back to index

Everyday Educator - Unlocking Biblical Languages: Revolutionizing Scripture Education


Whisper Transcript | Transcript Only Page

00:00:00.000 | Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Everyday Educator podcast. Today, I have Kevin with
00:00:09.380 | me. He is the founder of Biblingo, and I cannot wait for you guys to learn more about this
00:00:14.320 | resource and to dive deeper into the Word of God. So without any further ado, Kevin,
00:00:20.220 | welcome to the show.
00:00:21.380 | Thank you very much. Happy to be here, Jaleese.
00:00:23.700 | Well, I'm happy to have you. And I know I just asked you this question off air, but no
00:00:28.260 | one heard it but me. So will you briefly just introduce yourself to our listeners for people
00:00:33.440 | who maybe aren't familiar with you and your work, and especially for people who don't know
00:00:37.880 | anything about Biblingo?
00:00:39.200 | Yeah. So depending on what kind of answer you want, I'm several different things. I'm a dad
00:00:47.000 | of four with one on the way. And so I have Rhoda, who's the oldest, Olivia, six, Emmett is four,
00:00:57.300 | and then Amos is two. So I am an active homeschool parent. I do part of their homeschooling every
00:01:07.120 | morning for about an hour. So that's my, you know, family life, which takes up basically all
00:01:13.960 | of my life besides my Biblingo life. So Biblingo is a Greek and Hebrew, or it's a language learning
00:01:22.220 | software for biblical Greek and Hebrew. So I did my PhD in Israel at Hebrew University in Hebrew,
00:01:30.600 | and wanted to help at the time, especially Bible translators who are translating into another
00:01:37.840 | language, learn Greek and Hebrew, so they can better translate, but basically have found that it's
00:01:45.640 | applicable for anyone and everyone who wants you to learn these languages. So we're in about 70
00:01:51.260 | countries or so around the world, have lots of different people learning the languages through
00:01:56.420 | Biblingo.
00:01:57.020 | That is amazing. And as you know, most of our audience are homeschooling parents. It's so cool to hear that
00:02:05.080 | you're able to be involved in your kids' homeschooling journey every day. I know that your wife probably
00:02:09.960 | appreciates that, but also it probably makes a really big difference in how your children are
00:02:13.440 | learning. And so from that perspective, someone listening might be thinking, okay, I love Jesus.
00:02:21.320 | I love the Word of God. Help me understand why I need to learn to read Greek and Hebrew.
00:02:29.540 | Yeah, yeah. So I would say, first of all, we have very good translations, and we have,
00:02:36.420 | you know, we are really in a very privileged position as speakers of English. We have many,
00:02:43.280 | many, many different translations. But still, the reality is that if you're reading in English,
00:02:49.280 | you're reading a translation. And by virtue of being a translation, it is necessarily an
00:02:55.760 | interpretation. And whatever, you know, you might read on the front cover of your Bible to say that
00:03:01.120 | it's not an interpretation. It's, you know, the most accurate translation there is, like,
00:03:05.660 | there is no such thing as a translation that is not an interpretation. And that's okay. That's just
00:03:11.580 | the nature of it. And, and so the reality is, is that God spoke to us in a particular culture,
00:03:18.200 | a particular language. And if you want to know the text, the best you can, you have to know that culture
00:03:25.580 | and that language. So really, for me, I mean, the reason why I wanted to learn, learn these languages
00:03:31.260 | to begin with is for that very reason, I want to know exactly what God said, and to interpret it as
00:03:37.860 | faithfully as I can, so that I can live it out as best I can. So really, it is a matter of, you know,
00:03:45.720 | you can only go so far if you don't know the original languages and culture of the Bible.
00:03:52.640 | Yeah, I am not going to even pretend to be fluent in Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. But I will say that
00:04:01.160 | somewhere around high school, I got saved in early middle school, somewhere around high school, I hit
00:04:07.760 | that wall where I learned that I wanted to understand more than English could give me of my Bible. And so I
00:04:15.380 | started digging into things, into different websites and resources. And, you know, there are a million
00:04:20.560 | out there, so I don't need to name which ones I like best. But so that I could see the original
00:04:26.220 | language so that I could study to figure out what each individual word meant, because there was confusion
00:04:32.000 | from either well-meaning people who were teaching me or just myself seeing the same word used in eight
00:04:39.280 | different passages and wondering to myself, how can this one word actually mean what I know it to mean in
00:04:44.640 | English in all of these different passages? And so even if you don't consider yourself to be a scholar,
00:04:52.820 | if you want to hear from the Lord and have at least some sense of clarity about what you're reading,
00:04:59.880 | those skills are useful. And so when I heard about this, I said, give me that interview. I want to talk
00:05:06.420 | about this because I know just a little bit that I've learned has changed my life. And so I'm really
00:05:13.460 | curious to hear, you know, you said that you went to Israel to study. What did studying in Israel do
00:05:21.760 | for your faith and your understanding of the word of God?
