The question of whether Jesus spoke and taught in Greek has, at times in the past, been a subject of serious debate. But for some reason this issue has disappeared from serious consideration, at just the time in NT studies which is actually quite hospitable to the suggestion.
The fact that Jesus spoke Aramaic is evident from the small number of intriguing statements that he makes which are recorded in the gospels, accompanied by translation into Greek:
- Talitha koum (Ταλιθὰ κούμ) “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” Mark 5:41
- Ephphatha (Ἐφφαθά) “Be opened.” Mark 7:34
- Abba (Ἀββᾶ) “Father” Mark 14:36; also found in Paul at Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6
- Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? (Ἐλωΐ Ἐλωΐ λαμὰ σαβαχθανί) “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:34 (Matthew 27:46 uses “Eli, Eli”)
- Raca (Ῥακά) “Fool” or “Empty-headed one” (a term of contempt) Matthew 5:22
- Cephas (Κηφᾶς) “Rock” (Aramaic equivalent of Peter) John 1:42; also found in Paul at Corinthians 1:12, Galatians 2:9
We also find a number of other terms in Aramaic and Hebrew scattered across the New Testament, including maranatha (1 Cor 16.22), Amen (frequently), Hallelujah (Ἁλληλουϊά) only in Rev 19.1–6 (so whenever we use it, we are citing Revelation!), hosanna (Matthew 21:9, Mark 11:9, John 12:13), Beelzebul (Βεελζεβούλ) (Matthew 12:24, Luke 11:15), Golgotha (Matthew 27:33, John 19:17), Satanas (Matthew 4:10, Mark 1:13, Luke 10:18), Mammon (Matthew 6:24, Luke 16:9-13), Gehenna (Matthew 5:22, Matthew 10:28, Mark 9:43) and Bar- meaning ‘son of’ in several names.
The occurrence of ‘rabbi’ in John 1.38 illustrates what is going on here:
Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means [or ‘being translated’ or ‘being interpreted is’ Teacher), “where are you staying?”
Rabbi does not literally mean ‘teacher’; it is Hebrew for ‘my great one’ and is the title given to a teacher. This points to the good news of Jesus originating in one, minority and fringe, culture and language group, but being taken into a wider and different culture. The task of translation always goes hand in hand with spreading the good news.
But the occurrence of these terms—and especially the fact that they occur more in Mark than in other gospels—indicates the sense of the vividness of that gospel, and the eye-witness nature of the testimony. I remember first reading the gospels for myself as a teenager, and being very struck by these. Here we have, not merely the ipsissima vox, the authentic voice, of Jesus, but his ipsissima verba, his actual words, in this case as remembered by Peter (one of the few witnesses in Mark 5.41) as relayed to Mark.
Yet this sense of directness only works on the assumption that the Greek text of the rest of the gospels is not the actual words of Jesus, but the translation and interpretation of them by the gospel writers. These examples of Aramaic and Hebrew are thus a small glimpse, a pulling back of the curtain, which falls back again and hides Jesus’ actual words, cloaked in a language he did not use in his teaching. But is that true?
The argument about Jesus and Greek has several layers, starting with the most general. Were the regions Jesus taught in multilingual (polyglot), and how do we know? Is it likely that Jesus himself was multilingual? And is there specific evidence of this in the New Testament, in examples of his teaching?
In contrast to many Western contexts, which are often dominated by a single language—or, increasingly, by the dual reality of national language and the international use of English—many contexts in the world (especially Africa and Asia) are commonly trilingual. People will speak their tribal language, their national language (which was probably political imposed), and the international language.
The clearest evidence of this is when Pilate posts the sign above Jesus on the cross in John 19.20:
καὶ ἦν γεγραμμένον Ἑβραϊστί, Ῥωμαϊστί, Ἑλληνιστί.
it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.
These are the local, the official, and the common international languages respectively. Aramaic was another Semitic language closely related to Hebrew, which had spread across the region; Jesus would likely have spoken the former in daily life (though there is ongoing debate about its influence and use in the first century), but the latter in the synagogue and in reading the scrolls.
Stanley Porter has written about this several times. In his 1993 article in Tyndale Bulletin (44.2), he notes that Greek was the lingua franca of the ancient world:
That Greek was the lingua franca of the Graeco-Roman world and the predominant language of the Roman Empire is acknowledged by virtually everyone who has considered this issue, although the full significance of this factor has not been fully appreciated by all New Testament scholars (p 205).
This means that Greek would have been not only the language of trade and commerce (even on the streets of Rome) but also the shared language of ordinary people. Matthew 4.15 describes Jesus’ home region as ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’, immediately suggesting that it was shaped by Greek influences, and business done on the trade routes that run through the area would have been done in Greek. It is implausible that the fishermen who were the first that Jesus called would not have done business in Greek.
Galilee was completely surrounded by hellenistic culture, with Acco-Ptolemais, Tyre and Sidon in the west and north-west, Panias-Caesarea Philippi, Hippos and Gadara in the north-east, east and south-east, and Scythopolis and Gaba in the south. Besides being connected by a number of waterways, there was a road system that utilized a series of valleys to interconnect the Galilaean region, tying together such important cities as Sepphoris and Tiberias, as well as tying the area to its surrounding regions. As a result, Galilee was a center for import and export as well as general trade, resulting in a genuinely cosmopolitan flavor (pp 210–211).
This is reflected in both the names and the places of origin of Jesus’ disciples. Andrew and Philip had purely Greek names, and the names of Simon, Bartholomew and Thaddaeus may well have derived from Greek or gone easily into Greek. Since Andrew and Philip are from Greek Bethsaida (John 1.44), Philip is the one asked about finding bread in John 6.5, since Luke 9.10 tells us that the incident happened near there. And in John 12.20–22, the Greeks seeking Jesus speak to Philip, who in turn speaks to Andrew.
