What Language Did Jesus Speak?
On this question there is considerable difference of opinion among
scholars. However, concerning languages used in Palestine when Jesus
Christ was on earth, Professor G. Ernest Wright states: ?Various
languages were undoubtedly to be heard on the streets of the major
cities. Greek and Aramaic were evidently the common tongues, and most
of the urban peoples could probably understand both even in such
?modern? or ?western? cities as Caesarea and Samaria where Greek was
the more common. Roman soldiers and officials might be heard
conversing in Latin, while orthodox Jews may well have spoken a late
variety of Hebrew with one another, a language that we know to have
been neither classical Hebrew nor Aramaic, despite its similarities to
both.? Commenting further, on the language spoken by Jesus Christ,
Professor Wright says: ?The language spoken by Jesus has been much
debated. We have no certain way of knowing whether he could speak
Greek or Latin, but in his teaching ministry he regularly used either
Aramaic or the highly Aramaized popular Hebrew. When Paul addressed
the mob in the Temple, it is said that he spoke Hebrew (Acts 21:40).
Scholars generally have taken this to mean Aramaic, but it is quite
possible that a popular Hebrew was then the common tongue among the
Jews.??Biblical Archaeology, 1963, p. 243.
It is possible that Jesus and his early disciples, such as the apostle
Peter, at least at times spoke Galilean Aramaic, Peter being told on
the night Christ was taken into custody: ?Certainly you also are one
of them, for, in fact, your dialect gives you away.? (Mt 26:73) This
may have been said because the apostle was using Galilean Aramaic at
the time, though that is not certain, or he may have been speaking a
Galilean Hebrew that differed dialectally from that employed in
Jerusalem or elsewhere in Judea. Earlier, when Jesus came to Nazareth
in Galilee and entered the synagogue there, he read from the prophecy
of Isaiah, evidently as written in Hebrew, and then said: ?Today this
scripture that you just heard is fulfilled.? Nothing is said about
Jesus? translating this passage into Aramaic. So it is likely that
persons present on that occasion could readily understand Biblical
Hebrew. (Lu 4:16-21) It may also be noted that Acts 6:1, referring to
a time shortly after Pentecost 33 C.E., mentions Greek-speaking Jews
and Hebrew-speaking Jews in Jerusalem.
Professor Harris Birkeland (The Language of Jesus, Oslo, 1954, pp. 10,
11) points out that Aramaic?s being the written language of Palestine
when Jesus was on earth does not necessarily mean that it was spoken
by the masses. Also, the fact that the Elephantine Papyri belonging to
a Jewish colony in Egypt were written in Aramaic does not prove that
it was the chief or common tongue in their homeland, for Aramaic was
then an international literary language. Of course, the Christian
Greek Scriptures contain a number of Aramaisms, Jesus using some
Aramaic words, for instance. However, as Birkeland argues, perhaps
Jesus ordinarily spoke the popular Hebrew, while occasionally using
Aramaic expressions.
While it may not be provable, as Birkeland contends, that the common
people were illiterate as far as Aramaic was concerned, it does seem
that when Luke, an educated physician, records that Paul spoke to the
Jews ?in Hebrew? and when the apostle said the voice from heaven spoke
to him ?in Hebrew,? a form of Hebrew was actually meant (though
perhaps not the ancient Hebrew) and not Aramaic.?Ac 22:2; 26:14.
Lending further support to the use of a form of Hebrew in Palestine
when Jesus Christ was on earth are early indications that the apostle
Matthew first wrote his Gospel account in Hebrew. For instance,
Eusebius (of the third and fourth centuries C.E.) said that ?the
evangelist Matthew delivered his Gospel in the Hebrew tongue.?
(Patrologia Graeca, Vol. XXII, col. 941) And Jerome (of the fourth and
fifth centuries C.E.) stated in his work De viris inlustribus
(Concerning Illustrious Men), chapter III: ?Matthew, who is also Levi,
and who from a publican came to be an apostle, first of all composed a
Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language and characters for
the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed. . . .
Moreover, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at
Caesarea, which the martyr Pamphilus so diligently collected.?
(Translation from the Latin text edited by E. C. Richardson and
published in the series ?Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der
altchristlichen Literatur,? Leipzig, 1896, Vol. 14, pp. 8, 9.) Hence,
Jesus Christ as a man on earth could well have used a form of Hebrew
and a dialect of Aramaic. |