00:05:25.440 | Yeah, I mean, I could, you know, talk all day about what it changed in my, you know, understanding. I mean,
00:05:33.120 | it's just completely different. I mean, honestly, though, I would say my just perspective and approach is
00:05:39.740 | different. Just having been there, having seen, you know, the places where Jesus walked, and the just being in,
00:05:49.820 | like, living in that culture for for so long, I was there for five years, just shaped the way I
00:05:56.940 | approached the text. And so it's not even like, you know, I mean, I could point to specific examples and
00:06:02.160 | specific passages. But I just approach everything completely differently now. And, and to me, you know,
00:06:09.440 | and this is what I kind of what I tell people about reading the Bible in the original languages versus
00:06:13.400 | reading it in a translation. You know, it's kind of like watching a movie in black and white versus color.
00:06:19.360 | It's, it's, it's not as if like, um, the story changes, but your entire experience of, um, the, the film
00:06:28.160 | changes. Um, and so that, that's kind of what I would say is, um, you get such a richer
00:06:34.160 | understanding, um, and experience of God's word by reading it in the originals. Um, and, and by exploring the
00:06:43.440 | culture as well, um, which is, you know, what you get to do in, in Israel itself.
00:06:47.160 | Can you give us a specific example of a passage that might seem to read one way, but then if you
00:06:54.420 | know what the language means, and then if you know the cultural context, there's a much deeper
00:06:59.660 | interpretation or connotation for that, for that passage?
00:07:04.400 | Yeah. Oh, I mean, I, I could go many different passages. I mean, one, um, you know, kind of well-known
00:07:13.200 | known one is, um, Deuteronomy 6, 4, which is called the Shema in, in Israel. Um, it's probably the most
00:07:20.460 | famous verse in, uh, the old Testament here, Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one is, um, how it's
00:07:27.940 | translated most of the time. But if you look at some translations, um, there is some debate about the
00:07:35.180 | last word. Sometimes you'll see like, um, here, here, Oh, Israel, the Lord, our God. Um, the Lord
00:07:41.600 | is our God, the Lord alone. And, and this is where, um, you know, if you don't know Hebrew, it's hard to
00:07:47.980 | know like which one's right. Right. Um, what, what's really being said here? Um, if you look at, so, so
00:07:56.600 | my world also, I mean, I, you know, I present at like scholarly conferences and I'm, I'm very much a
00:08:02.220 | like Bible scholar and in, in, in, in that world. Um, so this is something that, you know, I've done
00:08:08.260 | work on and, and scholars debate because they debate everything. Um, but what I would say is that, um,
00:08:14.200 | I think the best reading of this text is, um, you know, here, Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is
00:08:21.080 | the only one. And so it's not a statement about, you know, monotheism or God's oneness, um, as you might
00:08:28.400 | think of it. Um, but it's a statement of Israel, um, Israel's allegiance to Yahweh as their God
00:08:35.900 | to the exclusion of any other God. And that makes far more sense in, um, the context of Deuteronomy
00:08:41.960 | where they're about to enter into the promised land. Um, and they need to hold to Yahweh as their
00:08:48.860 | one and only God. Um, so you kind of get that in, in the, um, you know, Yahweh is our God,
00:08:56.140 | Yahweh alone translations. Um, again, me as a scholar, I've kind of argued for, um, Yahweh is the
00:09:04.140 | only one as a better reading of, of the Hebrew. Um, and, and so that's, that's the kind of thing
00:09:09.860 | though, you know, what the way you translate that passage affects how you understand it. Um,
00:09:17.320 | and if you, as an English reader, um, see Yahweh is one, you're going to, you're going to understand
00:09:21.680 | it differently than I would, if I were to, if you were to read it as Yahweh is the only one or Yahweh
00:09:26.720 | alone. Um, and so you, you really are in some ways at the mercy of the translators, um, and their
00:09:34.220 | translation philosophy and their theology and all that stuff, which is fine. I mean, again, I think we
00:09:38.720 | need translations. Um, but you don't get to participate in that conversation of like, which
00:09:44.540 | one is the better reading? Um, unless you know something about the Hebrew that underlies it.
