ABOUT THE COURSE
The Bible is full of idioms and expressions, but we don’t always think about the origins of those phrases. Take a look at these Bible idioms with Tony and see how your life can change when you start to understand the Jewish Aramaic culture of the first century. re several major ways students benefit from studying the idioms of the Bible. 1. Recovering the Original Semitic Meaning Many biblical phrases are literal translations of Semitic idioms. Without knowing the idiom, readers interpret them incorrectly. Example: “Good eye / evil eye” Hebrew: ʿayin ṭovah / ʿayin raʿah In The Bible this does not describe eyesight. It is an idiom about generosity vs. stinginess. Example passage: Gospel of Matthew 20:15 “Is your eye evil because I am good?” Semitic meaning: “Are you jealous or stingy because I am generous?” Students learn to read the text through the cultural-linguistic lens of the ancient Near East, rather than modern Western literalism. 2. Understanding the Thought World of the Bible Idioms reflect the conceptual world of a culture. Example: “Hardened heart” Appears repeatedly in Book of Exodus. In modern English this sounds emotional. But in Hebrew anthropology the heart (לב / leb) is the center of decision and intellect. So the idiom means: stubborn decision refusal to change one's will Students therefore discover ancient cognitive anthropology embedded in the language. 3. Correcting Misinterpretations Many doctrinal misunderstandings come from reading idioms literally. Example: “Hate father and mother” From Gospel of Luke 14:26. In Semitic idiom, “hate” often means: to love less, to prefer something else more This is the same idiom seen in Book of Genesis 29:31 regarding Leah. A course on biblical idioms allows students to move from translation-level reading to conceptual-level understanding of Scripture. They begin to recognize the Semitic patterns of thought encoded in language, which dramatically enriches interpretation.