This course introduces the language of the ancient Babylonians, also known as Akkadian, a Semitic language and lingua franca spoken and written in Mesopotamia from circa 2250 to 50 BCE, one of the longest tenures for a language. Participants have the grammar of the Old Babylonian period (ca. 19th to 16th BCE) explained and begin to acquire a facility to read texts in the cuneiform script.
This course opens the door to accessing historical source documents and their language directly. Students see what and how an ancient people from the milieu of ancient Israel wrote, making it possible to compare with authority the culture of the Babylonians with the Old Testament.
Access to the textual and linguistic materials of the ancient Babylonians gives students a unique appreciation for the place of ancient Israel in the pagan world in which Israel was immersed. It becomes possible to address questions regarding the ways in which Israel stood apart from such ancient cultures - similar in some ways, different in other, essential ways. The course opens an entirely new world of historical and cultural knowledge for an area often neglected or even unknown in our society today.
This course studies the language of the Babylonians, as background to the Bible, with a continual eye on connections with the Old Testament (e.g., similarities with Biblical Hebrew).
Through learning this ancient language, of one of Israel’s neighbors, new concepts of Israel’s missional role in the ancient Near East emerge for students, which can expand their appreciation of missional aspects of the Old Testament.
The course focuses on the right study of linguistics, in which the concept of context plays a central role in analyzing and interpreting texts such as Akkadian cuneiform tablets. This understanding of the notion of context carries over into the study of culture context.
This language is part of the backgrounds to the Old Testament. Knowing it opens a window into the exploration of a very different culture from our own.
The study of an ancient Semitic language as Akkadian provides students with skills in learning the grammar and language of cognate languages today (Hebrew, Arabic, Ethiopic, etc.). It opens the door to possible application of this skill to related topics today.
Study of this fascinating ancient language is a mind-expanding experience, to whatever distance the student chooses to take his investigations.
