To be admitted to the Licentiate program a candidate must ei‧ther pass the qualifying examinations in Greek and Hebrew (see pag. 28) or successfully complete both semesters of the introductory courses in those languages offered by instructors of the Pon‧tifical Biblical Institute. The purpose of the Introductory Hebrew and Greek is to prepare the student to take Greek A-B and Hebrew A-B-C and exegesis courses in New and Old Testa‧ment at the Biblical Institute.

The specific goals of the Hebrew course are as follows:

1.  Mastery of the basic morphology of OT Hebrew.

2.  Command of a fundamental vocabulary.

3.  Knowledge of the more important points of syntax.

4.  Ability to translate simple exercises into Hebrew, and more com‧pli‧cated exercises from Hebrew.

5.  Facility in reading Hebrew out loud.

6.  Familiarity with Hebrew in transliteration.

These specific goals are designed to result in the ability to read and un‧derstand simple narrative texts from the Hebrew Old Tes‧tament.

Course program:

Hebrew I-II (1 st sem.) : Lessons 1-42 from T. Lambdin’s grammar.

Hebrew III-IV (2 nd sem.) : Lessons 43-52 from T. Lambdin’s grammar and the reading of the Book of Judges (except chapter 5).

The final examination of Hebrew III-IV will include the final part of the grammar lessons, translation of a text from the Book of Judges without the use of a dictionary and translation of a text of prose narrative from another Old Testament book with the use of a dictionary.

Besides the daily classes, the students must attend a session with the professor to verify their progress in the course. Duration and frequency of these sessions will be determined for each student by the professor.

Exams and calendar

The introductory courses are yearlong, although for administrative reasons they are divided into two semesters. Thus it is not possible to take only a part of the courses in separate years.

For each of the introductory courses there are two official examinations: one at the end of the first semester and one at the end of the second semester (there are also several smaller tests in the course of the semester). If a student does not pass the first semester examination he or she may enroll in the second semester course but must repeat the first semester examination during the session immediately following before taking the second semester examination. The examination calendar will provide for this possibility. In any event, both examinations must be taken by the October session at the latest.

If a student fails to pass an examination twice, it is possible, with the Dean’s permission, to take the qualifying examination (cf. supra , pp. 28ff).

Those who pass the examinations in only one of the lan‧guages must pass the other within 18 months.

Classes meet five times a week (Thursday excluded). Please note that the introductory courses do not always follow the calen‧dar of the regular licentiate courses. A schedule of the classes and examinations will be provided at the beginning of the course.

Class preparation is always required. Two or three hours of prepa‧ration for each Greek class, and three or four for each He‧brew class are a customary minimum needed to profit from the course. It is therefore not advisable that students ta‧king both introductory Greek and Hebrew enroll in any other course.

Students from out‧side the Institute are welcome to enroll in the course but only on condition that they adapt themselves to the aim of the course in the context of the Biblical Institute. Such stu‧dents are required to submit their academic programs to the professor of the course at the begin‧ning of the academic year. Only with his ap‧proval will the student be allowed to register for the courses.

Observations for the first class

It would be useful for the students who have not previously studied Greek or Hebrew to learn the Greek and Hebrew alpha‧bets before the course begins and acquire the ability to write and read the letters.

N.B.: In order to take part in the Introductory Greek and Hebrew it is necessary to have a good working knowledge of either Ita‧lian or English.