00:09:48.420 | I love that word that you just used participating in the conversation, you know, here at classical
00:09:54.440 | conversations, we believe that the parents are the lead learners, but that just means that we're
00:10:00.660 | participating in the conversation of learning that we're continuing to uncover different layers,
00:10:06.660 | whether we're talking about one plus one is two, you know, and the other day, my, my son,
00:10:11.620 | he's three years old and I'm pregnant with the next one, but he came up to me and he said,
00:10:16.320 | one and one is two. And I thought that was so interesting. Cause I always, when I was a kid,
00:10:20.540 | did it this way. Right. But he, he was showing me a different way to think about it because that's
00:10:26.180 | the way that was illustrated in his mind. I know about that simple addition, but participating in the
00:10:31.440 | conversation with him that way, it caused me to see it a slightly different way and want to ask more
00:10:37.940 | questions. Um, and so of course the same would be true of the word of God. And I'm, I'm wondering if
00:10:44.840 | you can help us understand how we could take something like Biblingo and start to use it with
00:10:51.200 | maybe a younger child, an earlier elementary child, you know, is this something that we need to wait
00:10:57.000 | until they're cognitively ready to absorb? Or is this something that we could use at an earlier age
00:11:03.780 | and give them bite-sized pieces? And if so, how could we do that?
00:11:06.320 | Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Um, yeah. So my, I mean, I tell you from my own experience, my,
00:11:12.660 | my four, six and 11 year old, um, all do Biblingo. Um, my four year old, you can see a video of him
00:11:19.440 | on YouTube reading Hebrew. Um, so he, and honestly, I, I chose to teach them Hebrew first. Um, I mean,
00:11:27.600 | because it's harder than Greek, so I'm, I can do both. Um, but, but I wanted to see like, can,
00:11:33.860 | can the four year old learn Hebrew and learn to read it? Um, and he can, and, and, you know,
00:11:39.680 | he was this morning reading a story on his own in Hebrew. Um, and so what, what I would say is, um,
00:11:47.000 | we have to get out of this mindset that these languages are for scholars. Um, these languages
00:11:54.620 | can be learned by anyone. Um, and, and really, you know, it's interesting because in the other Abrahamic
00:12:03.860 | faiths, they, they care deeply about not only their texts, but the language that their text is in.
00:12:10.440 | So, you know, for, uh, Muslims, they will, they will read the Bible in Arabic and it really doesn't
00:12:18.400 | count if you're reading it in a translation, um, for them. I mean, it, part of, part of learning the
00:12:23.180 | Quran is to learn Arabic. Um, the same thing for Jews that they, they are, they're going to learn
00:12:28.420 | Hebrew to read their text. Um, and, and so for us, you know, who have what we believe to be the right
00:12:37.700 | text, right. Um, how much more should we be learning these languages, um, to get at the heart of, of what
00:12:46.220 | these words mean. And, and, and so this is a big part of our mission is to make the biblical languages
00:12:51.380 | easier to learn and more accessible. Um, and so, you know, my four-year-old can do it. I would say anyone
00:12:57.780 | can do it, right. Um, you have to, you have to put in the time, like it's going to take some time. Um,
00:13:02.420 | but absolutely it's accessible, um, for, for people of all ages and, and just like any other language, right?
00:13:08.720 | Like it, it takes, um, you do, you have to, uh, what I tell people basically is that humans are built to learn
00:13:19.380 | languages. They're very, very good at it. Everyone knows a language. Even if you can't speak, you, you
00:13:23.400 | will learn a language. Um, but, but the way we acquire languages, um, can be difficult, especially
00:13:31.720 | if you do it in the wrong way. So if, if you, um, are just trying to figure out like, you know, if this
00:13:38.240 | word is a noun or a verb or an adjective or whatever, um, that's not the same as using the language. So my son
00:13:44.720 | doesn't know, um, what a noun or a verb are, right. Um, but he can read Hebrew. Um, and so if we get back
00:13:51.280 | to, um, sort of the, the way humans are naturally good at learning languages, um, yeah, absolutely.
00:13:59.940 | This, this is applicable for, for anyone of all ages. That's so great. So when I'm hearing you say
00:14:07.280 | the way that humans naturally learn languages, I hear two things. One, I hear immersion because
00:14:14.440 | that's what I've experienced. Um, my mother is bilingual. And so I was telling my husband the
00:14:21.700 | other day, there are still words that come to my mind first in French and I don't speak French often,
00:14:27.940 | but my mind thinks these words first, because when I was a little child, she would just walk around
00:14:32.980 | talking to us in French and she would speak English too, but that's just, I learned it through
00:14:37.000 | immersion. And so you're absolutely right that these languages are accessible because there are
00:14:42.340 | languages. So everyone is, is programmed to communicate and in the countries where they're
00:14:48.760 | still spoken, that's their first language, you know, it wasn't a huge hurdle for them. So the fact
00:14:54.020 | that we sort of put, um, Greek and Hebrew in a specific box and say, it's only for scholars
00:14:59.800 | isn't even quite logical if we think about what we know of the world. Um, but I would love to know
00:15:06.420 | how you've made it easier, as you said, or more accessible. What exactly is that approach that you're
00:15:14.200 | using? Yeah. Yeah. So that's, that's a great question. Basically, um, you know, the reason why
00:15:20.540 | immersion works is because what you're doing is you are connecting, um, words to the world,
00:15:28.280 | right? And you're doing it enough times to where it just enter basically enters into long-term memory.