This means that for Jesus to have conversed with inhabitants of cities in the Galilee, and especially of cities of the Decapolis and the Phoenician region, he would have had to have known Greek, certainly at the conversational level (H C Lee, cited by Porter p 213).
This is supported by both literary and inscriptional evidence. Josephus wrote in Greek, and acted as interpreter in Greek for the Roman general (later emperor) Titus, as did Justus of Tiberius (though we only know his writings through Josephus). And inscriptional evidence shows that Jews in the region (and not just in the Diaspora) regularly used Greek.
In all, this inscriptional evidence confirms the significant and widespread use of Greek throughout Palestine, even in conjunction with Jewish religious practices…according to the latest statistics on published inscriptions, 68% of all of the ancient Jewish inscriptions from the Mediterranean world are in Greek (70% if one counts as Greek bilingual inscriptions with Greek as one of the languages).
Greek is common even in the most Jewish of places, including Beth She’arim and even Jerusalem.
In all, up to 80% of the Beth She’arim catacombs are in Greek, some of it quite colloquial and reflecting aphoristic Greek thinking. Even in Jerusalem, probably the most linguistically Semitic of the Jewish cities, the number of epitaphs in Greek is approximately equal to the number in Semitic languages (p 222).
So much for the context; what about the texts? Is there evidence in the New Testament for Jesus teaching in Greek? You might like to pause here, and consider what such evidence might look like.
Porter offers three examples of texts which only really make sense if, in the Greek NT, we are reading the actual Greek words of a conversation held in Greek.
First, in the trial of Jesus, recorded in Mark 15:2-5 = Matthew 27:11-14 = Luke 23:2-5 = John 18:29-38, we should note that it is highly unlikely that Pilate spoke in Aramaic, and less likely that Jesus spoke in Latin (despite that happening in the scene in The Passion film by Mel Gibson). In fact, the whole trial scene, including Pilate’s appeal to the crowd, must have been held in Greek. (It is worth noting, in passing, that there is no evidence at all in any of the gospels of a transition of style from this scene to the scenes around it, so there is no evidence of a transition from one language to another.)
In both the synoptic accounts and the Fourth Gospel, despite their very different accounts, Pilate asks Jesus, σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; and Jesus replies σὺ λέγεις. In the Fourth Gospel this exchange is expanded, but the inclusion of this exchange in all four strongly indicates that these are the words that were spoken. We do indeed here have ipsissima verba.
Secondly, Porter highlights three exchanges which emphasise that the parties concerned are Greek or Greek-speaking: Mark’s account of the Syro-Phoenician woman in Mark 7:25-30; the exchange with the Greeks in John 12:20-28; and the healing of the centurion’s servant in Matthew 8:5-13 = Luke 7:2-10. Each account includes Greek terms which indicate that these exchanges happened in Greek, so again we likely have Jesus’ actual words here.
Thirdly, Porter argues that the discussion leading to Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi in Matthew 16:13-20 = Mark 8:27-30 = Luke 9.18-21 only makes sense in Greek. When Jesus says, ‘You are Πέτρος (a name for an individual male and a single stone) and upon this πέτρᾳ (firm foundation of stone) I intend to build my church’ the pun only works in Greek; in Aramaic it is nonsense, since there is no equivalent name.
However, I think there are at least two other major texts that demonstrate he was teaching in Greek, at least some of the time.
The first is the Lord’s Prayer, which I have discussed previously. David Wenham (Expository Times 121.8, May 2010) has demonstrated the very careful structure of the prayer, in Matt 6.9–13, as follows:
1. Father ours the-one in the heavens
2. Hallowed-be the name of-you
3. Come the kingdom of-you
4. Done the will of-you
5. As in heaven even on earth
6. The bread ours the coming-day give to-us today
7. And forgive to-us the debts of-us
8. As even we forgive the debtors of-us
9. And not bring us to temptation
10. But deliver us from the evil
As Wenham points out, the structure then is:
1. 6 words Opening address
2. 4 words First invocation in relation to God
3. 4 words Second invocation in relation to God
4. 4 words Third invocation in relation to God
5. 6 words with second clause
6. 8 words Invocation for our needs
7. 6 words First invocation in relation to ourselves
8. 7 words with second clause
9. 6 words Second invocation in relation to ourselves
10. 6 words Third invocation in relation to ourselves
Michael Martin, in a further research article, demonstrates the detailed poetic devices in the prayer in Greek that make it so memorable.
It is clear that Lord’s Prayer displays a highly poetic form characterized by the recurring use throughout of multiple coordinated figures of speech and thought.
We either have to attribute this remarkable, spiritual and theological, poetic creation to an almost completely unknown Jewish writer (‘Matthew’)—or it goes back to the teaching of Jesus himself—in Greek.
Peter Williams, of Tyndale House in Cambridge, offers a similar analysis of the Beatitudes in Matt 5.3–10.
The first four Beatitudes begin with the Greek letter π (p). The first Beatitude (verse 3) intensifies this alliteration because both ptōchoi (“poor”) and pneumati (“spirit”) begin with π (p). The second Beatitude (verse 4) also has a double alliteration: penthountes (“mourning”) and paraklēthēsontai(“they will be comforted”), both beginning with π (p). The fourth Beatitude (verse 6) gives us dipsōntes tēn dikaiosunēn (“thirsting for righteousness”), in which the two main terms begin with δι (di). The fifth Beatitude (verse 7) involves the repetition of the element ἐλεή (eleē-). The sixth Beatitude (verse 8) gives us katharoi tē kardia (“pure in heart” — the words are related to catharsis and cardiology, respectively), with two words beginning with κα (ka). The eighth Beatitude (verse 10) has dediōgmenoi heneken dikaiosunēs with δ (d) as the beginning of both main words in the first clause and the root of the verb beginning with δι (di), also repeated in the main noun. This leaves only the seventh Beatitude (5:9) with no obvious assonance. However, greek οι (oi) and υι (ui) are both thought by scholars to have been pronounced the same way. Though we have no ancient recordings, we do know the spellings scribes often interchanged. This means that the final two syllables of eirēnopoioi (“peacemakers”) sounded identical to huioi (“sons”). Thus, all eight Beatitudes contain striking repeated sounds in Greek.
