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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“We must choose. Be a child of the past with all its crudities and imperfections, its failures and defeats, or a child of the future, the future of symmetry and ultimate success.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)