00:15:34.420 | Um, so that's, that's fundamentally what we have to do is we have to connect the words to the world.
00:15:40.560 | The problem is we don't have that world anymore. Right. Um, and because people don't, um, speak these
00:15:46.860 | languages specifically biblical Greek and Hebrew, which are not the same as modern Greek and Hebrew,
00:15:51.540 | um, we don't have access to connecting that same, you know, thing words to world. Um, and we can't do
00:16:00.760 | it repetitively enough to, to put it into long-term memory. Um, basically we solve those problems by,
00:16:06.100 | um, recreating the world and connecting it to the world. So we have, um, you know, in our app,
00:16:12.860 | we have thousands of, um, images and videos shot in Israel with recreated, um, you know,
00:16:21.060 | first century or 10th century BC, uh, scenes that basically we've described in biblical Hebrew
00:16:30.560 | and Greek. So we are basically teaching you how, um, to learn Hebrew and Greek as close as possible to
00:16:38.360 | how, you know, children would have learned those languages back in the day. Right. They would have
00:16:44.320 | heard their mother say, um, you know, tuto estin poterion. This is a cup. Right. Um, and they would
00:16:51.720 | have seen her hold up a cup and, and we have basically recreated that scene, put the Greek in,
00:16:59.880 | put audio in, put the text in. Um, and so that you basically have that same sort of experience
00:17:05.000 | as a, you know, like I said, first century, um, or 10th century BC, uh, child would have.
00:17:12.320 | That is so cool. So how did you create that? If you don't mind me asking, because it sounds
00:17:19.860 | extremely complicated.
00:17:22.640 | It was a lot of work. So, so I'll say, so I was in Israel, right. Um, and you know,
00:17:29.680 | do my PhD and, um, basically I, I took classes there that were immersion Greek and Hebrew,
00:17:36.360 | ancient Greek and Hebrew classes. So, um, you know, you'd walk into class and you could only speak
00:17:42.560 | in ancient Hebrew and Greek. That was, those were the rules. Um, and so there's this, you know,
00:17:47.600 | weird group of people over there that that's, that's what they do. Um, you know, it, it would,
00:17:51.620 | it would be kind of like, you know, walking into a setting here where, um, you're only allowed to
00:17:56.320 | speak Shakespeare English. Right. Um, so we would think that was very, very weird, but what it does
00:18:00.680 | is it forces you to learn the language for the exact reasons that we've already said. Right. Um,
00:18:06.460 | and so I got to thinking like, okay, um, can we just bring this experience, um, that I'm having
00:18:14.080 | in Israel to everyone, right. Through the technology that we have today. Right. Um,
00:18:20.960 | we can take a, I mean, I, I had the privilege of being in the land. Right. Um, and there's all
00:18:27.840 | these reconstructions, um, of the biblical world in Israel. Um, so I said, yeah, we can just reconstruct,
00:18:35.280 | you know, what, what this scene would have looked like, um, film it and then put the Greek and Hebrew
00:18:41.700 | were on top of it. Um, so that, that was basically the, the idea, um, was just to bring in many ways,
00:18:49.560 | the experience that I had, right. Um, to everyone through, through the use of software.
00:18:54.100 | That is so cool. And I feel like such a great illustration of how we can use technology to
00:19:03.380 | build our faith. You know, the technology is helping you bolstering you, pushing you along,
00:19:08.420 | not keeping you back. Um, and so I love that you've done that and that you've made it accessible
00:19:13.220 | in such a way that a child can use it or an adult can use it. Can you tell me some stories and it could
00:19:19.380 | be stories from your own life with your kids, but of how families are utilizing this on a regular basis,
00:19:25.300 | like what would a routine look like if you wanted to integrate Biblingo into your life?
00:19:29.380 | Yeah. I mean, I can tell you, obviously I know my own routine best, but, but, um, we just do it for,
00:19:35.380 | for 30 minutes a day. So I will, um, you know, it's just, we have a set number of hours that we have to
00:19:42.580 | fill. Um, and you know, the kids will basically, um, do 30 minutes. I have them do, uh, a new lesson,
00:19:50.580 | um, three days of the week and review two days of the week. Um, and they are basically,
00:19:56.500 | you know, can do it on their own. I mean, obviously I can help them if I need to. Um,
00:20:01.540 | and I do sometimes, but, um, you know, it, it is the, I mean, I've kind of tried to build it to where
00:20:09.460 | you don't need help, right? I mean, it's, it's all there. Um, I will help them read stories. So,
00:20:15.140 | uh, you know, I, like I said, my, my four year old can read Hebrew stories. Um, I will often,
00:20:22.260 | you know, sit with them and read through the story with them, make sure they understand it,
00:20:27.220 | um, help them wherever they need it and then have them go back and do it on their own.
