Speaking of Jesus: The Art of Not-Evangelism

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The question of Jesus’ primary language would be settled if we knew what people in Nazareth in the first decades of the first century A.D. were speaking. Unfortunately, this knowledge is more elusive than we might like. As far as I know, there is no specific evidence about the language spoken in Nazareth during the life of Jesus. We don’t have inscriptions or ancient manuscripts that can be placed in Nazareth at this time. And James, the son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, and he gave them the name Boanerges, which is Sons of Thunder. Aramaic is a Semitic language, related to Hebrew, Arabic, and similar languages. According to an expert linguist whom I consulted, Hebrew and Aramaic are related much as French and Spanish or Cantonese and Mandarin. During the time of the Assyrian Empire (8th century BC), Aramaic became used throughout the Ancient Near East as the language of diplomacy. In the time of the Persian Empire (6th-4th century BC), Aramaic was the predominant language of the region. Since Judea was part of the Persian Empire, Jews for whom Hebrew was a primary language began to speak Aramaic, especially those of the upper classes. By the time of Jesus, Aramaic was the most common language in Judea, though Hebrew may have been dominant in certain areas, such as Jerusalem or the Qumran community by the Dead Sea. Greek usage was also widespread in those regions during the first century A.D. Did Jesus also speak Greek? This seems to be the case judging from the conversation he had with a centurion seeking healing for his slave (Matthew 8:5-13). A centurion was a senior officer of the Roman army. Many senior military personnel spoke Greek. What language did Jesus speak during the trial by the Roman governor Pilate before he was sentenced to death by crucifixion (Mark 15:2)? It may also have been Greek.

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In Acts 1:19, the "Field of Blood" was known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem in their own language as Akeldama, which is the transliteration of the Aramaic words "Haqal Dama". [18] Can we know for sure that Jesus spoke Greek? No. Is it reasonable to assume that he could speak Greek and did upon occasion? Yes, I believe so. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the variations in the Gospels among the sayings of Jesus reflect that fact that he said more or less the same things in Aramaic, Hebrew, and/or Greek. The fact that Jesus may have spoken Greek may help us to think differently about him and his ministry. For many years it was common to envision Jesus as growing up in the countryside of Galilee, far removed from multi-cultural hodge-podge of the Roman Empire. But this idealized view of the rustic Jesus is far from the truth. Though he grew up in a small town, he was not at all cut off from the broader Roman world. In fact Jesus grew up with ample exposure to Greco-Roman language, culture, commerce, politics, religion, and philosophy. When he eventually entered Jerusalem to confront the Roman and Jewish authorities there – and to give his life in the process – Jesus was no naive country bumpkin making his first trip to the big city. Rather he was well aware of powers and perils he faced, and he faced these knowing, as he ultimately said to Pontius Pilate (in Greek, I believe), “My kingdom is not from this world” (John 18:36). So the only way of knowing the meaning of Hebraisti and Hebraidi in Acts 26:14 is by a careful study of how these words were used both in the New Testament and in other related texts from the first century A.D. These words show up in the New Testament ten times, all in John, Acts, and Revelation (John 5:2; 19:13; 19:17; 20:16; Acts 21:40; 22:2; 26:14; Rev. 9:11; 16:16). In several instances, we cannot tell whether the word means “in Hebrew” or “in Aramaic.” But there are two cases that lend clarity to our investigation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.Josephus differentiated Hebrew from his language and that of first-century Israel. Josephus refers to Hebrew words as belonging to "the Hebrew tongue" but refers to Aramaic words as belonging to "our tongue" or "our language" or "the language of our country". The word Jesus is found 1,176 times in the Old and New Testament. The image below reveals the locations of each occurrence. This cool graph starts with Genesis in the top left and ends with Revelation in the bottom right. But this is not what Jesus meant when he used the Aramaic phrase malkuta dishmaya (which appears in the Greek of Matthew as he basileia ton ouranon). For one thing, the Aramaic word we translate as “kingdom” referred, not only to the place where a king rules, but to the authority of the king. Thus malku could be translated as “kingly authority, rule, or reign,” and should be translated this way in the case of Jesus’ usage. He’s not saying that the place where God rules in coming near, or that we can now enter that place, but rather that God’s royal authority is about to dawn, and is in fact dawning in Jesus’ own ministry. Moreover, the Aramaic term we translate as “heaven,” literally a plural form meaning “heavens,” was often used as a circumlocution for God, much as my grandmother used to say “Good heavens!” rather than “Good God!” So where does the circumstantial evidence for the language of Jesus leave us? It points to Aramaic as his first language. But the multi-lingual context of Galilee suggests that Jesus and his fellow residents of Nazareth might have spoken Hebrew and/or Greek as well. Thus, we would do well to heed the word of caution penned by Richard A. Horsley in his book, Galilee: History, Politics, People: “It is difficult in the extreme to interpret the fragmentary evidence available and draw conclusions for the use of languages in late second-temple Galilee” (p. 247). Horsley’s discussion of this issue, which is the best of which I am aware, supports the common use of Aramaic in Galilee, but documents the use of Hebrew and Greek as well (pp. 247-250).

