Ancient Languages

THE CHRISTIAN ARSENAL

Ancient Languages

The following websites will be helpful to students who are studying original Biblical languages. Anyone who is serious about the study of God's Word needs to give attention to these areas. The study of original languages is essential for the advanced study of the Holy Scriptures. Most people stop with basic word studies.

Let me encourage you to move on into grammar and into literary analysis. This may sound dry and non-spiritual but nothing could be further from the truth! There is a richness and beauty that you can only become familiar with by learning original languages and some of the wonderful ways God communicated His divine truth to us by employing all of the beauty and devices of these languages. It can also prove to be effective weaponry when dealing with liberal view points or cultists.

If you need Ancient Language fonts for you computer or papers, you can go to these sites and download them. Ancient Fonts or Font Archive

Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian

✦Assyrian-Aramaic Language - Learn the Assyrian (Syriac-Aramaic) language. Learn to speak through music, learn to read and write the way Jesus did, build your vocabulary, and learn the Assyrian and Babylonian history through a beautiful screen saver.

✦Languages of the Orient - Akkadian - Semitic language used in the Middle East.

Arabic

✦Bible in the Arabic Language - The Grace Alnemat Arabic Christian Internet Magazine, Offering Arabic Online Bible, The Word of GOD, Always Free!

Aramaic

✦Aramaic Bible, New Testament, Gospel of Matthew Mark Luke and John, Acts, Letters, Revelation - Ancient Aramaic Bible translation project, from the language Jesus spoke, the sacred, scribal language of Scriptures.

✦Aramaic-Assyrian Language - Learn the Assyrian (Syriac-Aramaic) language. Learn to speak through music, learn to read and write the way Jesus did, build your vocabulary, and learn the Assyrian and Babylonian history through a beautiful screen saver.

✦History of the Aramaic Language - A short but informative history of the Aramaic Language.

Coptic

✦The Coptic Language - History and overview of the Coptic language.

Cuneiform

✦About Cuneiform Writing - Pictograms, or drawings representing actual things, were the basis for cuneiform writing. As shown in the chart, early pictograms resembled the objects they represented, but through repeated use over time they began to look simpler, even abstract. These marks eventually became wedge-shaped ("cuneiform"), and could convey sounds or abstract concepts.

✦Journal of Cuneiform Studies - Founded in 1947 by the Baghdad School of the American Schools of Oriental Research, the Journal of Cuneiform Studies (JCS) presents technical and general articles on the history and languages of the ancient Mesopotamian and Anatolian literate cultures. Articles appear in English, French, and German. Published once a year; circa 144 pages per issue.

✦West Semitic Research Project - In the late fourth and third milleniums B.C. a people called the Sumerians began to develop a writing system called "cuneiform" ("wedge-shaped"), written on wet clay with a sharpened stick, or stylus. At first the Sumerians used a series of pictures ("pictograms") to record information having to do with business and administration, but went on to develop a system of symbols that stood for ideas and later sounds (usually syllables). In the later stages of Sumerian writing there were about 600 signs that were used on a regular basis.

Egyptian

✦Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics - An excellent source for the study of Hieroglyphics.

✦Egyptian Hieroglyphics - The language was developed about four thousand years before Christ and there was also a decimal system of numeration up to a million. In AD 391 the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I closed all pagan temples throughout the empire which ended the four thousand year old tradition of hieroglyphics.

Greek

✦A brief history of the Greek language - The origin, evolution, influences and current form of the Greek language.

✦Bible Greek Resources - Biblical Greek (Koine) is essential for a complete Christian education. The Institute of Biblical Greek has collected the following resources to promote the study of Biblical (Koine) Greek in Christian education and to help students learning Biblical (Koine) Greek.

✦Greek & Hebrew Fonts - BibleWorks Greek and Hebrew Fonts

✦Greek Grammar - This grammar is a compilation primarily from Wallace and Mounce books.

✦Learning Greek - Online Greek Grammar Learning Tools and Study Aids

✦The Greek New Testament - The Greek Bible Online.

✦The Greek New Testament Gateway - An annotated gateway to Greek New Testament Web Resources including texts, fonts, grammars, lexical, discussion list and software.

✦Introduction to Chiasmus - Whereas many literary structures have been recognized in the past (step parallelism, inclusion, etc.), a significant literary structure of biblical texts has received noted recognition in the past century, an especially in the past two decades, is chiasmus.

✦Koine Greek Study Page - Koine Greek study and research page. A nice collection of some great tools!!!

✦Learn New Testament Greek - The following lessons will prepare you to read the Greek New Testament.

✦Liddell-Scott-Jones Lexicon of Classical Greek - If you would not be reading Greek without access to these on-line texts and lexicon, please tell us about it. This page was made possible by support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation.

✦New Testament Greek Diagrams - Diagramming the Greek New Testament is a pictorial or graphic means of analyzing sentences. In essence, it permits one to see visually an author's syntactical constructions.

✦New Testament Resources for Greek grammar and exegesis - Studies related to the New Testament, including koine Greek grammar and exegesis. Content documents and links to other content documents.

✦Original Greek New Testament - The Greek New Testament, KJV, NKJV, NASB, Darby, ASV, Young's, German, French, Spanish and more Bible versions are now available for Palm Pilot and Windows CE handheld electronic organizers here.

✦Overview of Greek Syntax - Jeffrey A. Rydberg-Cox Overview of Greek Syntax.

✦SIL Greek Font System - SIL Greek Font System, a font package for Biblical Greek text encoding.