00:20:32.500 | But honestly, it is really as simple as, um, going through the program, um, consistently
00:20:39.300 | and, um, you know, really just letting, letting the, you know, the kind of the software do the work,
00:20:46.980 | right? I mean, we've laid out what you need to do. You just do the next thing we tell you to do,
00:20:51.860 | and you should learn the language. Um, the only thing I would say, you know, sort of my advice,
00:20:56.580 | if someone were to say, Hey, I want to adopt this. Um, I would say you can't go to
00:21:02.340 | slow. Um, so especially for kids, right. Um, go over it again and, and it's totally okay. Um,
00:21:09.620 | to just go slowly. Um, it's, it's a long game, especially, you know, for kids, like I wish my
00:21:16.260 | parents, you know, would have taught me Greek and Hebrew growing up. Um, but you've got time,
00:21:20.340 | you know? Um, and, and so I would say, you know, give them confidence that, that they can do it. Um,
00:21:27.620 | put them at a level where they can succeed and, um, and just keep at it. And then
00:21:32.180 | you know, before you know it, your kids really will be reading in these languages.
00:21:36.660 | Yeah. You're reminding me a lot about what our founder Lee Bortons has written regarding
00:21:44.260 | literacy. She says, you know, in order to build your literacy, you need to read above your reading
00:21:50.900 | level. You need to read on your reading level and you need to read below it actually on a regular
00:21:55.540 | basis. And I think sometimes when we consider ourselves to be literate or we think that we've
00:22:00.900 | arrived because we're a certain age, we forget what you just said, that you really can't go
00:22:05.700 | too slow and you don't need to leave behind the basics just to grow. Sometimes you need to,
00:22:11.220 | to slow it down a lot and, and really focus on things that, you know, just so you can increase
00:22:15.540 | your speed and that will help you to gain traction, um, in a new language. And so I love that you added
00:22:23.060 | that and have you seen a connection in your children between learning Hebrew and their other academics?
00:22:33.300 | That's interesting. Um, I, I was thinking this morning, you know, like Hebrew is probably the,
00:22:41.140 | the hardest thing. Well, honestly, for my four, six and 11 year old, um, who are all doing it,
00:22:47.540 | uh, it, it is, it's, it's, it's the hardest in the sense that none of them have any sort of advantage
00:22:53.860 | over the other. Right. And they're all just like totally new to it. Um, and, and so what I've seen,
00:23:00.260 | um, you know, is like, it forces you, it forces them to think differently, even about like the world,
00:23:09.140 | because they're thinking, I mean, to think in two different languages, um, is to think about the
00:23:14.900 | world differently. It just is like, there's just, um, some ways in which like your description of the
00:23:22.980 | world in another language is not the same. Um, and so honestly, I, I, um, I'm very curious myself to
00:23:31.300 | see what kind of fruit that bears in the future of like their worldview. Um, we're already sort of
00:23:38.980 | eclectic in terms of, um, you know, our, our worldviews in our house, my, my two older daughters
00:23:44.100 | are adopted. Um, and so they, we adopted them three years ago from Liberia. Um, and, uh, and my son,
00:23:50.500 | Emmett, who's four, um, was born in Israel. Um, so we have, you know, a lot of different influences,
00:23:56.500 | but, um, but yeah, I, I, I think absolutely, I can already see, you know, um, their ability to describe
00:24:03.460 | the world differently in Hebrew, um, affects, you know, their, their perspective on, on how the world,
00:24:10.180 | uh, is viewed. That is fascinating. I would love for you to report back on that.
00:24:16.340 | Yeah. Especially as your older ones make it into their teen years, you know, and they start
00:24:22.440 | just crossing some of those different cognitive hurdles. I'd be, I'd be really interested to hear
00:24:27.560 | that. A common objection that I've heard to teaching young children different languages is
00:24:33.860 | that they think if I teach, you know, my three-year-old, my four-year-old to speak Spanish,
00:24:39.100 | for example, isn't that going to mess up their ability to articulate English and to process English?
