Here’s what nobody tells you about reading the Bible in English: you’re three steps removed from what was actually written. Your pastor quotes a verse, and you nod along, thinking you get it. But the Hebrew word has four meanings your translation picked just one of. The Greek carries cultural baggage English can’t touch. And suddenly that verse you’ve read a hundred times? It just cracked open and showed you something you never saw before. That’s why people are hunting down teachers who can crack the linguistic code. Folks who spent years learning dead languages so the rest of us don’t have to. These aren’t your average Sunday school teachers. They’re the ones who can tell you why that word appears seventeen times in Leviticus but nowhere else, and why that matters. If you’re done skating on the surface, these seven people will take you underneath.
Hebrew & Greek Language Teachers
1. Dr. Nehemia Gordon
Gordon’s got a PhD from Bar-Ilan University in Jerusalem where he studied something incredibly specific: how medieval Jewish scribes handled God’s name when they needed to erase or correct it in manuscripts. Think about that. He spent years examining parchment, looking at where ink got scraped off, figuring out what an 11th-century copyist believed about which Hebrew letters were too sacred to touch. That’s not theoretical work. That’s crawling through the Cairo Genizah fragments, documents hidden in an Egyptian synagogue for a millennium, and explaining why a single scribal mark changes everything.
He worked on the Dead Sea Scrolls translation team, dealing with fragments so ancient they don’t even have vowel points yet. His Hebrew Voices podcast brings all this manuscript detective work to regular people who’ll never see these documents. Here’s the thing: Gordon grew up speaking Hebrew, which gives him an ear for how the language actually functions beyond just dictionary definitions. When he says your English Bible might have it wrong, he’s usually holding the physical manuscript evidence. His research on how to pronounce God’s name examined over a thousand medieval Hebrew texts. Most scholars work from secondhand sources. Gordon works from the actual parchment.
2. BibleProject (Tim Mackie & Jon Collins)
Mackie earned his PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison studying the manuscript history of Ezekiel through the Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls. Before co-founding BibleProject with Jon Collins, he taught Hebrew Bible at Western Seminary in Portland for years. What makes their animated videos and podcasts click is Mackie’s refusal to dumb things down while somehow making them accessible anyway. They don’t do verse-by-verse commentary. Instead, they trace how a single Hebrew word like “hesed” builds meaning across entire books. How it means one thing in Ruth but something richer by the time you hit Psalms.
Mackie constantly pushes back on reading Greek philosophical categories onto Hebrew thinking. Ancient Israelites didn’t split spirit and matter the way Enlightenment thinkers did, and missing that distinction mangles your interpretation. Their podcast brings in scholars like Carmen Imes for deep conversations that model what wrestling with difficult passages actually looks like instead of pretending everything’s simple. They’ve built a library examining Hebrew poetry structure, how Second Temple Judaism left vocabulary fingerprints all over the New Testament, and why English flattens literary patterns the original authors built on purpose. If you want quick devotional thoughts, go elsewhere. If you want to understand how biblical authors structured their arguments, this is where you start.
3. Rabbi David Fohrman & Aleph Beta
Fohrman’s got a Master’s from Johns Hopkins and spent years as lead editor on the ArtScroll Talmud translation. Then he founded Aleph Beta to teach what he calls close reading of Torah. His method hunts for intertextual echoes, places where the Torah deliberately mirrors earlier passages through unusual vocabulary or grammatical tricks. Why does Genesis use this specific verb when five others would work? Why do these three stories share an uncommon sentence pattern? The answers reveal architecture that exists in Hebrew itself but vanishes in translation. His weekly podcast with Imu Shalev works through texts out loud, pausing mid-thought when something clicks.
They’re doing discovery in real time, which makes you feel like you’re sitting in on an actual study session instead of listening to pre-packaged conclusions. Fohrman wrote books like “The Exodus You Almost Passed Over” and a five-volume series analyzing every weekly Torah reading. His audience ranges from people who’ve been in yeshiva for decades to folks who’ve never conjugated a Hebrew verb, because he explains complexity clearly without faking simplicity. Once you see the word patterns he points out, your English Bible starts feeling incomplete. You realize the architecture was there all along; you just didn’t have the language to see it.
4. Dr. Carmen Joy Imes
Imes teaches Old Testament at Biola University’s Talbot School of Theology. Her PhD dissertation at Wheaton College proved something most people get wrong about the third commandment. Through Hebrew linguistic analysis, she showed “taking God’s name in vain” has almost nothing to do with saying “Oh my God” casually. It’s about bearing Yahweh’s name as representatives, identity language, not a cursing prohibition. That research became “Bearing God’s Name,” which won Christianity Today’s Award of Merit. She produces Torah Tuesday videos every week on YouTube, explaining Hebrew concepts for people who’ve never touched a lexicon. She’s been on 150+ podcasts discussing priestly vocabulary, tabernacle symbolism, how covenant language in Exodus actually functioned in ancient Near Eastern culture.
