New Life for Old Testament Language Demand for Hebrew Is Fueled by Archeology and Desire to Explore Bible's Roots

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Learning Hebrew is not as tedious as James Madison was led to believe.

As a freshman at the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) in 1769, the soon-to-be Founding Father was told that mastery of ancient languages, such as Latin and Greek, was critical. However, unless he planned on becoming a minister, he could take a pass on Hebrew, as it had become "unhappily unpopular" with students.

About two centuries later, many mainline seminaries came around to the same conclusion - and started bumping the original language of the Old Testament off their required list.

But the language that would not die is on a rebound in places you might not expect. …