A Christian Hebraist is a scholar of Hebrew who comes from a Christian family background/belief, or is a Jewish adherent of Christianity. The main area of study is that commonly known as the Old Testament to Christians (and Tanakh to Jews), but Christians have occasionally taken an interest in the Talmud, and Kabbalah.
The early fathers of the Christian Church got their knowledge of Hebrew traditions (Masoretic, Midrashim, Aggadah) from their Jewish teachers. This is seen especially in the exegesis of Justin Martyr, Aphraates, Ephraem Syrus, and Origen of Alexandria. Jerome's teachers are even mentioned by name—e.g., Bar Ḥanina (Hananiah).
Read more about Christian Hebraist: In The Renaissance, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Early Nineteenth Century, At The Universities, Late 19th Century, List of Christian Hebraists, Female Christian Hebraists, Bibliography and References
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“Surely the one thing needful for a Christian and an Englishman to study is Christian and moral and political philosophy, and then we should see our way a little more clearly without falling into Judaism, or Toryism, or Jacobinism, or any other ism whatever.”
—Thomas Arnold (1795–1842)