[Faith-talk] Learning Hebrew

[Drenth, Joe]

Hello,

I am very happy to have just found out about the Bartimaeus Alliance of
the Blind (http://bartimaeus.us), and through it the HebrewVisions
(http://www.hebrewvisions.org) and the Jewish Braille Institute
(http://www.jbilibrary.org) which I never knew existed.  I've been
looking for resources like these for a while, since I am very interested
in Bible study, especially using original texts.

Before I can make full use of those resources, though, I need to learn
the original languages better, and those educational materials are hard
to find, too, in an accessible format.  I have a little bit of usable
vision and I've tried to use my eyes and a CCTV at about 16x
magnification, but it is so painstaking and straining that I've deemed
it impractical if I really want to learn Biblical Greek and Hebrew.

Please recommend resources you've used for learning these languages,
including such things as descriptions of the characters, transliteration
charts, pronunciation guides, and grammatical rules.

I have also not been able to find a talking book on learning either
Greek or Hebrew, so if anyone knows where I could find one, please let
me know.

I am strongly considering a second or side career that would require
getting a graduate degree in Biblical studies, and to do so would most
likely require classes in both Greek and Hebrew.  Since I know there
must be blind ministers out there (although I don't know any
personally), please let me know how you made it through those classes --
If you used a human reader, though, you do not need to reply, since I
already know that is an option (just an option that does not work for me
right now if I try to study at home alone).

Thank you very much!
Joe Drenth
joe.drenth at fmcti.com