Bible Software and Biblical Language Reacquisition

Practical Help for Discouraged Pastors and Students

Abstract: [[Note: I hope to submit this post as an essay this month for a small scholarship relating to pastoral ministry and technology.]] This essay is a very practical essay. As such, this essay is targeted at students and pastors who are either still in seminary or in full-time ministry, those who lament the fact that although they spent three to four years learning Greek and Hebrew, they have lost one or both languages. And therefore, this essay aims to provide hope—practical, tangible hope—for such men and women. In this essay, I hope to show how one can use bible software to a great advantage (rather than an all-too-often crutch) in order to achieve a reading fluency in the biblical languages. The student can achieve such an end by (1) recognizing that learning any language doesn’t come with ease (struggling to comprehend is a crucial aspect of the learning process), (2) recognizing that the manner in which one reads the Bible in his native tongue often isn’t the manner in which students are taught to read Greek and Hebrew, (3) prioritizing, therefore, comprehension in the biblical languages over parsings and other precise linguistic phenomena, (4) setting up one’s Bible software workspace for optimum efficiency, and (5) creating a daily plan for reading the Bible only in Greek and Hebrew.


It’s all too common in seminaries that students take four to five semesters of both Greek and Hebrew only to graduate without a working knowledge of both biblical languages. Why is this the case? This problem appears to be pedagogical, likely the result of poor instruction that fails to equip students with a complete set of tools with which the student can carry after seminary into their ministries. Such instruction tends to focus on limited sections of the Bible, paying with utmost scrutiny to precise, technical linguistic features of the language while neglecting to develop a general reading fluency in the student.[1] As a result, the student never learns to read the biblical texts; he simply is trained to pick a part the language as if it were some kind of mechanism merely (though languages are nothing less than highly complex mechanisms of communication). And because of this, memorizing vocabulary and parsing becomes incredibly difficult, forcing most students to rely on bible software to give them the vocabulary and parsings—thus creating a lamentable cycle of inadequate learning that stunts real language comprehension. 

§1. Recognize that Learning Any Language Doesn’t Come Easy

As I said above, this essay is aimed at students and pastors (henceforth “student-pastor”) who have already had a substantial exposure to the biblical languages. As I mentioned, it seems too common that students graduate with 24–30 credits of Greek and Hebrew only to lose one or both languages—leaving the pastor in ministry without this necessary tool for Bible reading and exegesis. Instead of addressing the root cause of the issue, which I believe is a pedagogical issue, I hope to show the student-pastor that all is not lost: one can revive, maintain, and even attain a reading fluency in the biblical languages. And I think wisely using Bible software can exceptionally aid one in achieving this end.

That said, the first thing the student-pastor should understand is that learning any language, especially one that you’re only forced to read,[2] requires much effort and discipline. If one isn’t willing to put in dedicated hours of study, the language simply will not come. In fact, a crucial part of the learning process is the struggle. For some reason the process of going from not understanding to first understanding, as frustrating as that process can be, actually seems to most effectively lodge information deeper into one’s long-term retention.

For instance, Hans Ørberg’s Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata, Pars I: Familia Romana teaches Classical Latin by totally immersing the student in the Latin language. Ørberg teaches the unknown Latin language by connecting such unknown with known pictures, obvious English cognates, and brief grammatical explanations (in Latin, I’ll add!) in the margins. Consider the opening sentences of the book:

Rōma in Italiā est. Italia in Eurōpā est. Graecia in Eurōpā est. Italia et Graecia in Eurōpā sunt. Hispānia quoque in Eurōpā est. Hispānia et Italia et Graecia in Eurōpā sunt. Aegyptus in Eurōpā nōn est, Aegyptus in Āfricā est. Gallia nōn in Āfricā est, Gallia est in Eurōpā. Syria nōn est in Eurōpā, sed in Asiā. Arabia quoque in Asiā est. Syria et Arabia in Asiā sunt. Germānia nōn in Asiā, sed in Eurōpā est. Britannia quoque in Eurōpā est. Germānia et Britannia sunt in Eurōpā.[3]

