In this discussion, Kevin, a neuroscience expert, delves into the intricacies of reading in Greek and Hebrew. He highlights the neurological foundations that impact language acquisition, emphasizing the importance of reading fluency for better comprehension of scripture. Kevin examines cognitive differences between novice and expert readers, urging a deeper engagement with biblical texts over traditional exegesis. He also critiques Bible translations and shares innovative strategies to enhance fluency, including a new mobile app aimed at improving language skills.
Emphasizing reading fluency is critical for learning Greek and Hebrew, as inadequate skills hinder comprehension in biblical studies.
Deep reading integrates complex cognitive processes, balancing lower-level decoding with higher-level meaning-making for greater text understanding.
Utilizing targeted strategies, such as timed exercises and vocabulary repetition, can significantly enhance learners' fluency and comprehension of biblical texts.
Deep dives
The Challenges of Reading Biblical Languages
Many individuals struggle to effectively learn Greek and Hebrew, with statistics showing that only 10% of seminary students use Greek in their ministries, and a mere 1% do the same for Hebrew. This failure often stems from an inadequate focus on reading fluency, leading learners to read in a laborious, disconnected manner where comprehension becomes extremely difficult. It is highlighted that strong reading fluency is crucial for understanding a text, as poor reading skills in a first language can parallel these struggles in biblical languages. By emphasizing the need for better reading fluency instruction, the aim is to improve learners’ comprehension of biblical texts.
Defining Reading and Its Importance
Reading is defined as the complex ability to extract or build meaning from a text, emphasizing that it goes beyond simply recognizing sounds or words. Understanding this definition is vital for comprehending how deep reading contributes to exegesis. The cognitive process involved in reading includes visual perception, orthographic identification, phonological representation, and forming connections to build meaning. These steps are necessary for effective reading in any language, especially for achieving depth in biblical languages.
Neurological Aspects of Deep Reading
Deep reading requires both lower and higher-level cognitive processes, where lower-level processes involve automatic recognition of letters, sounds, and words, while higher-level processes deal with meaning-making and comprehension. Fluent readers develop a semantic network that helps them understand the connections between ideas in a text, allowing for a more coherent interpretation. The contrast between novice and expert reading brains reveals that as one becomes more fluent, more cognitive resources can be allocated towards understanding meaning rather than decoding. This highlights the goal of achieving fluency in order to fully comprehend biblical texts in their original languages.
The Relationship Between Fluency and Exegesis
There is an important distinction between reading for comprehension and performing exegesis; the latter typically involves articulating meanings based on established linguistic interpretations. However, relying heavily on established grammatical categories can sometimes lead to misinterpretations of the text, as seen in various translations of biblical passages. Instead, using deep reading practices allows learners to draw meaningful intuitions directly from the text. This shift emphasizes the importance of reading fluency in accurately determining the original meanings intended by the authors.
Building Fluency in Biblical Texts
The podcast discusses promising strategies to enhance reading fluency in biblical languages through specific practices and tools available in the Biblingo app. These include timed exercises and graded readers that focus on various aspects of reading, such as orthographic representation, lexical retrieval, and reading longer texts. There is a strong emphasis on the need to prioritize vocabulary acquisition and repetition in order to achieve fluency. By incorporating these elements, learners can aim to comprehend biblical texts as effectively as possible, mimicking the intuitive understanding of native speakers.
In this episode, originally recorded as a webinar, Kevin draws on research from the neuroscience of reading and second language acquisition to discuss how to read deeply in Greek and Hebrew. This "deep reading" is compared with a critical analysis of the concept of "exegesis" in biblical studies. The basic outline of this talk is a sneak peek of a section of his forthcoming Greek and Hebrew grammars.
Read the accompanying blog post here: https://biblingo.org/blog/reading-deeply/
As always, this episode is brought to you by Biblingo, the premier solution for learning, maintaining, and enjoying the biblical languages. Visit biblingo.org to learn more and start your 10-day free trial. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast app and leave us a review. You can also follow Biblingo on social media @biblingoapp to discuss the episode with us and other listeners.
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