Friday 25 July 2008

Hebrew

So I went in to Moore books and bought a basic Hebrew book, the one they are now using for beginners at college.

I was sick and stayed sick for a couple of years when I went to college, and one of the casualties was Hebrew. That's not good, and I have often felt the lack of it, so now I'm trying to fix the problem. If you are trying to explain the Bible to other people, you really should be trying to do it out of the original languages.

I also got hold of about half a dozen books on marriage, and Fifi and I met with Keith and Sarah Condie to talk about a weekend we've got coming up to talk about how to improve your marriage. Keith and Sarah and their kids have a lovely relationship and they were a great help to us this morning. I hope and pray we can help others in a similar way.

One of the things that occurred to me is that God designed marriage to work, and he did such a good job that sin has not been able to vitiate it.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Which books, mate (incl. the Hebrew one)?

Gordon Cheng said...

The Hebrew one is Introductory Hebrew Grammar by George Athas and Ian M. Young.

I'll probably blog about the rest eventually, the main one is John Gottman and Nan Silver, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work, as recommended by Keith Condie.

Anonymous said...

One of the most intriguing linguistic peculiarities of Hebrew is that the future lies "behind" you and the past "before" you. Still haven't understood the concept, to be honest. But it has theological significance. The people of Israel did not look "back" (as we would say) on the great deeds of God, esp. the Exodus, but this great past was grammatically in the future for the Israelites.

Impossible to think for us. We are all Greeks.

Alex

SamR said...

Kudos for learning Hebrew on your own. We unfortunately don't use George's book in 1st year, despite the fact he's our lecturer. We use a grammar by Ross, but it's not great.

Lots of paradigm memorisation and exposure to the text is the key to getting it under your belt - just like any other language. Don't get freaked out by how unfamiliar it appears at first. Go well!

The Pook said...

Anonymous said... "Impossible to think for us. We are all Greeks."

...no, some of us are geeks.

Therese said...

We are looking forward to hearing from you and Fiona, Gordon!