Learning Arabic

…and above all Latin, Greek, and Hebrew

http://triablogue.blogspot.nl/2015_04_26_archive.html

Models for Study in the Era of the Reformation:

Andreas Hyperius’ massive De theologo, seu de ratione studii theologiae carries on this model for theological study in vast detail. Hyperius understood theological study as a carefully constructed discipline but also as a spiritual or pious exercise, not merely a form of knowing or scientia, but also a wisdom, sapientia.

Study ought to be grounded in the recognition that “the fear of God is the beginning of knowledge (scientia)” (Prov. 1:7) and the student should “prepare [his] soul for the diligent reading of sacred letters” through prayer for personal humility and spiritual illumination. This piety is to be the foundation for a rigorous course of study.

Hyperius’ catalogue of the kinds of study “necessary” to theological training is daunting: grammar, logic, and rhetoric (the trivium), arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (the quadrivium), philosophy, physics, ethics, politics, oeconomics, metaphysics, history, architecture, and agriculture, and above all Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

In theology itself, he distinguishes a series of subdisciplines: Scripture and its interpretation, doctrine as gathered in the loci communes, and practice as identified in the history and governance of the church, its polity, worship, and preaching.

Comment: Finally. Someone who understands things. Now study your Arabic, people…

 

 

Terror Experts

http://www.loonwatch.com/2015/03/clarion-project-fake-terror-expert-ryan-mauro-refuted-by-chicago-area-police/

Trimmercastle42 mindy1 • 19 hours ago

Hell, you don’t need to know a word of Arabic to be considered a “Terror Expert”, just make up some credentials and degrees and your good to go.

Comment: Exactly. Without knowledge of Arabic, everything is a folly. Arabic (and Chinese) are necessary in the 21th century.

Islamophobia and Islamism

DEN HAAG-TWEEDE KAMER-VRAGENUURTJETayyip_Erdoğan

Both the rise of Islamophobia and the rise of Islamism have the same source: non-Muslims not knowing Arabic. If most non-Muslims would know Arabic, like most non-Muslims do know English, non-Muslims would be able to sort out the threatening Muslims(i.e. Islamists) from the non-threatening Muslims. Also, if most non-Muslims would have known Arabic, it would have been very hard for Islamists to take power. For obvious reasons, defeating or even exterminating ALL Muslims would make knowing Arabic even more necessary. So ALL people will have to learn Arabic anyway.

Note: Geert Wilders and Erdoğan agree that moderate Islam does not exist.

Why you SHOULDN’T learn Arabic…

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda

Learning Arabic makes you conversant in the language of the copycats and followers.

No important world decisions are made in the Arabic language.

you think learning Arabic will help you to make money by selling things? All Arabic-speakers who have serious money, learn English in primary school.

Want to pick up the hottie Gulf Air stewardesses? Learn Tagalog.

Want to speak to a Bahraini cop in his native tongue? Learn Urdu.

You think speaking Arabic will get you a discount on a shipload of hydrocarbons? Please stand in line behind the Indonesians & the Bangladeshis who couldn’t get a discount despite being Muslims.

Comment: Tagalog and Urdu could indeed be very useful in the Gulf Countries. And what about Chechen?