One who speaks English and has a basic understanding of world geography can easily make out the various countries, continents, one preposition (“in”) and a negated adverb (“no”). Knowing these (the “known”), Ørberg leads the student into an understanding of the “unknown:” the verbs est (“is”) and sunt (“are”), the conjunctions et (“and”), quoque (“also”), and sed (“but”). Most likely, anybody who reads English fluently can read this paragraph in Latin. The whole book is structured in this manner, slowly building upon the “known” by presenting more “unknown” to the student by means of the already “known.” The whole point is that the student would struggle to figure out the “unknown” in order to transfer those unfamiliar concepts into the mental realm, if you will, of familiar (“known”) concepts. The struggle to figure out these “unknown” is purposeful and is a natural manner in which to absorb any language. Any child who grows up in a community of speaking adults learns his or her first language quite similar to the manner in which Ørberg wrote Lingua Latina

All of this is to say that if a student is struggling to learn a language, the student should not be too discouraged because such a struggle is a crucial, and natural, part of the learning process. This is also to say that if the student is not willing to struggle and put in the effort to struggle, the student likely will not have much success in learning the language. However, if the student has a volition strong enough to see past such struggling, the student just might have what it takes to achieve reading fluency in the language. And what might the student see as he looks ahead of this process? To that we now turn.

§2. The Ultimate Goal Is to Read the Bible in the Biblical Languages like You Read Your Bible in Your Native Tongue

The ultimate goal of struggling to learn a language should not be to merely translate the language into a target language. Rather, the ultimate goal of learning any language, including the biblical languages, is to achieve fluency—whether speaking, reading, or both speaking and reading. Here, I’ll limit the current discussion to reading fluency by briefly explaining its ontology and attempting to argue why it should be sought above mere translation capabilities.

Fluency has been described as a “bridge between word-recognition accuracy (phonetics) and reading comprehension.”[4] This is an adequate definition, only I think it lacks the temporal aspect of recognizing lexemes and reading comprehension—i.e., fluency is instantaneous because it is effortless.[5] One who seeks to merely translate the biblical languages can achieve this definition; the translator can obtain a lexicon, find an appropriately contextualized gloss to various lexemes, and come to a comprehension of appropriate meaning. However, this process often takes much longer than one who reads the text (or speaks specific thoughts) effortlessly in the language. Therefore, a more precise definition might read as follows: reading fluency (i.e., reading comprehension) is the effortless and instantaneous bridging of the gap between recognizing lexemes and comprehending meanings.

If reading fluency, which should be distinguished from translation, should be the goal of learning the biblical languages, an important question arises as a result: why do most students not read the Bible fluently in the biblical languages? Even more, why do many students struggle to even translate the biblical languages? There are likely several contributing reasons for this dilemma, so I’ll merely address one obvious cycle in which students often become trapped that directly contributes to this problem.

The cycle seems to be as follows: reading fluency needs a certain environment in which to thrive. Biblical language instructors often do not provide such an environment. Therefore, students do not achieve reading fluency. And as a result, frustration from a lack of ability to read the biblical text overwhelms the student, discourages him from reading, and ultimately ceases his reading. The kind of environment that best fosters reading fluency is the kind of environment that fosters speaking, listening, thinking, and writing fluency—such as when someone lives in a country where the desired language is spoken. When this happens, the language learner is forced by immersion to read, speak, listen, write (and even smell, taste, and feel) the desired language.[6] By contrast, most students are only required to learn individual lexemes (often through unnatural means such as flash cards), the main syntactical phenomena of the language, how to use a corresponding grammar and lexicon, and give formal and functional equivalent translations.[7] Now, obviously, one cannot travel to a country that speaks biblical Greek and biblical Hebrew, but there are certain aspects of such an environment that an educator can recreate in the classroom. However, it appears that some theological institutions do not even think twice about training their students to even write the language, let alone speak and listen to the language.[8]

Nevertheless, despite the unfortunate outcome on one’s education, the student-pastor can still achieve a reading fluency (see §3–5 below). What I have assumed thus far in this section of the essay is that there are valid reasons for achieving a reading fluency in the biblical languages. Why should one strive for reading fluency? There are likely several reasons, but I see at least four. First, reading the Bible in the original languages brings us closer to the lexemes of the original autographs and therefore closer to the literal and spiritual meanings of the Bible.[9] Second, the biblical documents contain historical and cultural meaning (which cannot be uncovered by mere translated glosses) because the biblical authors were fluent in the biblical languages. That is, historical and cultural meanings are not found only in the individual lexemes, but also in various syntactical constructions that are only fully appreciated when the text is read or spoken at a natural, fluent pace.[10] Lastly, and most practically, the act of actually reading the text (reading fluency) is less laborious and time-consuming than merely translating the text.