00:24:45.740 | Am I going to slow them down? What would you say to someone who's concerned that they're going to
00:24:50.860 | confuse their child by introducing a language that they maybe aren't hearing on a regular basis
00:24:56.520 | too early? Yeah. So I, I think, well, first of all, my background is in, is in linguistics. So
00:25:04.000 | there's, this is just an empirical question, right? Like there's, there's been studies on it. Um,
00:25:10.060 | and, and if I'm remembering the studies correctly, um, there, there is a sort of lag. So like if you,
00:25:18.200 | um, if you are teaching two different languages at the same time, um, you know, there is a period in which
00:25:25.560 | your, uh, student will be a little bit behind others who are only learning one language. Um,
00:25:31.760 | but by the time you get to high school, it's, it has reversed where the student who has, um,
00:25:38.940 | learned two languages is ahead on both. Um, and so, I mean, honestly, there's, you know, it's well,
00:25:45.900 | well known that there are a lot of cognitive benefits, um, to learning a second language. So what I would say
00:25:51.420 | is, you know, even if it's Spanish, right, whatever, whatever language it is, um, you know, you, you are
00:25:57.740 | absolutely going to be doing your kids a, you know, favor, um, by forcing them to learn a new language,
00:26:03.660 | um, in terms of their, you know, uh, I don't know, academic prowess, right? Or, or, or how well they're
00:26:11.540 | going to, how well they're going to, you know, do academically. Um, absolutely. There's, I, I think,
00:26:16.960 | I think, you know, that's not an argument, um, rooted in data, right? Um, I think the data would
00:26:24.860 | suggest the opposite, but there is that lag. I mean, there, I mean, I, that, that, I think that's
00:26:28.920 | real. Um, I can say again for my, honestly, I, I wasn't planning on having my, um, four-year-old
00:26:37.060 | Emmett learn to read Hebrew. I was going to have him just like learn to speak it first because that's
00:26:41.900 | how we normally do it in our, um, in our first language. Um, but he, he learned to, to read
00:26:49.040 | English and I said, oh, okay, well, Hebrew is easier to read than English. So you can do this just
00:26:53.920 | fine. Um, and he did. So I, I, I, I do think that if you just, you know, stick with it, um,
00:27:00.440 | you're probably going to be fine in, in both categories anyway.
00:27:03.440 | Yeah, that's great. When I'm hearing you say that it makes me wish that I could have studied my young
00:27:09.660 | brain and then maybe my teen brain, because I, I remember thinking I have a lot of very early
00:27:15.560 | memories down to like maybe one and a half, but I didn't speak for a while. And when I started
00:27:21.940 | speaking, I remember the day because my mom cried, she was standing in the kitchen. She said,
00:27:26.640 | oh my goodness. And I was speaking in full sentences. And I wonder as the third child,
00:27:31.060 | if part of it was because our house was kind of bilingual and there were just so many different
00:27:35.300 | things going on in my mind that I didn't really need to speak. I was again, the third child,
00:27:39.800 | the first girl, my brothers were saying everything I needed said. And so I just kind of listened,
00:27:43.560 | but I know that also what you just said was true for me in high school that I had an easy time
00:27:50.440 | picking up different languages. And it just wasn't, it wasn't as challenging as it was for my peers.
00:27:56.580 | And I wonder if it's that the data that you just described, but something that you've said at least
00:28:02.840 | twice in this conversation so far is that Hebrew is easier to learn than blank. And I think people
00:28:10.060 | would be very surprised to hear that. For example, you just said Hebrew is easier to read than English.
00:28:15.080 | that she said it's easier to learn than Greek. Why are you saying that? What makes that true?
00:28:20.580 | Yeah. So just to clarify, I don't know if I said that Hebrew is easier than Greek. I would say that
00:28:25.800 | Greek is easier than Hebrew, at least when children started. But I would say that both are way easier
00:28:33.340 | than English in terms of reading. So there's like a, you know, fundamental problem with the English
00:28:41.840 | spelling system. Basically we, the technical term is we have a lot of graphemes per morphemes,
00:28:51.060 | which basically means that, or sorry, per phonemes, which basically means that the symbols we see on the
00:28:58.040 | page. Um, there's a many to many correspondence, um, between, you know, an A for example, and the sound
00:29:04.180 | that it might make. Um, and so that, that makes it very, very hard. Right. Um, so, you know, again,
00:29:10.380 | I'm, I read with Emmett this morning, um, who's four in, in English. Um, and you know, I, a word like
00:29:21.500 | again, right. Where, um, the, uh, the A initially in again makes a, uh, um, versus apple, right. Makes
00:29:32.560 | ah. So he has to know that in again, it's a, and in apple it's ah. And, and so he, you know, sees again,
00:29:42.080 | and he says, ah, again, right. Uh, which is totally understandable, even though we don't normally say
00:29:47.360 | that, um, in Greek and Hebrew, both there is a, um, basically a one-to-one correspondence. I mean,
00:29:54.960 | it's like, uh, there's like a few exceptions, but it's so much closer. So when you see a certain
00:30:00.060 | letter, you're always going to say a certain sound. Um, and that just makes it way, way easier to,
00:30:06.640 | to learn to read. Um, so, so that, that, and that really is the struggle for especially young readers,
00:30:12.860 | right. Is they have to figure out in English, all of these different rules, um, that are,
00:30:18.220 | that are very, very difficult. They can speak, you know, English just fine. Um, but once they get that
00:30:25.200 | into the, into, um, text, it's very hard. Uh, whereas with Greek and Hebrew, you know, if you can sound out
00:30:32.320 | the word, um, every single time, all you have to do is learn, um, you know, basically what that,
00:30:39.980 | what that sound, what those sounds mean, right. Um, what those sounds mean and what,
00:30:43.920 | what word is behind those sounds. And then, you know, you can, you can just read much, much faster.