We have to add to this that five of the others end with ονται (-ontai), four specifically θήσονται (-thēsontai). Plurals ending in ς (s) (which aren’t particularly common in Greek) are clustered into Beatitudes 2–5, and plurals ending in οι (oi) are found in 1 and 6–8. Attempts to render the Beatitudes into Aramaic or Hebrew simply don’t produce a fraction of the quantity of sound play.
It might be tempting to suggest that these sound constructions are simply a creation of the writer and don’t go back to Jesus, but this ignores the rather important fact that this Gospel clearly presents Jesus as speaking with Greek word play. The simplest conclusion is that it intends to show Jesus, at least on this occasion, as teaching in Greek.
(See David Wenham’s analysis of their structure here.)
What difference does this make? I think it counters two parallel tendencies. The first is that of popular devotion, in which the texts of the New Testament, and the gospels themselves, are not see as the word of God to us which merits careful attention so much as a window into something else—the world behind the text, of which we only have tantalising glimpses. What is needed, then, is something or someone who will reconstruct that world, and that should be our focus. I see this tendency in the popularity of The Chosen video series. Instead of being given the text of the New Testament, we are offered a world constructed behind it—but with the addition of a great deal of supposition and interpretation. If that draws people to Jesus and the gospels, then I rejoice. But I cannot watch them myself, because the interpretive assumptions which are so key make me wince.
The other tendencies, ironically quite different from the first but effecting the same thing, is that academic tradition to put a significant distance between the teaching of Jesus and the accounts of the gospel. Thus, in the past, some scholars have tried to ‘back translate’ some of Jesus’ teaching from Greek into Aramaic, to get to its ‘true meaning’—which of course has been lost in translation, by those who knew Jesus, but amazingly has been faithfully reconstructed by someone living 2,000 years later, raised in a completely different language and culture!
The linguistic closeness of the gospels to the teaching of Jesus fits well with all the evidence for the reliability of the New Testament, and the fascinating shift in scholarship in which many are seeing good arguments for the gospels to have been written early, relying on eye-witness testimony. As Peter Williams notes, believing Jesus taught in Greek ‘encourages us that there is no need to imagine a gulf between what Jesus originally said and what is recorded in the Gospels.’
Additional note: Just after writing this, I came across this article which sets out further arguments for believing that Jesus taught in Greek. The author includes this intriguing argument for Jesus speaking Greek based on the inclusion of Aramaic terms:
Jesus’s Greek commonly contained untranslated Aramaic words (“satan,” “mammon,” etc.) If all of Christ’s words were originally Aramaic, why would some be left untranslated? This includes words he used frequently (“pharisee,” “amen”). None of these words are difficult to translate into Greek, but the same words are consistently not translated. Many of these words were adopted into Latin, via the Latin Vulgate that was the only Bible in the West for a thousand years. This use of a few local words is a sign of a “common” tongue, that is, a shared language used in many areas with their own local languages. This is why the Greek of the Bible is called “koine,” the Greek word that means “common.” Doesn’t it seem more likely that these untranslated words are in the Greek text because they are the Aramaic words that Jesus used while speaking Greek?
The author also refers to the book by G Scott Gleaves, Did Jesus Speak Greek?
Further note: Paul Barnett’s article concluding that Jesus taught in Greek for much of the time is available online here.
This is why I love this blog. It often strikes this ideal balance between scholarship and the layman’s world while investigating interesting and often important questions.
Ian, you are a treasure! Many thanks for sharing your work with us all!
John, that is kind of you!
It is something I have been thinking about for a couple of years, and it keeps coming up in relation to particular passages.
I think the ‘scholarly consensus’ that Jesus only spoke Aramaic is, like many others, without a good foundation, and repeated without critique…
When I was at Oxford in the 60s A W Argyle of Regents Park College advanced the case for Jesus speaking Greek which was generally regarded as rather odd. I thought he had a good case. Thanks for your article
Clearly ahead of its time! Biblical studies academically is often in thrall to its own traditions…
You have not included “do you love me” in John 21. Simon’s squirming (apparently) can’t be done that clearly in Aramaic.
OK it’s conversation rather than “teaching” and Peter’s words rather than The Lord’s but further evidence that Greek was more normal than Aramaic?
Another topic… if the word for daily bread only occurs once how do we get to translate it?
I note that it is a request for tomorrow’s supply which is consistent with a rumour I heard.
That is an interesting example, though note that the different words for ‘love’ are in fact synonyms…
” … the different words for ‘love’ are in fact synonyms…”
Are they totally synonymous? They get separate chapters in CS Lewis’ book “The Four Loves”?
He is wrong. Look at the way the two terms are used in the Fourth Gospel.
https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/are-there-different-kinds-of-love-in-john-21/
No two ways that Galilee was a polyglot region. Given that quite a lot of Jesus’ teaching would be repeated on different occasions, would there be in effect both Greek and Aramaic versions with the gospel writers able to use a Greek rendering directly rather than translating from Aramaic?
And yes, the really definite example of Greek ipsissima verba has to be Jesus’ exchanges with Pilate. So one of the places we have emphatically Jesus’ original words is also His personal strongest statements against the idea of established churches, and positively teaching a very different style of Church/world relationships. I’ve been pointing this out to Anglicans ever since I worked it out for myself in my late teens, and it was one of the first major pieces for my blog – here’s the link
https://stevesfreechurchblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/46/
(Incidentally I’ve just finished a major rearrangement of the said blog where I took a series of connected pieces under the loose title of “But Seriously” and gave them a page of their own so they can be read together rather than scattered through pieces on other issues on the home page. Anglicans please note ….)
The establishment of the Church? I am not sure you have mentioned that previously…!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!…….
