This is a guest post by Jim Milligan, Executive Director of Blue Letter Bible.
Expanding the Blog for You
We are pleased to announce the expansion of the Blue Letter Bible Blog. We will be adding a section that deals with the original languages and how they can add richness to our understanding of the Bible. The section is designed to be accessible for those who are not that familiar with the Hebrew or Greek. In addition, it will be targeted to address issues for application to the life of the believer, as opposed to just head knowledge of the language information.
Meet Justin Alfred
To help us we have the pleasure of having Justin Alfred join us as a regular contributor to the blog. You might already be familiar with Justin and not even know it. He is the “voice of the BLB Lexicon.” So if you have ever had the opportunity to listen to the pronunciation of a Hebrew or Greek word in the BLB lexicon area then you have heard Justin!
Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek: Simplified and Applied
Later this week, we will publish a special post to introduce Justin in greater depth, but I wanted to take a moment to address why we feel this is an important contribution to the blog. The genesis for the idea actually occurred about 10 years ago when Sowing Circle (the parent ministry of Blue Letter Bible) hosted Justin’s classes on Simplified Hebrew and Simplified Greek. Our staff, among others, were blessed with the opportunity to attend. These classes were directed to persons who had little or no knowledge of the languages (which was most of our staff at the time). The focus of Justin’s classes was on how to use popular tools to help understand the nuances of the original languages, without having to memorize the necessary vocabulary of a first year Biblical language class.
Our team was introduced to some wonderful understanding of the Hebrew and Greek. Especially, how this information could add to the depth of our study of God’s Word. At the same time, an idea was birthed to see if we could arrange for Justin to put some of these concepts into accessible studies for our BLB users.
We are happy to say that Justin has graciously agreed to do so! The result is that he will be providing a weekly blog post (each Wednesday) that will introduce these concepts in the context of a Bible study. Having completed Justin’s classes myself, I can still remember the helpful insights and word pictures into the Hebrew and Greek that Justin taught us. They still bless me a decade later. I anticipate that you will, likewise, be blessed!