00:30:49.620 | Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I am currently in a season where I'm holding up the flashcard,
00:30:56.900 | telling him, ah, Apple knowing and having to quiet my mind,
00:31:01.640 | as I say, but I know you'll be frustrated with me. So I'm going to say a Apple to you and give
00:31:12.200 | this card to you and have you make a face at me. Um, and we'll just move on because we got to get
00:31:17.340 | these letter sounds down. Um, and so I think that might be a really comforting and encouraging thing
00:31:22.240 | for a person because of, of course, in our, in our Western context, specifically in America,
00:31:28.360 | it is a little bit more rare to learn Hebrew and Greek. Most people here learn Spanish or maybe
00:31:35.740 | French or, or maybe even German, which is pretty similar to English in some regards. Um, and so I
00:31:43.420 | think just dissipating some of those thoughts that make you think, okay, this one's going to be so
00:31:48.700 | much more difficult than the rest. And even though I love the Lord and I want to be able to read my
00:31:52.920 | Bible, I just don't know where my entry point would be, um, could be really helpful and encouraging for
00:31:59.020 | parents. Something that you didn't mention that I'm wondering about as we're sort of rounding the bend
00:32:04.300 | on this conversation is the direction of reading. Um, I'm curious to know if that also makes Hebrew a
00:32:14.400 | slightly softer entry point. Like, is it true that people do prefer to read one direction or over
00:32:23.040 | another and that the brain is designed a specific way or is that a myth? Yeah, that's an interesting
00:32:28.480 | question. There, there has been, um, you know, work on, uh, the, basically the brains of people who are
00:32:36.160 | reading Hebrew versus reading in English. Um, one reason being that, um, in Hebrew you read right to
00:32:42.440 | left. Um, I, I would say that if you, um, you know, if you learn to read English first and which is left
00:32:49.340 | to right, you will have an easier time with other languages that are left to right. Um, so that's one
00:32:55.160 | reason why I would say that Greek is an, is like a smoother entry point. There's also a lot, like in
00:33:00.160 | Greek, there's a lot of, um, carryover between the letters in, uh, English. So, you know, for example,
00:33:06.420 | I, we, um, are regularly at homeschool conferences and we were at the teach them diligently conferences
00:33:12.120 | past, uh, weekend. And, um, you know, basically at the conference, I, I have this, um, our, this,
00:33:20.340 | well, the app pulled up and I can teach people to read, you know, a Greek word in 20 seconds,
00:33:27.120 | right. It's, it's, it's technon. Um, and I could do the same in Hebrew, but like if I typed out
00:33:35.120 | technon for you in, uh, in Greek, you could probably be fine. Um, you mean you, you, even if you didn't
00:33:42.960 | know, um, any Greek, like you would, that you, you would guess something close to that. Whereas in
00:33:48.120 | Hebrew, um, the vowels are written, um, underneath and above letters, the consonants. Um, so that's
00:33:54.460 | different. You're obviously reading from right to left and there's, there's way less carryover
00:33:58.920 | between, um, you know, what the, what the letters look like in Hebrew versus what they look like in
00:34:05.100 | English. Um, so all that to say, um, both are, are very possible. And like I said, there, there's
00:34:13.500 | still way easier than English. Um, I, I would say that if you, if you are wanting, if you say,
00:34:20.460 | give me the easier language first, um, at least to start out with, uh, I would say it's,
00:34:25.780 | it's Greek. Um, you can start to read Greek very, very quickly. Um, but both are, are possible for
00:34:32.960 | sure. Yeah. And both are useful. Yes. Um, and I want to maybe in our conversation here, because
00:34:40.300 | more than believing that something is easy or accessible, I think if you believe that it is
00:34:46.300 | important, um, you'll, you'll work through a lot of hurdles you may not have ordinarily, um,
00:34:54.000 | gone through. And I, I know that you told me you originally started this because you wanted to help
00:35:01.440 | people to translate the word of God. And then you identified, Hey, this isn't just for scholars,
00:35:06.940 | and this isn't just for translation. This is for everyone. Can you talk to me a little bit about
00:35:12.620 | the value of knowing God's word and preserving it in the English language, in the English language?
00:35:21.020 | Huh? That's not what we're discussing. Knowing it and preserving it in the original language.