Language Did Jesus Speak? | HISTORY What Language Did Jesus Speak? | HISTORY

But I say that each of you says "I am of Paul", or "I am of Apollos", or "I am of Cephas", or "I am of Christ". The so-called “biblical case” for the Hebrew speaking Jesus rests mainly on one verse in, not in the Gospels, but in Acts of the Apostles. It is in Paul’s story of his conversion on the road to Damascus, where Jesus appeared to him. Here is this verse in the ESV, one of the most literal translations today: Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that there isn’t such a thing as a blessed afterlife or that Jesus has nothing to do with how we enter this afterlife. But I am saying that when we understand Jesus to be talking continually about what we call heaven when he speaks of “the kingdom of heaven” or “the kingdom of God,” we are fundamentally missing his point. He’s speaking, not so much about life after death, as about the experience of God’s kingly power in this life and on this earth, both now and in the age to come. (I have written extensively on the topic of Jesus’ teaching on the kingdom of God. See my series: What Was the Message of Jesus?) Abba, an originally Aramaic form borrowed into the Greek Old Testament as a name (2Chr 29:1) [standing for the Hebrew Abijah ( אביה‎)], common in Mishnaic Hebrew and still used in Modern Hebrew [32] (written Αββά[ς] in Greek, and ’abbā in Aramaic), is immediately followed by the Greek equivalent (Πατήρ) with no explicit mention of it being a translation. In Aramaic, it would be אבא.Finally, I should mention again that I have no particular bias in this conversation about the language(s) of Jesus. Yes, I have gone on record saying that I think Aramaic was his first language. But it wouldn’t trouble me to be wrong about this. In fact, my opinion is a little more nuanced now than it was six years ago. No matter which language or languages Jesus spoke, I have confidence in the historical authenticity of the Gospels and believe about Jesus everything contained in the Nicene Creed and the Symbol of Chalcedon. That’s a technical way of saying that I am an orthodox Christian. In recent years, more scholars are taking seriously the possibility that Jesus spoke Greek. I’ll examine relevant evidence from the Gospels later in this series. For now, it is worth nothing that Greek was commonly used in certain strata of Galilean society. This began when Alexander the Great conquered the region in 332 B.C. Under his rule, and under the rule of those who followed him (the Ptolemies and the Seleucids), Greek was the language of government and commerce. The Romans used Latin for official communication, but Greek was the common language of the Empire. Every now and then, I have run into commentators who argue that some of the sayings of Jesus imply that he knew Greek. If, for example, there is a play on words that works in Greek but not in Aramaic or Hebrew, this points to a Greek original. At this moment I can’t remember any specific examples. Perhaps a commenter can fill us in. But, to this point, I have not been convinced that any of the sayings must have had a Greek origin. I have been more convinced by those who propose a Semitic (Aramaic or Hebrew) original for the sayings of Jesus. Consider another example. When one learns to speak Spanish, one discovers that there are many, many words in Spanish that look like words in English. This makes understanding and translation much easier. So, suppose you meet a young woman who speaks Spanish. You’re not very good at Spanish, but you want to ask her if she’s intelligent. So you take a stab at it and say, “¿Eres intelligente?” She smiles and says “Sí­.” Job well done. But suppose you want to ask her if she’s embarrassed. So you make another educated guess and ask, “¿Eres embarazada?” Sounds good, right? But the young woman slaps you in the face and stomps off. What went wrong? Well, embarazada looks and sounds a lot like embarrassed, but it doesn’t mean that. It means pregnant. Oops. Linguistic error. Not prudent to ask a young woman if she’s pregnant. ¡Que vergüenza! (How embarrassing!) (Besides, a Spanish speaker would not use the verb “eres” with “embarazada,” since this verb implies a permanent situation, which is rarely the case when one is pregnant. Thanks to Ramiro Rodas for this observation.) And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Speaking of Jesus: How to Tell Your Friends the Best News

In Mark 3, we find the story of Jesus’ calling of the twelve disciples. In the list of those whom he called, we find these names: “James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder)” (Mark 3:17). The word boanerges is a Greek transliteration of an Aramaic phrase, though the precise phrase is not altogether clear. Several Aramaic options are possible. A painting of the Crucifixion of Jesus, from a church in Taormina, on the island of Sicily. Throughout the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus continually refers to the kingdom of heaven, as in “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt 3:2). Many Christians take the phrase “the kingdom of heaven” as a description of what we call heaven: the place where we go to be with the Lord after we die. This makes good sense in English, because “kingdom” signifies a place ruled by a king, and “heaven” is the place we believers go after we die, the place where God rules (Matt 6:10).And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. If Jesus knew enough Greek to converse with a Roman centurion and a Roman governor, where did he learn it? Some have suggested that he might have learned it during his early years in Egypt. A more likely explanation points to his location in Galilee. Though Aramaic was the first language of Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown was a short walk from Sepphoris, which was a major city and one in which Greek was spoken. Jesus quite probably had clients in Sepphoris who utilized his carpentry services, and he would have spoken with them in Greek. In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf.” During and before the time of Jesus, there wasn’t just one version of Aramaic being used in Judea and beyond. Some Aramaic was official and formal. This is preserved, as you would expect, in official documents and inscriptions. Some was informal and common. This was spoken and has mostly been lost to modern scholars. The fact that Aramaic was used by Jews in Judea is supported by its use in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls (which are mostly in Hebrew, however), and in some ancient documents and inscriptions. Even many grave inscriptions around Jerusalem are in Aramaic, not Hebrew. It’s most likely that in Galilee, where Jesus was raised and where he began his ministry, Aramaic was the most common language of the people, though many would have been able to understand Hebrew and to get along in Greek as well. The Aramaic is ṭlīthā qūm. The word ṭlīthā is the feminine form of the word ṭlē, meaning "young". Qūm is the Aramaic verb 'to rise, stand, get up'. In the feminine singular imperative, it was originally qūmī. However, there is evidence [ clarification needed] that in speech, the final -ī was dropped so the imperative did not distinguish between masculine and feminine genders. The older manuscripts, therefore, used a Greek spelling that reflected pronunciation, whereas the addition of an 'ι' was perhaps due to a bookish copyist. [ citation needed]