Yes, sorry Ian, I do go on a bit on that topic. In fairness to myself I was deeply affected by watching how the original colonial issues of Ireland were compounded and exacerbated by what amounted to rival versions of Christianity which unfortunately DID agree on being (slightly different versions of) ‘established’. Whereas surely in NT ideals the Christians should have joined together as peacemakers, rather than taking sides and involving themselves in paramilitary activities. I’m also a CS Lewis fan and he had VERY strong things to say on the evil effects of fighting in the name of God, not least how difficult it becomes to surrender. See his book “The Four Loves” .
Fortunately the CoE has given up being a perecuting body, though it is still rather worrying that the church’s ‘Supreme Governor’ is also the C-in-C of the UK’s armies, enabling Muslims to continue to portray us as ‘Crusaders’. Jesus’ different approach to Church and state, with a totally peaceul way to conquer the world in God’s name, ought to be a major part of our apologetic against Islam, but is not usable by Christians who do the ‘Christian country’ thing…..
A predecessor of Gleaves’s book is Rev. G R Selby “Jesus, Aramaic and Greek” (Brynmill, 1989) which comes to the same conclusion. The editor of this volume was the late Ian Robinson, a sometime trustee of the Prayer Book Society and occasional campaigner against the C of E’s modern language services from ASB onward.
Thanks—how interesting.
Still available, though £80! https://amzn.eu/d/i3aGKmH
Josephus wrote –
“I have also taken a great deal of pains to obtain the learning of the Greeks, and understand the elements of the Greek language, although I have so long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue, that I cannot pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness; for our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many nations” (Antiquities of the Jews, 20:1:2)
Does that not indicate that it was not the norm for Jews to communicate in Greek in the 1st century? Whilst I have little doubt Jesus spoke some Greek, Im not sure it would have been standard for him to teach Jewish crowds in Greek. Specifically, would the lower classes have been conversant in Greek at that time?
Three things.
First, Josephus was a Jerusalemite, not a Galilean. (Yet see the inscriptional evidence of Greek in Jerusalem).
Second, there is a difference between local, spoken Greek (which differed regionally to a great extent) and written Greek suitable for a credible history.
Thirdly, his Greek was good enough to be a translator and interpreter! I think he is being modest here…
It would probably not be the norm in Judea – but Galilee would be much more bilingual and what we’d call ‘multicultural’. Greek as a ‘trader language’ would be pervasive in the Eastern Med anyway – I’ve heard suggestions that by NT times Greek may have been more common than Latin in Rome itself….
These things are not neat – UK history shows examples both of displacement of an original native language (Celtic) and of the Saxon which displaced Celtic eventually replacing the language of the Norman conquerors.
Yes, I think that is true about Rome (I think I mention it).
Ian, are you suggesting that Jesus could speak Greek well enough to communicate reasonably well, and occasionally taught in Greek when circumstances demanded? Or are you suggesting that the majority of his teaching recorded in the gospels was in Greek? The first I should think is almost certain; the second I would have thought is a lot more questionable. We know that are large part of his audience was Jewish peasant crowds, whose mother tongue was Aramaic, so (imho) it would make much more sense if he spoke to them in that language.
Bernard
I suspect that Galilee may have been rather like Wales, where despite Welsh efforts English is in practice a majority over the native tongue.
Though dont you think it is also a religious issue. I could imagine Jews, particularly Jewish leadership, in the holy land wanting to ensure Hebrew/Aramaic was the norm at least amongst themselves. That is the impression I get from Josephus where he refers to our own tongue. Though I appreciate Ian’s comment re difference between local spoken Greek and more formal written Greek.
PC1
I’m not really arguing with that point – just saying that Galilee was polyglot and multicultural compared to Judea further south. Reality of constant trade with Gentiles would skew the situation.
Then why were 50% of grave inscription in Greek…?
50% of all Jewish grave inscriptions in the holy land were in Greek?
No, much more. That is Jerusalem. As I quote above:
In all, up to 80% of the Beth She’arim catacombs are in Greek, some of it quite colloquial and reflecting aphoristic Greek thinking. Even in Jerusalem, probably the most linguistically Semitic of the Jewish cities, the number of epitaphs in Greek is approximately equal to the number in Semitic languages (p 222).
In North Wales the Welsh language is more audibly spoken than 30 years ago… my listening would suggest. The teaching of it in school has had a significant effect.
I’m glad Welsh is being audibly spoken in North Wales.
Unfortunately in South Wales you still get the mumbles.
Not just in North Wales. There is a Welsh-language chapel in Oswestry, Shropshire.
Ho…ho…
Dioch
“When Jesus says, ‘You are Πέτρος (a name for an individual male and a single stone) and upon this πέτρᾳ (firm foundation of stone) I intend to build my church’ the pun only works in Greek; in Aramaic it is nonsense, since there is no equivalent name.”
Really? I had always understood he called Simon ‘Kepha’ (as Galatians 2.11 indicates) and this was translated directly into (the masculine Greek name) ‘Petros’ (from the feminine noun ‘petra’). ‘Kepha’ means rock in Aramaic but that would have been meaningless to a Greek audience.
The interesting use of the word kēphas in the NT is John 1:42b:
“You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).
This is the only occurence in the Gospels. Otherwise, the word only appears in 1 Corinthians and Galatians, and in the latter Paul also uses ‘Peter’.
Perhaps the name started as a title (c.f. Christ), with a meaning. So, the meaning was translated. Only later, did the title become a name.
Perhaps the first encounter was a conversation in Aramaic. Then the conversation at Caesarea Philippi was in Greek (appropriate to the place), and so the Greek form of the title was used, enabling the pun.
(If you can show that Aramaic supports the same pun, that would counter this kind of argument).
I recall someone saying that the pun works in Hebrew too, but not Aramaic.
The word for stone or rock in Hebrew is ‘sela’ or ‘zur’. Kepha is Aramaic for rock. The -s ending is the word being assimilated to Greek grammar.