The burden of this essay is to not provide a detailed exposition of the dilemma stated above. Rather, this essay assumes the reader either knows of or experiences in himself the dilemma of having learned the biblical languages only to have lost them, and thus seeks to address how one can take practical steps toward re-acquiring these once-learned languages—and more. Up until now, I hope to have provided some basic, and very general, background information in order to give appropriate context to the practical steps that follow.


Thus far I have only provided background information that attempts to merely highlight the dilemma in which many students and pastors find themselves. In this second half of the essay, I hope to provide three practical steps that the student-pastor can take when using Bible software in order to reacquire their biblical language reading capabilities and even progress into reading fluency.

§3. Set Up A “Reading Workspace” in Your Bible Software for Optimum Efficiency

Bible software can exponentially enhance one’s learning experience in the biblical languages, but it can also be the death of one’s biblical languages. That is, when used wisely and with a generous portion of self-discipline, Bible software can extraordinarily progress one’s reading capabilities in the biblical languages.

The first step, in my mind, toward utilizing Bible software “wisely” and with self-discipline is to set up your workspace for utmost efficiency. Since the whole reason for Bible software is to promote efficiency, it makes no sense not to have a workspace tailor-made to specifically assist one in reading the biblical texts. We can call this specific workspace a “reading workspace”—a workspace devoted solely to reading the Bible in the original languages. An efficient reading workspace should at least give you quick access to (1) the original languages, (2) a standard lexicon, (3) a standard reference grammar,[11] and (4) a morphological grammar.[12] Thankfully, all of these are very easy to access in Bible software. Yet, the important thing is how to arrange all these resources to best suit your reading reacquisition. I will be demonstrating with screenshots through Accordance because I am most familiar with this software. In the demonstrations, I will not provide step-by-step instructions on how to set up such a workspace. Rather, assuming the reader can set up the workspace himself, I will merely demonstrate what I believe an efficient workspace could look like. In section §4 I will demonstrate how one should use such a reading workspace. 

Figure 1 (A Typical Work Space)

Figure 1 demonstrates a default workspace that is similar to many workspace presets in Bible software. This preset typically includes a quick parallel function (in this case, a Vulgate and Hebrew parallel); a tool bar; quick access to one’s electronic library; a side panel for commentaries, grammars, textual notes, etc.; and an “instant details” function (which provides instant parsing results). As you can see, the workspace is incredibly cluttered. If we limit our workspace to the five components of a reading workspace that I mentioned above, we quickly see that the clutter is greatly reduced. For example, see Figure 2 below. 

Figure 2 (Example of a “Reading Workspace”)

As you can see in Figure 2, the reading workspace has reduced much clutter from Figure 1. The feature in this workspace is the actual text, and not so much the tools that aid in reading and exegesis of the text. You can see that there is still an optional parallel feature (this time Vulgate and Greek). You can also see in the tabs above the text of the native translation (in this case, the English NKJV), the reference grammar (Wallace), and the morphological grammar (Mounce).[13] On the far right hand side, the lexicon is the next item prioritized. This is an efficient set up for your bible software because this workspace prioritizes the text and the lexicon, eliminating unnecessary clutter which could distract the student-pastor from simply reading the text. The goal here is to attempt to recreate the experience one has when reading only a hard-copy Bible with a hard-copy lexicon.

Sometimes, especially when learning or reacquiring the biblical language, odd grammatical and syntactical constructions appear that can be somewhat jolting to the reader. When this happens, it is crucial that the student refer to a credible grammar for further examples and explanations of the specific linguistic phenomena. Equally important is the efficiency of going from the text to the grammar and back to the text. Figures 3.1–4 further explain.

Figures 3.1 (Easy Access to Other Resources: The Reference Grammar)

Figure 3.2 (Easy Access to Other Resources: The Reference Grammar)

Figures 3.1 and 3.2 demonstrate two ways in which one can efficiently use a reference grammar when reading the biblical text. Figure 3.1 makes use of the tabs above the text for quick access to the grammar, while Figure 3.2 makes use of the side panel. One might prefer Figure 3.1 over 3.2 due to the lack of clutter; however, the panel in figure 3.2 functions like a scripture index by syncing the current biblical text with the corresponding pages in various grammars.

Another important grammar to have in quick access is a morphological grammar. Languages evolve over time, and often students of the biblical languages do not know the history behind strange morphological changes (and as we’ll see in section §4, one does not need to know such morphological details to read the text). When coming across strange morphological happenings, consulting a morphological grammar can be extremely helpful. For example, consider Figures 3.3–4.

