew means being able to hold a conversation in the language with a native speaker. If you can’t hold a conversation in Hebrew, you are not proficient in the language. That’s harder with Aramaic, but there are ways. Simply doing a 1-year module in a language is exposure to the language, not being proficient!