Plus the question of why, for multilingual people, a ‘pun’ *works* in only one language?
Where is the evidence that ‘Petros’ was a name before Jesus used it for Peter?
James
Name – or ‘nickname’? Did Jesus effectively call Simon ‘Rocky’ and then later say after Peter’s confession of faith, “this is why I called you ‘Rocky’, what you’ve said here is the foundation rock….”
Yes, I have always imagined the Prince of the Apostles running up the steps of the Agora in Philadelphia (in Asia Minor – he did write an epistle to folk there), followed by crowds of admiring disciples, preparing to do battle with Apollo, the idol of the plutocrats.
Most or at least many names begin as ‘nicknames’ or epithets, don’t they? – a noun or epithet describing the person or a desired characteristic. That’s true of very many Greek names. Like ‘Stephen’, a crown. Hebrew personal names tend to be more theophoric. (But not ‘James’ from Jacob, the grabber. Hmm.)
Interesting.
From memory, doesn’t the difference between debts/transgressions in Luke/Matthew with the Lord’s Prayer point to Jesus saying it first in Aramaic and then the gospel writers translating it into Greek?
This has been argued/asserted, but it isn’t necessarily the case. It is undoubtedly true that the ambiguity about debt or sin arises from the Hebrew and Aramaic term חוב (ḥov), and that the use of the ὀφειλ* root for sin is first attested in Greek usage in the New Testament (to my knowledge). But it is entirely plausible that Jesus or his contemporaries brought the metaphorical idea of sin as ‘debt’ across into Greek, versus the assertion in the commentaries that the Gospel scribes made the innovation. The fact that the innovation is first attested in writing in the New Testament is sometimes taken as evidence of translation by the Gospel scribes from Aramaic (although for this particular word it could equally be from Hebrew), but that’s an argument from silence and it could just as easily have been an innovation in spoken Galilean or wider Jewish Greek, that then occurs in a Greek Lord’s Prayer from the lips of Jesus and hence finds its way into the Greek of the Gospels. Or it could have been an innovative use by Jesus himself. There are two key things to consider: first attested written usage is not the same as first actual usage, and the Lord’s Prayer in so many other respects seems to be a Greek composition that if one believes the Gospels accurately represent the actual words of Jesus then it would seem likely that the Lord’s Prayer itself was spoken by Jesus in Greek.
Ian
1 My wife grew up in Argentina having missionary parents. By the age of 5 she was fluent in Spanish (national language), English (spoken by her parents at home), Toba (they were living among the Toba tribe) and Guarani (they were so close to Paraguay that everyone locally spoke Guarani). The idea of only knowing one language is unrealistic in a multicultural area. A prime example of scholars relying too much on their own limited life experience.
However what happens then is that in conversation folk often switch from one language to another without realising, or at least use common loan words and phrases which better describe the idea they want to convey. Even when preaching in England her father was apt to lapse into Spanish without realising, and at home they often switched from one to the other and back.
2 When Jesus spoke in the temple in Jerusalem, how many diaspora Jews coming from all over the Mediterranean and beyond (including Parthia) for the feasts would have known Aramaic?
3 A big Yes to early dating of the synoptic gospels. (for many reasons)
4 It seems there is good evidence that for the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus took a well known Jewish liturgical prayer (the Qaddish – still in use today) and gave it an update. (For discussion Dick France, Joel Green, Michele Guinness, among others.)
Frank
Based on my wife’s experience I have always assumed that Jesus spoke both Aramaic and Greek well, knew the scriptures in Biblical Hebrew, (could the true Messiah of Israel not know the scriptures in Hebrew!), and had at least a good smattering of Latin (especially if as some think he worked on Roman building sites). I assume he spoke mainly Aramaic in Nazareth and the Galilean villages, Greek when in Jerusalem in teaching the Diaspora Jews who had travelled from all over and presumably were not Aramaic speakers, could use either in Capernaum. As I understand it the synagogue texts in Galilee were in Hebrew not the Septuagint, and he would have been taught the scrolls in Hebrew, not Greek or Aramaic. In conversation he would easily have switched from Aramaic to Greek and back, certainly for the odd word or phrase.
However those who have translated the Synoptic Gospels into Hebrew for use among Hebrew speakers in Israel today will tell you that the grammar and syntax flows much better than in the clumsy Greek that we have them in. They would argue that the thought patterns and underlying grammar are Aramaic/Hebrew rather than Greek.
Really interesting-thanks.
Very interesting. Keep questioning the consensuses, Ian.
It seems to surprise scholars that the spoken words of Jesus and others, including Pilate, have greater verbatim agreement between the synoptic gospels, than narrative does. Perhaps Mt and Luke copied Mk’s words of Jesus (and others) so faithfully because they were assumed to be the actual words, rather than a mere translation.
Thanks for the encouragement!
Yes, I have for decades been struck by this—that they agree on the words of Jesus even where the narrative context varies. Why is this not discussed more?
An interesting point. The narrative order can vary and background elements can be treated differently, but the actual words of Jesus are preserved with care: as the good students of a rabbi would do.
Rainer Riesner wrote a lot on first century Jewish teaching and memorisation of messages.
Did he think Jesus taught in Greek too?
Yes. In an essay in H. Wansborough, ed, ‘Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition’, Riesner writes (p. 199), ‘It is not at all impossible that in such circles [the Hellenists in Jerusalem] Jesus did some teaching in Greek and that there existed from the time of his earthly ministry also a Greek tradition of his words. Even the strongly religious and nationalistic Zealots at Masada used Greek. In every case, the Jesus tradition originated in a linguistic milieu where translation from a Semitic language was easy. This should make us cautious against the hypothesis of many severe mistranslations in the Gospels.’
Riesner also cites Meyers and Strange (1981) that ‘sometime during the first century BCE Aramaic and Greek changed places’, with Greek spreading into the countryside and Aramaic declining among the educated and urban dwellers.