Figure 3.3 (Easy Access to Other Resources: The Morphological Grammar)

Figure 3.4 (Easy Access to Other Resources: The Morphological Grammar)

Take the verb ἐβλήθη in John 15:6. As the parsing key in Figure 3.3 demonstrates, this verb comes from βάλλω and its parsing is aorist, passive, indicative, third-person, singular. But what’s happened with the spelling? How did βάλλω transform into ἐβλήθη? In the passive aorist we would expect the augment (ε), the lengthened vowel (η), and the passive morpheme (θη), but why have the λand the ηswapped places? The intermediate to advanced reader has likely memorized this form, but such morphological changes can jolt beginning readers. If you simply copy the form and paste it into the search engine of the morphological grammar, often you’ll find a quick and simple explanation. Figure 3.4 demonstrates this case, and shows the reader that this spelling change is due to what is called “metathesis,” a linguistic phenomenon wherein “two sounds within a word exchange places.”[14]

And so, as we have seen, having an efficient reading workspace can greatly assist the reader in reading the text by decluttering the workspace yet still providing quick access to some key tools (e.g., the reference and morphological grammar) that will aid in not only the reading of the text but also a deeper understanding of various aspects of the text. But setting up this kind of workspace is not all; you must use it wisely, with much self-discipline, and with the ultimate goal of reading fluency (i.e., instantaneous and effortless reading comprehension). What follows is an attempt to demonstrate how one can use Bible software in such manners.

§4. Prioritize Comprehension over Parsings: Efficiently Using Your Bible Software Workspace

As should be obvious by now, reading comprehension should be prioritized over strict parsings and technical linguistic happenings. By prioritizing comprehension over parsings, one really begins to read the biblical text. It is more important for one to effortlessly read the text than to instantaneously reproduce, for example, a three-page paradigm sheet listing all the language’s possible conjugations (in fact, most reading this essay probably cannot instantaneously reproduce, for example, all the inflections of the English pronoun [15]). If one can read the text and understand its meaning, one does not need to reproduce the sanctified paradigms that seem to take priority in many seminary classrooms. The goal is to achieve reading comprehension, wherein the language “internalizes” within the student-pastor such that the various conjugations of the language are hardly thought about but rather are instantaneously recognized for the meaning they convey. As such, the fastest way to achieve reading comprehension is to learn a lot of vocabulary. Without a robust vocabulary knowledge, one cannot even begin to read the text because the reader doesn't know the individual words of the text. However, it may seem paradoxical to say that they best way to learn vocabulary in order to achieve reading fluency is to simply read the text. Nonetheless, this is the best and most natural way to absorb vocabulary.

Rather than using flashcards or a similar electronic software, which abstract words from their natural context,[16] immersing yourself in the written text imitates (albeit to a limited degree) the experience of total language immersion like one experiences when in a country of the desired language. As such, other lexemes, syntactical constructions, and contextual meanings provide helpful and efficient aids for vocabulary memorization. And by wisely using Bible software, one can absorb a great number of new vocabulary at an extraordinary pace. For instance, I recommend that one should highlight words that are not recognized immediately. Since reading fluency is an “instantaneous” act, one should train the brain for instantaneous comprehension. Accordance and Logos allows one to tailor-make highlights, which can be used at the click of a button. Next, when you come across an unknown word or parsing, take advantage of the quick-access lexicon; in Accordance you can triple click on the word, and the word-gloss will appear in the lexicon.[17] And if a lexicon is set up in a similar fashion as Figure 3 above, one can find an appropriate gloss even quicker than a reader’s Hebrew Bible or Greek New Testament. Another way Bible software can greatly assist the reader (which does take a bit longer, but it can quickly help one dig a little deeper to understand a particular word or syntactical construction) is rapidly searching for a word in other parts of the Bible, the Septuagint, or other koine Greek literature (e.g., the church fathers, ancient rabbinical documents, Philo, and Josephus).

As a side note, one important practice that readers should adopt is to first read through the desired text all the way through, seeking to comprehend the text’s meaning over the individual lexemes. Then, after the first read, what was initially unknown will often become more clear upon the second or third read. And for the reasons stated above regarding the efficiency of an electronic lexicon and grammar, Bible software can also prove to be an efficient aid in this kind of reading.

