God’s original choice of Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic for communicating His written revelation made those languages the absolute best for that purpose. In His infinite wisdom, He established these ancient languages and recorded His written revelation in them, thus providing to all humankind an authoritative record through which all humans may know both His person and nature, and His perfect design for all that exists. Having created multiple other non-alphabetic languages at the Babel rebellion, God knew that humans would need a permanent and absolute standard for evaluating the validity of future translations and the interpretations derived from them. So, He used certain “holy men”; to record His ancient language texts and provide the needed standard from which humans of all time would be able to discern accurately His unchanging revelation of Himself and His design. The ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic texts of the Scriptures are, then, the foundation upon which all valid Biblical knowledge and understanding rests, and they are the texts to which all valid communication of the content of His revelation must conform.

For this reason, the faculty of SBL is committed to assisting all who desire to learn in developing an accurate understanding of these languages, including all aspects of their grammar and structure, so that they might faithfully and accurately discern what God actually said and accurately apply it to every situation of life. Many resources for Biblical language learning, including some basic lessons in video format, are available at no cost on this website. Formal courses are also available to those who desire to develop their knowledge of these languages.