I haven’t read his ‘Jesus als Lehrer’ (1983) for what he may have said there. A huge new version came out in 2023 – 800+ pages!
I don’t think there has ever been an English translation of Riesner’s book, has there? A serious omission!
Jesus was a carpenter so how could he become au fait with Greek. Did he have a lot of association
with the educated group (scholars ) of the day.? I think he probably exhibited some mind boggling intelligence which was probably out of character for an uneducated tradesman. Or he may not have for whatever reason. Does anyone know or have any ideas about this. Since Jesus was so special, was he spectactularly handsome, charismatic, brilliant, creative in his carpentry ( sort of like a super star ) apart from being loving healing and kind . His miracles must have brought him a lot of attention. Did he have a huge fan base? He must have been very popular…a household name.
I think you are projecting modern prejudice onto their culture.
The person who delivered my Amazon package to my door yesterday was trilingual. ‘Uneducated tradesman’?
‘Many came to him from the Decapolis to hear him’. That is a Greek speaking region. What did they hear?
Luke is the Gospel that goes into Jesus’ childhood, and it doesn’t read like an uneducated or poor household:
Luke 1 – Mary doesn’t sound poor. Her relative Elizabeth (who she’s close enough to visit when pregnant) is wife of the priest Zechariah, so clearly an educated and connected family.
Luke 2 – Mary and Joseph go to Jerusalem for Passover every year. They have means. In Jerusalem it transpires that Jesus is quite happy arguing in the Temple courts as a 12 year old. He’s an educated boy.
Luke 3 – a great fuss is made of Jesus’s genealogy. That’s something you do when you’re well to do.
Actually, nearly everybody was ‘poor’ in the first century (which is not the same as destitute). A tekton was not wealthy in our terms, neither was a fisherman who owned a boat – although day labourers were poorer than them. Both kinds of work entailed long hours of backbreaking labour.
You might be wealthy as the owner of large estates and many slaves, or as a tax collector or a merchant. Read ‘Trimalchio’s Feast’ in Petronius’ ‘Satyricon’ for a first century portrayal of how a former slave became obscenely wealthy once he learned to become a treasurer. Remember how many people were slaves in the first century (some of whom became very wealthy themselves). Political office in Rome was also seen as a way of personal enrichment (unlike today, of course).
See my article ‘Was Jesus born into a poor family?’
Luke 2:24 states that Joseph and Mary made sacrifice of pigeons/doves after Jesus’ birth, which is the sacrifice for poor people (Leviticus 12:8); anybody who could afford a lamb brought one.
That is not the only reason why that sacrifice could be offered. And Luke’s point here is not that they are poor, but that they are pious and law-abiding. I discuss this in my article on the subject.
Isaiah 53:2 says that He had no special appearance, but there would have been no sin in his face. You need only look at some people to see that they have led degenerate lives.
Cressida
In an area like Galilee there was no need to be associated with scholars to know Greek. Since the time of Alexander the Great, Greek had been “Everybody’s second language” throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, down into Egypt and eastwards to areas like Persia. Judea might have a preference for Aramaic, but even there Greek would be widely spoken. It was rather like the way English has become “Everybody’s second language” in the former British Empire/Commonwealth and beyond.
Joseph was not a ‘village carpenter’; the word actually used is ‘tekton’, a builder (NOT a stonemason). If one examines the Nativity stories careully, though actually based in Bethlehem as part of a junior branch of David’s family, Joseph had been working in the Galilee almost certainly using his skills in the ‘new town’ of Sepphoris. He then moved permanently to Nazareth when the family returned from Egypt after Herod’s death and would have continued working widely as more than a village carpenter.
https://stevesfreechurchblog.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/an-un-stable-story/
I have a distinct memory of someone trying to show that Jesus actually spoke Hebrew. Struck me as rather strange at the time.
I think Jesus didn’t need to know a language to be able to converse with foreigners because he was baptised in the Spirit and could therefore listen for a word of knowledge and respond in tongues. But only if the Father , through the Spirit instructed Him. However, I assume he knew Greek from His days as a tradesman.
I think the Incarnation implies that Jesus had to learn things in his human life much as others do
Yes. He grew in favour… learned obedience… etc. His modus operandi was to only do what He saw the Father doing. The Holy Spirit acting as the seal of confirmation cast the lot in decision making. Without the Spirit he was on His own , limited by the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic of His youth. I can’t imagine Jesus as a superman simultaneously healing a leper while redirecting rocks in the Oort Cloud.
Does God redirect asteroids? Or does he let his creation work within the confines of the space/time continuum?
Hey, it’s too early to discuss the Star of Bethlehem!
He doesn’t in Revelation 8:7-9:2. These events lie ahead.
If we found a first century Hebrew or Aramaic untertext then should it have priority?
Papias’ apparent words re Matthew are intriguing.
I am glad that Ian references Peter Williams of Tyndale House on the repeated alliteration in the Beatitudes. I heard Peter on this some years ago and this encouraged me in sermons on the Beatitudes to suggest that “great crowds … from the Decapolis … and beyond the Jordan” (Matt 4.25) likely heard Jesus speaking in their own language, Greek.
So don’t be shy of using alliteration in your sermons – punchy preachers practise making messages memorable with worthy words!
Sometimes paronomasia indicates the original language being used. In Matt 3.9 John the Baptist tells the crowds that God can make these stones (‘abanim) into children (banim), a pun that works in Hebrew but not Greek.
(Even Plato would do this. In his ‘Apology’, he has Socrates tell his judges that his accuser Meletus doesn’t really care (meletai) about Athens.)
Yes, the ‘stones/sons’ example is a good counter to this. But there are not many examples like that.
I am interested in the Septuagintalisms and Hebraisms in Luke’s Infancy Narrative which hint at the backgrounds of these accounts. In Luke 1.42 Elizabeth says ‘Blessed are you among women’, which is the Hebraic equivalent of the superlative ( = ‘you are the most blessed of women’). Also Matthew 2.10 , lit. ‘they rejoiced a great joy’ reflects Hebraic usage, not Greek. These suggest an original Semitic source. There is plenty of Hebrew or Aramaic under the surface.