✦Strong's Greek Lexicon - The Greek lexicon is based on Thayer's and Smith's Bible Dictionary plus others; this is keyed to the large Kittel and the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.

Hebrew

✦Postmodern Bible Commentary - Journal of Biblical Studies

✦Biblia Hebraica - Found on this site are notes from a graduate Biblical Hebrew Level I class taught by Dr. David Wallace. The main text used in this site is Page H. Kelley's Biblical Hebrew: An Introductory Grammar. At times reference will be made to Kelley, this is the primary work that is being noted.

✦Greek & Hebrew Fonts - BibleWorks Greek and Hebrew Fonts

✦The Hebrew Font Gallery - Hebrew Font Gallery has 25 Hebrew typefaces, designed to work perfectly with Windows and Macintosh applications.

✦Hebrew & Israel Site - There are thousands of sites that use Hebrew. Here are examples of Web Hebrew: can you read it?

✦Hebrew Made Easy - Easy workbook for children and adults to learn how to pronounce, read, and understand Hebrew. Free Sample Pages. Homeschool can use it.

✦Intensive Hebrew Language Courses - Combine serious study and active recreation. Unique 4-week experience of learning and leisure combined with personal encounter with the country and its people.

✦National Center for the Hebrew Language - The National Center for the Hebrew Language (NCHL) has positioned itself as the American advocate for the Hebrew language.

✦Biblical Hebrew Exegesis - Biblical Exegesis...an Approach for Hebrew Bible Research.

✦Semantics of Ancient Hebrew - The Semantics of Ancient Hebrew Database is a cooperative research project involving a number of European centers with coordination provided by Leiden.

✦SIL Hebrew Font System - The SIL Hebrew Font System is a font package for displaying and printing Biblical Hebrew text.

✦Strong's Hebrew Lexicon - The Hebrew lexicon is Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius Lexicon; this is keyed to the Theological Word Book of the Old Testament.

Hieroglyphics

✦Egyptian Hieroglyphics - Learn the basics of Egyptian hieroglyphics with web-based lessons that teach in a way anyone can understand.

Latin

✦An On-line Latin word-list - An On-line Latin-English/English-Latin Dictionary.

✦Latin Bible courtesy of Bible Gateway - With word and passage look-ups.

✦Latin Grammars, Dictionaries, and other helpful tools - A superb online source for those who are studying the Latin language.

Literary Form

✦Interpreting Ancient Manuscripts - The Interpreting Ancient Manuscripts web is adapted from the original Hypercard version. It was developed at Brown University with the aid of an Educational Computing Grant to the Religious Studies Department.

✦Introduction to Chiasmus - Whereas many literary structures have been recognized in the past (step parallelism, inclusion, etc.), a significant literary structure of biblical texts has received noted recognition in the past century, an especially in the past two decades, is chiasmus.

Manuscripts & Texts

✦Encyclopedia of New Testament Textual Criticism - The Encyclopedia attempts to cover all aspects of New Testament Textual Criticism in an orderly and fair fashion.

✦Interpreting Ancient Manuscripts - The Interpreting Ancient Manuscripts web is adapted from the original Hypercard version. It was developed at Brown University with the aid of an Educational Computing Grant to the Religious Studies Department.

✦Manuscript Categories - In 1981, Kurt and Barbara Aland published Der Text des Neuen Testaments (English translation: The Text of the New Testament, translated by Erroll F. Rhodes, Second edition, Eerdmans/ E. J. Brill, 1989). The most noteworthy feature of this edition was its new classification of manuscripts.

✦Textual Criticism and Manuscript Interpretation - An introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism.

Miscellaneous Gems

✦Babylon Lingua - Babylon Lingua is devoted to the study of many ancient languages that relate to biblical studies. This one is a true treasure.

✦Early History of Indo-European Languages - Migrations and Cultural Diffusion carried the Indo-European protolanguage from the homeland, which the authors place in the Transcaucasus (see Historical Armenia maps), and fragmented it into dialects. Some spread west to Anatolia and Greece, others southwest to Iran and India. Most Western languages stem from an Eastern branch that rounded the Caspian Sea. Contact with Semitic languages in Mesopotamia and with Kartvelian languages in the Caucasus led to the adoption of many foreign words.

✦Introduction to Chiasmus - Whereas many literary structures have been recognized in the past (step parallelism, inclusion, etc.), a significant literary structure of biblical texts has received noted recognition in the past century, an especially in the past two decades, is chiasmus.

✦Languages on the Web - All about foreign languages, 30,000+ selected links to as many as 400 different languages, online language courses, language sites evaluation, free advice on how to study, plus the first Internet library of multilingual parallel texts to let you learn faster and more effectively.

✦The Mother of all on-line language tools - The world's most comprehensive and authoritative language community portal with every resource needed for language study and improvement in more than 200 languages.

Papyrus and other Ancient Manuscripts

✦Duke Papyrus Archive - The Duke Papyrus Archive provides electronic access to texts about and images of 1,375 papyri from ancient Egypt. The target audience includes: papyrologists, ancient historians, archaeologists, biblical scholars, classicists, Coptologists, Egyptologists, students of literature and religion and all others interested in ancient Egypt.

Septuagint

✦The Septuagint LXX - A group of scholars dedicated to bring a fresh English translation of the Septuagint to the 21st Century.

✦Septuagint Theological and Academic Resources - Theological and Academic Resources for the Study of the Septuagint and Old Greek Versions.