The Art of Biblical Words

About Course

The Art of Biblical Words is a prerequisite course for our Online Bible Institute Graduate programs. Every student applying for our graduate program must take and complete this course.

Many key biblical words are either unfamiliar or have lost their original meaning in our
modern context. Gain the skills you need to understand these words every time you
read, and try out some of the best free tools scholars use to uncover the original
meaning of biblical words.

Even though you will access the sessions through our Online Bible Institute platform, you will watch the sessions and complete the Bible Project requirements on the Bible Project Classroom platform. You must open a free account on the Bible Project Classroom site. They will provide you with a username and password different from the one you have for the Online Bible Institute. The link below will open a new window and allow you to create an account at the Bible Project Classroom.

Sign up for the Bible Project Classroom

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Course Content

Session 1
Even unfamiliar words can help convey meaning, but overly familiar words can potentially obscure meaning. Meaning has an important relationship to words, but there are more factors for communicating meaning that just words. Our modern definitions for words may not match the range of meaning for biblical words written thousands of years ago. Learning to study biblical words is crucial to deepening Bible study.

Session 2
Reading the Bible is a cross-cultural experience. When an author sits down to write, they don’t use a mental dictionary, they use a mental encyclopedia. We must strive to be aware of our own encyclopedia, and guard against imposing our own assumptions and meaning onto the text. Reading well requires that we work to discover the encyclopedia of the biblical authors by investigating the historical, cultural, and textual background of the Bible.