Wonderful discussion. In reply to Cressida, the Roman Capital of Galilee, who Hebrew name was Sepphoris was only a few miles from Galilee. It was undergoing major growth and development at the time of Christ. “Carpenter” meant not simply a wood worker but someone highly skilled in all the crafts of building. Jesus and Joseph would probably have walked back and forth from that city where Greek was spoken and done a major part of their work there.
As a devout Jewish boy he would have learned to read and write in Hebrew that was part of the upbringing of boys
The name Peter is mentioned at the beginning of John’s gospel with Jesus saying ” you will be called Peter” however, John does not use “Peter” throughout his gospel. He uses “Simon.” The synoptics were written after the event at the beginning of John’s gospel even though John did not write until after the sympotics. John has a dramatic scene at the end of his gospel in which Simon’s name is actually changed. The change happening as Peter actually takes on the role of leader in Jesus absence. Jesus addresses Peter in his official name “Simon, son of John” Jesus is addressing Simon thus to emphasize the importance of this event and role harkening back to how God changed Abraham, Sarah and Jacob’s names. The passage is also part of the chiastic structure of John’s Gospel in which there are parallels at the beginning and the ending.
What a refreshing study – the fact that we have recorded something so close to the original language (and the very words in some cases) brings us closer to our Lord, and blows many of the clouds away. It should indeed not surprise us that Jesus was a polyglot, in keeping with most of the population, and I would have thought a working knowledge of Latin as well, as the language of the occupier. ‘The common people heard him gladly’ (Mark 12.37): difficult to imagine if he was not speaking their common language.
Yes indeed!
Greek was definitely not the language of the common people. It was at best a second language of some, to varying degrees, as is always the case with second languages. Waiters all over Europe can speak enough English to serve English speaking guests well, even knowing English terms for unusual foodstuffs. But they could not preach a sermon or make a political speech or write a short story in good English, and many would have trouble understanding such at all well.
My general point against Ian’s argument is this. I do not think anyone doubts that Aramaic was the common vernacular. It was the language Jesus shared with all his hearers in Galilee. Some knew some Greek. But why on earth would Jesus not teach in the language everyone understood?
By the way Aramaic became an international language under the Persian empire, which famously stretched from Egypt to Iran. The empire, needing a common language for administrative purposes, made Aramaic the official language if the empire. (Hence the bits of Aramaic in the book of Ezra.’
Alexander then spread Greek over the same area, but with a rather different effect, because the Greeks understood the language as the vehicle of Greek culture. This produced, for the Jews, the !sccabean crisis.
The Romans did not spread Latin very much, even among the elite.
Instead they spread baths (to which even the rabbis went) and roads (to collect the tolls, said the rabbis).
Sorry, that should have been : Maccabean crisis.
It seems that it is well attested and well known to Israeli scholars that Jesus is a Hebrew Lord whose teachings are Hebraic through and through…originally transmitted in Hebrew.
Backcover endorsements’ by prof Marvin R Wilkson and prof.david Flusser to “Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus – New Insights from a Hebraic Perspective” by David Bivin and Dr. Roy Blizzard, Jr: Destiny Image-Centre for Judaic-Christian studies.
I have that book. It is excellent. It is from the Jerusalem School of New Testament studies founded by Robert Lindsey, although I have come to prefer the Israel School of the Bible among Jewish believers in Jesus in the Holy Land.
People will speak their tribal language, their national language (which was probably political imposed), and the international language.
Yes, bi- or tri-lingualism was the norm in the Ancient Near East. During their more than two centuries in Egypt the Israelites would certainly have learned to speak Egyptian. But thanks to being treated as an underclass, they continued to speak Hebrew/Canaanite in order to maintain their national identity; otherwise they would have assimilated.
Jacob and Laban spoke different languages – Hebrew and Aramaic – but understood each other (Gen 31:43ff).
Equivalent to Greek in NT times, the lingua franca at that time was Akkadian, used, for example, in diplomatic correspondence.
The book of Daniel is written half in Hebrew, half in Aramaic. In Daniel’s day Aramaic was the lingua franca. Most Jewish exiles would have picked up Aramaic during their Exile if they did not know it already. Nehemiah will have spoken at least two languages. An alabaster vase in a museum in Tehran from the time has an inscription in four languages: Old Persian, Elamite, Babylonian and Egyptian.
Today, English is the lingua franca.
That’s great given the literal translation of lingua franca!
Ian, I do not find this persuasive. Your use of evidence is far too generalize and indiscriminate.
For example, Josephus belonged to an aristocratic priestly fa,ily of Jerusalem. He would have had a very good education. No such education was available or affordable to ordinary Galileans,
That Jews adopted Greek name does not mean they could speak Greek.
In the case of Philip and Andrew, it is notable that they came from Bethsaida, which was just outside Galilee in the territory of Herod Philip. Philip obviously was named after him.
Remember that Aramaic itself was an international language, spoken all across the Middle East. Trade to the east could be conducted in Aramaic.
The Capernaum fishermen did not have to do much business at all. Their market was local, and probably they sold their catch immediately it was landed to local traders who sold in the market places.
Anyway it’s a long way from knowing a bit of Greek that might be useful in commerce to Jesus teaching and people listening in Greek. That wouldn’t have worked in Galilee. Jerusalem is another matter because there were lots of diaspora Jews there. The relative prevalence of the three languages must have been quite different in Galilee and Jerusalem.
Don’t forget Hebrew, which was still spoken by some people, and was the language of prayer. Why should Jesus not have composed the Lord’s Prayrer in Hebrew. But why do you assume that Matthew’s version is closer to Jesus’s formulation than Luke’s? Most people think the opposite.