§5. Create a Daily Reading Plan Only in Greek and Hebrew

Once the student-pastor has set up his reading workspace for optimum efficiency, and after he has understood some of the tips suggested above about how to wisely use Bible software, he is ready to actually start reading. The first thing to understand at this point is that without a concrete reading plan, the necessary struggle of learning will likely overwhelm the student-pastor, and he might eventually give up the struggle. A “concrete” plan does not have to look like many Bible reading plans today that typically include a set number of chapters and verses to read. In fact, when compared to most of these reading plans, the student-pastor’s plan will not be able to read much of the biblical text—this is natural and okay. It is natural because the he is relearning the language; it is okay because what else should he expect? His expectations should not be too high for himself, otherwise he just might give up the struggle to learn. And so, I suggest that the student-pastor consider how much time he is able to give to reading the languages in a quiet place (I recommend 45 minutes per language). And in that space of time, he should  read as much of the text as he can, seeking to prioritize vocabulary and reading comprehension over the minute details of parsings and exegesis.

In order to most quickly acquire new vocabulary, the student-pastor should start with easier Greek and Hebrew. To a degree, the language difficulty of various biblical books is debated. Nonetheless, for Greek I recommend that the student-pastor at least start with John, 1–3 John, Mark, Matthew, Genesis (Septuagint), Bel and the Dragon (Septuagint), and the Apostolic Fathers.[18] For Hebrew, Jonah, Ruth, Psalms, and Genesis are great places to start. In all of these books the student-pastor will find the Greek and Hebrew syntax fairly simple. And as a result, the student-pastor should be able to read much more than anticipated, thus strengthening not only reading comprehension but also confidence to read more Greek and Hebrew. And in my experience, the more that I read with confidence, the more that I desire to read—and as a result, a healthy cycle of reading, rather than the lamentable cycle of inadequate learning (cf. page 1), is established.


This essay has attempted to argue that when reading the Bible in the original languages, students, pastors, and educators should prioritize reading comprehension over technical linguistic and exegetical happenings. This essay has also argued that Bible software can help students and pastors who have lost the capability to read the Bible in the original languages reacquire this capability with extraordinary efficiency. Rather than an all-too-often crutch, Bible software, when used wisely and with self-discipline, can be an instrumental tool in one’s struggle to learn the biblical languages. As such, students and pastors should five things in order for students and pastors to achieve such an end with Bible software. First, they should recognize that learning any language—especially one you are not forced to speak—does not come easy. Second, they should recognize that the ultimate goal is to read the Bible in the original languages like one reads in his native tongue. Third, setting up a “reading workspace” for optimum efficiency is a key component in utilizing Bible software to achieve reading fluency. Fourth, Prioritizing reading comprehension over parsing by making use of the rapid pace at which one can absorb vocabulary via electronic lexicons found in Bible software. And finally, creating a consistent and daily reading plan (ideally time-oriented rather than oriented around the amount of content read) that utilizes Bible software is crucial if students and pastors are to progress in the reacquisition of the biblical languages.

[1]E.g., in Deuteronomy 30:1–3, we see a series of weqatals: והיה ...ויהשבת ... ושבת ...וסמעת ... ושב ... ורחמך. One could spend an inordinate amount of time seeking to determine how these verbs relate to one another on a logical or discourse level, and if this happened I think the budding student desiring a reading fluency suffers a bit because this kind of work is exegetical and doesn’t force the student to naturally read the text. Exegesis and discourse analysis, I think, should be a next step after reading comprehension is achieved. See more below.

[2]Learning to merely read a language is much more difficult when abstracted from the other modes of utilizing the language: writing, thinking, speaking, and listening to the language. 

[3]Hans H. Ørberg, Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, Pars I: Familia Romana (Greena, Dania: Domus Latina, 2008), 7.

[4]Timothy Rasinki, David Paige, and James Nageldinger, “Reading Fluency: Neglected, Misunderstood, but Still Critical for Proficient Reading,” in P. David Pearson and Elfrieda H. Hiebert, eds., Research-Based Practices for Teaching Common Core Literacy (New York: Teachers College, 2015), 143.

[5]Clearly, speaking and reading fluency requires effort in the strict sense of the term “effort.” As a result, the reader should here interpret “effort” somewhat metaphorically, symbolizing the incredible ease with which the subject performs the act of fluency. Likewise, “instantaneous” should here be interpreted somewhat metaphorically because of the imprecision of the term “instantaneous.”

