Bible language

OObi · Mar 2, 2006

Just a couple of questions to discuss.

1. What language did Jesus speak?

2. What language was the Old/New testament wirtten in?

3. What biblical language changes occured since the writings of the bible?

Please, I read all the time that this is a just information only thread, and don't argue over who's right...

This is a discussion thread, if anyone posts anything that you think isn't valid then please post back. That is the whole point of these things. Please feel free to write whatever, just don't cyber flip anybody off.

Shalom

filosofer · Mar 2, 2006

OObi said:
Just a couple of questions to discuss.

1. What language did Jesus speak?

2. What language was the Old/New testament wirtten in?

3. What biblical language changes occured since the writings of the bible?

Good questions.

1. Difficult to say exactly. Most likely his "family" language was Aramaic, but he could also read/speak Hebrew. Some consider that being in Galilee he would have been fluent in Koine Greek.

2. Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, although there are different kinds of Hebrew; probably the version available during the NT era would have been Paleo-Hebrew, similar to what is called "Biblical Hebrew", which was further modified in the AD 500-900 era by adding vowel points, so that what is available today is the pointed Hebrew of the Masoretics. Some small portions of Daniel, Ezra were written in Aramaic, a derivitave cousin of Hebrew.

New Testament was written in Greek, and eventually translated in to most languages around the Mediterranean world.

3. I noted the vowel pointing in the Hebrew. In Greek, the earliest manuscripts were written in all capital letters, with no spaces between words/sentences. Later manuscripts were written in a form more familiar writing style (capital and small letters with spaces between words).

Printing advancements over the years have produced standardized Hebrew and Greek texts (in terms of the visual impact of the texts), but the basic text has not been modified. For another thread would be the topic of textual families among the manuscripts. But this does not alter the position here.

In Christ's love,
filo

fuzzyh · Mar 3, 2006

In response to 1, I'd say Jesus probably had an understanding of Greek. We must understand that Greek was the common language and being biligual wasn't uncommon. Knowing that Nazareth was often a town that men lived in to work for the Romans in the north, gives even more credence to the thought of Jesus speaking Greek. He probably spoke Greek to officials and soldiers. Although, I do agree that his primary language was Aramaic.

Didaskomenos · Mar 3, 2006

As for number 3, modern Hebrew is different from biblical Hebrew, but not so much as would normally happen over that span because Hebrew actually died out as a spoken language, but was revived based on biblical Hebrew with modifications (vocabulary being a major difference) in recent years.

The Greek language underwent dramatic sound changes a very short time after the NT was written. For a while, the spellings remained the same, but over the intervening centuries, the sounds, grammar, and vocabulary have changed to such a remarkable degree that no modern native Greek-speaker can understand more than a few words of ancient/Koine Greek.

Peter · Mar 3, 2006

As information only, it should be pointed out that the Tanakh was translated from Hebrew into Greek c. 200 years before Christ.

It was later re-translated back into Hebrew after Christ.

For an excellent reference on the OP questions, I recommend Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan's book, "Whose Bible Is It?" Dr. Pelikan is the Sterling Professor of History at Yale and is a respected historian both within and without Christianity.

The Reader Peter

artybloke · Mar 4, 2006

fuzzyh said:
In response to 1, I'd say Jesus probably had an understanding of Greek. We must understand that Greek was the common language and being biligual wasn't uncommon. Knowing that Nazareth was often a town that men lived in to work for the Romans in the north, gives even more credence to the thought of Jesus speaking Greek. He probably spoke Greek to officials and soldiers. Although, I do agree that his primary language was Aramaic.

I think this is a good point; as a carpenter he might well have understood some Greek. But it might only have been a "working knowledge": the kind you pick up from having to work with people who speak another language. It would take a great deal of fluency, for instance, to preach in Greek, so he probably preached in Aramaic, and maybe disputed with the scribes and Pharisees in Hebrew?

I think it ought to be borne in mind that any original sayings of Jesus as quoted in the Bible may originally have been spoken in Aramaic, and that what we might have is a translation of a translation.

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Bible language

OObi

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filosofer

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fuzzyh

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Didaskomenos

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Peter

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artybloke

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