What is Biblingo Live?
Biblingo Live provides you with a strong foundation for a lifetime of biblical language learning.
What is that foundation? The ability to read the biblical text with comprehension, fluency, and delight.
Comprehension is more than piecing together a rough translation. It’s the ability to actually process the Greek and Hebrew and intuitively grasp the core meaning, argument structure, key emphases, literary devices, and so much more.
Fluency is how quickly and naturally you’re able to process the language. We want you to not only read and comprehend, but also to increase how quickly and naturally you do that. The result is the ability to get lost in the text so much that you not only understand it - you’re moved by it.
Delight flows naturally from comprehension and fluency. If you constantly struggle through a text, you’ll mostly experience frustration. But if you can read the text like you read your favorite novel or watch your favorite movie, then you’ll experience delight, curiosity, conviction, joy, sorrow, fear - whatever the text is intended to make you feel!
With this firm foundation in place, we can help you build upon it. Broaden your reading, enhance your preaching, sharpen your exegesis, learn the art of translation, dive deeper into linguistics, and more!
What our students are saying
Biblingo is a delightful and intuitive way to learn (or relearn!) the biblical languages. While Biblingo is an excellent program for beginners, it's a great way for those who have had some Greek and Hebrew and want to refresh or relearn; Biblingo helps restore the joy of studying the Bible in the original languages! (And, Travis Wright is an amazing human being. He's the Chuck Norris of Greek and Hebrew linguists!)
I have some previous experience studying the two languages via the traditional grammar translation method (memorizing paradigms and grammar rules, etc.), but the short term knowledge fell out of my brain without constant review. Biblingo uses many of the latest second language acquisition approaches to get the languages sown deep in the brain for long term retention. I'm still at the beginning of my journey toward the goal, but Biblingo and Biblingo Live help me stay consistent and disciplined with tasks, goals, and fellow students and Instructors keeping each other accountable.
It's been like a real climb up Mt Arbel so far - steep but utterly worth it!
How it works
Learner Path
The Learner Path is a series of 3 courses for each language. Each course is 15 weeks and covers about a "semester's worth" of material. The full 3-course series can be completed in a year or less!
Learner courses follow The Biblingo Method, based on the latest research in second-language acquisition, to help you learn, retain, and develop fluency with the languages. This is the foundation of enjoying Greek and Hebrew!
Reader Path
The Reader Path is all about diving into Greek and Hebrew texts. Once you've developed reading fluency in the Learner Path (or elsewhere), you want to read as broadly and deeply as you can.
Reader courses focus on reading texts with comprehension and fluency, and reflecting on the core meaning, the argument flow, key emphases, literary devices, and more. We offer courses covering books of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, as well as extra-biblical texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Workshops
Biblingo Live Workshops can be taken during, after, or independently from the Learner and Reader paths. Workshops help you broaden and apply your biblical language skills by diving deeper into exegesis, linguistics, and more!
Each workshop is 6-8 weeks and culminates with a tangible result. Work with a Greek or Hebrew text to produce a sermon, an exegetical commentary, a semantic analysis, or a translation.
Travis Wright, Director
David Smiley, Lead Instructor
Dave Smiley is an accomplished Hebraist and programmer from the University of Notre Dame with three degrees in biblical studies and coursework in over seven ancient languages. His research focuses on using machine learning for biblical Hebrew. He loves spending time with his wife on the beaches of Boston’s north shore and cheering for Tottenham Hotspur.