A question I have never seen addressed is why, according to Mark, Jesus quoted Ps 22 in Aramaic. He would have known the psalms in Hebrew, and there was no Targum.
Jesus and Pilate conversed through an interpreter of course. That’s the sort of thing the evangelists could take for granted and did not need to sat. Pilate would have an interpreter on his staff.
I could go on. But in particular it is important to distinguish different degrees and levels of knowledge of a language, related to the specific uses for which people needed it.
in the territory of Herod Philip, outside Galilee
A question I have never seen addressed is why, according to Mark, Jesus quoted Ps 22 in Aramaic.
That’s an interesting question. Reflecting on it, I think the answer is that he did not quote Ps 22! In such a case, he would, as you imply, have spoken the words in Hebrew. He of course knew the psalm, but the sheer desolation he felt after six hours on the cross took him by surprise, so that he cried out what he felt without making any conscious point about the psalm anticipating his agony. He cried out in his mother tongue (which often comes to the fore in extremis), the words turning out to be exactly those of the psalm. With great sensitivity Mark saw that. So he gives us both the original words and the translation, but leaves it to the reader to make the connection.
A conscious reference to the psalm would have implied that, even now, God was with him; God had foreseen the agony and it was his will. While that was true, it was not what he felt. While he still knew God to be his father, he felt utterly abandoned by him.
From a layman: the quotation on the common language equivalent of targum. Both a a contrast to Hebrew scholars, Biblical, yet a confirmation of the status of Jesus among ordinary folk? Just a thought.
Stephen, you may be right, but the double “My God, my God,” is unusual, even in the psalms, I think. Maybe Mark confirmed what Jesus said more closely to the words of the psalm.
Geoff, I don’t think you needed to be a scholar to know psalms in Hebrew. At the end of the last supper, Jesus and the disciples sang a hymn, probably a psalm. There were certain psalms we know pilgrims sang on the way to Jerusalem, including Ps 118, which Jesus quotes in Jerusalem. But there is no evidence there was an Aramaic version of psalms. In the Temple they were sung by the Levites in Hebrew. Remember that Hebrew and Aramaic were quite closely related. It would not be too difficult for ordinary people to pick up the words. In the days when RC services in the UK were in Latin, many people got to know bits of the Latin liturgy. Even Anglican’s sometimes sing “kyrie eleison.” But I suspect ordinary first-century Jews knew more Hebrew than that.
My suggestion about Jesus’s cry is that he had reflected on psalms in which he saw his own destiny and had internalised them to the extent that the words came out in his mother tongue. This is a variation on Stephen’s suggestion, I guess.
Should we also ask, not just why did Jesus quote in Aramaic, but why does Mark go to the trouble of telling his readers? What significance did Mark expect his initial readership / audiences to gain from this information? If they themselves were not Aramaic speakers (or even if they were) why is it relevant for them to know that Jesus cried out in Aramaic? Why not just give them the Greek interpretation – why does it matter to them?
Thank you Richard.
1. Years ago I heard, or read, that to quote the first line of a psalm, was to cite the whole psalm. There doesn’t seem to be much support for that.
2. But there seems to be support for when quoting part is to include, encompass the whole. Jesus on the road to Emmaus was teaching from the whole of the Old Testament with Hebrew divisions. (Alec Moyer).
3. Jesus, King David’s greater son, no less than David himself, draws on the covenant faithfulness of God, that is evident in the closing verses of the Psalm. (Even in the midst of despair there is confidence, comfort, trust, faith, in God, the Father).
1. I have seen that idea mentioned, but only by people who don’t find it convincing.
2. yes, the Psalter was the best known book in third division.
3. I’m sure Jesus knew the whole psalm well. The way it ends is actually quite remarkable.
Should we also ask, not just why did Jesus quote in Aramaic, but why does Mark go to the trouble of telling his readers? What significance did Mark expect his initial readership / audiences to gain from this information? If they themselves were not Aramaic speakers (or even if they were) why is it relevant for them to know that Jesus cried out in Aramaic? Why not just give them the Greek interpretation – why does it matter to them?
??? Yes we, human nature, may wonder why and speculate on answers to questions on which God deigns to remain silent.
Scripture is uncorrectable, and detailed differences between the gospels, to me, as a former solicitor, provide corroborative evidential weight to their historical ear/eyewitness reliability – from the mouth of God.
Yes, Frank, good question.
It applies also to the other occasions on which Mark quotes a word or phrase of Jesus’s Aramaic. I think Mark is indicating that he has eyewitness sources who actually heard Jesus speak. Of course, these few words in Aramaic couldn’t prove an eyewitness sources who actually. Any Aramaic speaker, including Mark, could have retroverted the words back into Aramaic or even just made them up. But they serve as a signal that Mark is claiming eyewitness sources.
I think an exception to this is when Mark gives the Aramaic word Abba when Jesus prays in Gethsemane. Since Paul also uses this word when referring to Christians praying, it could be that even non+Aramaic speakers used this word because it was known to be the special way in which Jesus addressed God.
Languages are not (& were not) static. If you doubt this: try reading your Bible in Wycliffe’s translation, never mind earlier attempts in Anglo-Saxon.
According to 2 Kings 18, “the Syrian language” (Aramaic?) was understood by Hezekiah’s officials, but not by “the men which sit on the wall”. Some considerable time later Nehemiah 8 says that when Ezra read “the book of the law” (presumably in Hebrew?), Jeshua et al. “gave the sense, and caused them [“all the people”] to understand the reading.” This would suggest that ‘the people’ no-longer understood the Hebrew of ‘the Law’, presumably because they only easily understood Aramaic. By Jesus’ time, after two hundred years of Greek-speaking occupation, it is unlikely that anyone spoke Hebrew colloquially, and that Aramaic was nowhere near as universal as most of your contributors seem to assume. After all, in Egypt, Hebrew/Aramaic had been completely erased even among learned Jews (e.g. Philo) and the O.T. translated into Greek [LXX & more…].