[6]Being in this context places the beginning language learner in an incredibly stressful and frustrating context, which, as we saw above, is crucial to the learning process.

[7]For instance, consider the passage from Romans 8:21: ὅτι καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ κτίσις ἐλευθερωθήσεται ἀπὸ τῆς δουλείας τῆς φθορᾶς εἰς τὴν ἐλευθερίαν τῆς δόξης τῶν τέκνων τοῦ θεοῦ. Many interpret noun φθορᾶς as various genitives, such as subjective, objective, appositional, and qualitative. In my experience, a disproportionate amount of time is given to retracing the arguments for varying exegetical positions such as the ones just mentioned. The majority of this “language learning” tends to focus mostly on rigorous exegesis and not enough on (and in some cases probably not even at all) simple reading. Rather, students ought to be trained to first read effortlessly and only then to exegete what they read. When we place such an emphasis on exegesis at the expense of simple reading, students never learn to read the text; rather, the only learn to dissect it.

[8]Why are we so impressed when we hear stories like that of Jonathan Edwards giving his valedictory speech in Latin? Clearly, if students two- to three-hundred years ago were trained to speak Latin (and even capable of reading other ancient languages), something (or somethings) in the Wester educational system has gone wrong. See Dorothy Sayers’ The Lost Tools of Learning for a brief, yet excellent and thorough, treatment and preliminary solution of this problem in general.

[9]This is also the burden of all those who teach the biblical languages.

[10]For instance, the imbedded prepositional phrase in koine Greek (e.g., Rom 9:11: ἵνα ἡ κατ᾿ ἐκλογὴν πρόθεσις τοῦ θεοῦ μένῃ) is better appreciated if one actually speaks and reads the text out loud. After hundreds of repetitions of reading constructions like this, the language should likely become “one” with the reader, for lack of better words. That is, the reader seems to progress more toward reading fluency, more easily expecting and more quickly comprehending such constructions as he reads.

[11]For Hebrew, Frederick E. van der Merwe, Christo H. J., Christo H. J. Van Naudé, Jacobus A., and Jackie A. Kroeze, Jan H., A Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar, 2nd ed. (London ; New York: T&T Clark, 2017); Ronald J. Williams, Williams’ Hebrew Syntax, ed. John C. Beckman, 3rd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007); J. Weingreen, A Practical Grammar for Classical Hebrew, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959). For Greek, see Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: an Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996); Andreas J. Köstenberger, Benjamin L. Merkle, and Robert L. Plummer, Going Deeper with New Testament Greek: An Intermediate Study of the Grammar and Syntax of the New Testament (Nashville, Tennessee: B&H Academic, 2016);A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1919).

[12]For Hebrew, see Russell T Fuller and Kyoungwon Choi, Invitation to Biblical Hebrew: A Beginning Grammar (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2006); Eric D. Reymond, Intermediate Biblical Hebrew Grammar: A Student’s Guide to Phonology and Morphology (SBL Press, 2018). For Greek, see William D. Mounce, The Morphology of Biblical Greek(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994); D. A. Carson, Greek Accents: A Student’s Manual (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985).

[13]See notes 11 and 12 for a preliminary list of reference and morphological grammars.

[14]Mounce, Morphology of Biblical Greek, 16 (§7.6). An example of metathesis in English, consider the word “Wednesday,” which is pronounced “Wendsday.” Through the act of metathesis, the “d” and the “n” have switched when spelling the word, though the pronunciation has not.

[15]For example, he, him, she, her, we us, they them, it, who whom, whose, my, mine, etc.

[16]For example, most often Hebrew vocabulary is taught by lexical roots such as נכה, היה, and גור. But the student will not see these roots per se in the biblical text, though these root consonants will often be present (and even spelled the same as such vowel-less roots when reading Hebrew without vowels). Rather, the student will experience inflected forms of vocabulary, and I believe these inflected vocabulary forms should be stressed over the morphological skeleton upon which the word is built.

[17]I recommend that you turn off the “instant details” feature, which allows one to hover the computer mouse over the desired word and reveal all the parsing information.

[18]In fact, two newly published readers editions of the Septuagint and the Apostolic Fathers have appeared: Gregory R. Lanier and William A. Ross, eds., Septuaginta: A Reader’s Edition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2018); Shawn J. Wilhite and Jacob N. Cerone, eds. Apostolic Fathers Greek Reader: The Complete Edition (Wilmore, KY: GlossaHouse, 2019).