What sets Imes apart is her ability to connect Old Testament Hebrew to New Testament application without flattening what either Testament contributes. She worked on translation for the Illustrated Hebrew Bible series, providing English that honours Hebrew word order even when it sounds strange to English ears. Her trilogy, “Bearing God’s Name,” “Being God’s Image,” “Becoming God’s Family” asks why Genesis, Sinai, and church still matter for Christians today, grounding modern questions in Hebrew textual work. She’s the first woman teaching Old Testament full-time at Talbot, bringing both academic muscle and pastoral heart to students who want the whole Bible to cohere.
5. Yoel Halevi (Hebrew In Israel)
Halevi broadcasts from northern Israel with degrees in History and Biblical Studies from The Open University of Israel plus graduate work at Haifa University. He served on the SQE international research team working with Dead Sea Scrolls at Haifa. Born in Israel to British Sephardic parents, he speaks Hebrew natively but gets how Western learners process language differently. His podcast teaches biblical Hebrew as a living language rather than vocabulary lists for translation exercises. Episodes explore Torah portions through historical context, ancient Near Eastern culture, linguistic details that illuminate what the text meant in its original setting. Halevi presents multiple scholarly perspectives, both religious and academic, on contested passages. He doesn’t dodge questions where Hebrew grammar or archaeological evidence complicates traditional readings.
His format allows deep exploration of topics like Hebrew poetry’s structural rules, Second Temple Judaism’s characteristics, what recent archaeological discoveries actually prove (or don’t prove) about biblical narratives. Students appreciate his willingness to say “we don’t know for certain” when evidence stays ambiguous rather than forcing conclusions that aren’t there. He teaches Hebrew verb forms by showing how they function in real sentences, not abstract grammatical theory disconnected from actual usage. For learners who want linguistic precision from someone trained in Israeli scholarship, Halevi delivers without the denominational agenda that often colors these discussions.
6. Into the Verse (Imu Shalev & Rabbi David Fohrman)
This Aleph Beta podcast tackles the weekly Torah portion through close textual analysis. Shalev hosts with Fohrman, and each episode picks apart Hebrew in real time. Why this word? Why here? What pattern are we missing? They notice when Genesis uses an unusual verb form, when root words pop up in surprising contexts, when Hebrew makes distinctions English collapses into single terms. You hear the discovery process happen. They’ll stop mid-sentence because something just clicked about how Hebrew poetry structures parallelism, then work through implications together on air. Episodes connect weekly readings to broader biblical themes while always returning to Hebrew text as foundation.
Their strength lies in showing how seemingly tiny translation choices, a definite article, a verb tense, word order, drastically shift meaning. This isn’t Hebrew 101 for beginners. It’s applied linguistics assuming you want substance but delivering it clearly enough that non-specialists can follow and apply to their own study. If you’ve wondered what scholars actually do when they’re wrestling with text rather than explaining conclusions they already reached, this podcast models that process week after week. You start noticing things in your English Bible you never caught before, then realize those details only exist in Hebrew. The architecture was always there. You just needed someone to point it out.
7. Dr. Matthew Halsted (Hebrew Bible Insights)
Halsted’s podcast engages the Hebrew Bible in its ancient Near Eastern context, promoting what he calls “faithful interpretation” through original languages. His YouTube channel and episodes unpack Hebrew grammar, cultural background, archaeological connections to Scripture. He focuses on helping church communities read the Bible well by understanding its original setting rather than imposing modern assumptions backward onto ancient texts. Episodes cover Hebrew poetry mechanics, covenant language in ancient context, how specific words functioned in ancient Israel versus what we assume they mean today. His work emphasizes that good interpretation requires knowing how Hebrew words worked culturally, not just dictionary definitions divorced from social context and historical usage.
He brings academic training while keeping the church as primary audience, asking how better Hebrew and historical knowledge affects Christian practice today, not just intellectual curiosity. The Hebrew Bible Book Club he hosts on Patreon creates space for listeners to wrestle with difficult texts together, modelling interpretive humility alongside scholarly precision. Halsted bridges the academic-pastoral divide naturally, assuming believers want deeper understanding without needing complexity dumbed down or sanitized. His approach respects both the text’s historical otherness, the fact that it comes from a culture radically different from ours, and its ongoing relevance for modern readers who take Scripture seriously as authoritative for life and faith.
Explore More Bible Study Resources
These seven approach Hebrew and Greek from different angles, but they’re all after the same thing: getting you past English into what the text actually says. Your English Bible is faithful, but it’s filtered through translators’ choices made centuries ago. These teachers help you see what’s underneath those choices, and why it matters more than you thought it did. For wider exploration including theology, devotional content, teaching approaches beyond just linguistic focus, check FeedSpot’s Hebrew Bible Podcasts & Best Bible Podcasts directories are waiting. Your understanding of passages you’ve read fifty times is about to shift.