00:35:27.780 | Yeah. So, I mean, I would say, um, you know, it, it, it really is the foundation of the gospel. You
00:35:38.040 | know, the, the, um, Greek and Hebrew just happen to be the languages. I mean, they're not special
00:35:43.600 | languages, right? They just happen to be the languages, um, that God has, you know, spoken in. And,
00:35:52.460 | um, you know, I think Martin Luther talks about, uh, how, you know, one of the things that sparked the
00:36:00.240 | reformation was the study of the Bible in the original languages. Um, you had, um, more access
00:36:07.940 | to the, um, to the Greek and Hebrew Bibles, um, than ever before, right around that time. And people
00:36:17.000 | started reading it for themselves. Um, and, and that shaped, you know, um, you know, a lot of,
00:36:24.140 | um, I mean, history, right. Um, and again, there, I think there's, you know, um, certain pros and cons
00:36:33.240 | that came from, from the, uh, reformation, but, but at the end of the day, um, people went back to these
00:36:41.920 | texts and, um, they looked at it with fresh eyes and they, they said, how, how do we understand
00:36:49.600 | this and how do we obey this? Um, and ultimately, uh, you know, what you said, right. Is it, it's
00:36:56.400 | important. Uh, my, my point is that that's worth doing, right. Um, it's, it's hard. It's not that hard.
00:37:03.080 | Right. And today we have, um, so many resources out there to learn these languages and we want it to
00:37:10.260 | be more accessible and easier for everyone so that, you know, you can say, Hey, um, this is really
00:37:17.160 | important. And now I know what to do, how to go about learning these languages. Um, so that ultimately
00:37:23.400 | I can read the text more faithfully and live my life more faithfully. Um, again, it's not to say
00:37:29.320 | that you can't as a, as an English speaker. Um, but you know, you, you will never get to the depth
00:37:36.020 | that you can if you know these languages. Um, so that's, that's really what, what we're about is,
00:37:41.760 | you know, these are the most important texts ever written. Um, why not take the time, learn the
00:37:48.740 | languages, um, and encounter God in a new way. Yeah. And I mean, there's so, there are so many
00:37:57.440 | things that we could talk about guys. I want you to go and research if you don't know about, you know,
00:38:03.520 | just how, how important the Bible, the actual text of the Bible is for all other historians in all of
00:38:12.300 | time. I mean, when you compare what we have in these original source texts to what we have of
00:38:18.980 | even Shakespeare or any other book that we teach in quote school, um, it's astounding what the Lord
00:38:27.020 | has done to preserve his word. And so for us to, to not want to continue to make that happen, um,
00:38:37.460 | kind of makes you want to pause and think twice. So for people who are saying, okay, I'm in, I get
00:38:43.300 | it. It's important. I want to do it too. Uh, where should they go? I know you have a podcast. There's
00:38:48.500 | a website. Give us the whole rundown for how we can get started with Biblingo. Yeah. I mean,
00:38:53.360 | so the easiest thing honestly, um, is to go to our website, biblingo.org. Um, you can, um, there is a
00:38:59.480 | homeschool page there that you can look at, uh, all the homeschool plans on. Um, we also do have a
00:39:04.520 | partnership with CC. So you can find us on the curriculum partners, I think, um, on, on CC's
00:39:11.600 | website. Um, but biblingo.org, you can sign up for, for a free trial 10 days and just try it out. Um,
00:39:19.200 | like I said, you know, my encouragement would just be to, um, just be consistent, keep going. Um,
00:39:25.360 | the, the, our podcast is honestly very, very, um, scholarly. We talk about all kinds of, uh, you know,
00:39:31.840 | um, very high level scholarly things. Um, it's called the biblical languages podcast. So if you're,
00:39:37.400 | if you're, um, you know, kids are in high school and they really are digging it, uh, they can,
00:39:44.320 | they can do that. Um, but I would say, you know, more than that is, is just, um, trying it out for
00:39:51.300 | yourself. Um, we do have a YouTube channel too, that we post more popular level stuff on. Um, so that'd
00:39:55.560 | be another place to, to check us out on. Um, but, but really, um, I, more than any of that,
00:40:02.100 | um, if, if you can just, um, try it and, and keep going, I think you will see the dividends,
00:40:10.180 | um, as you, you know, progress through the app.
00:40:13.740 | I love it. Try it and keep going. You know, don't just try it for a day. Don't just try it for two days,
00:40:20.300 | stay committed and you'll, you'll see the payoff. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for talking to us
00:40:25.600 | about this. Thank you for your investment. Um, and even just the body of Christ to do this and make
00:40:30.360 | this accessible for people is a big deal. So I appreciate it. And I hope that you have a great day.
00:40:35.160 | Thanks. My pleasure. It was great to talk.
00:40:37.060 | you
00:40:37.680 | you
00:40:38.180 | you
00:40:38.680 | you
00:40:39.300 | you
00:40:39.800 | you
00:40:40.300 | you
00:40:40.800 | Thank you.