What Books I'm Studying Next

I have a large, 5-shelf bookcase stuffed with books on all levels, with stacks on top also, most of them about the interpretation of the Bible, the methods of history, and particular New Testament topics. (I also have smaller sections on science and computer programming.) Yet when I thought about which books I should be cracking open next, none of them were quite appropriate, because none of them did a very good job of what should be foundational to a serious study of ancient history.

That foundation is the study of the languages used in the ancient texts.

For this reason, I purchased four books that arrived from Amazon today, which are Teach Yourself Latin, Wheelock's Latin, Teach Yourself Greek, and Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek. With the help of these books and other tools that are online, I will progress beyond the bare basic understanding that comes from familiarity with reading secondary literature based on close reading to the sources and move toward a better understanding that will allow me to make, more rapidly and accurately, my own close reading of those sources.

This is, after all, the same criterion that I have applied to other authors when weighing them as authorities on the interpretation of a text: if they did not have a good grasp of the language, their opinion was of little merit. I should seek the same competencies that I seek in others that I rely upon.