Earlier
this week, a good friend, Rabbi Loren Jacobs of the Christian-Jewish synagogue
Shema Israel, asked me about the language(s) of Jesus. He noted that in the
various English versions of the New Testament, some used the word “Aramaic” and
some the word “Hebrew”. A case in point is the difference between the NASB and
the NIV, the former using the word “Hebrew” and the latter the word “Aramaic”.
Rabbi Jacobs was under the impression that Hebrew rather than Aramaic was the lingua
franca of 1st century Jews, and indeed, in the texts of the New
Testament, the word that is always used is (hebrais = Hebrew). He
specifically asked about John 19:17 where the word Golgotha is said to be in
Hebrew (NASB) or Aramaic (NIV). Highly reputable linguistic sources (such as
BADG) indicate that this word should be understood as Aramaic. So what was it,
Hebrew or Aramaic?
The
answer to this question about Jesus’ spoken language is somewhat vexing,
though we may be getting a better handle on it now than a few decades ago.
First, there is plenty of evidence that biblical Hebrew was not
"dead" if for no other reason than that the Hebrew Scriptures were
still retained and in use in their original tongue. Most of the Dead Sea
Scrolls were in Hebrew, and these texts from the Judean desert included
not only Scripture, but also sectarian documents of the community. It would be
one thing for the Qumran community to have Scriptures in Hebrew, but where
their own sectarian documents, such as, the Manual of Discipline, etc., are in
Hebrew, obviously it suggests that Hebrew is not
"dead". There also is plenty of evidence that both Aramaic and
Greek were widely used, even in Jewish communities, the former in Syria
Palestina (the Roman name for Syria, Galilee and Judea), where the Jewish
community produced Aramaic translations of the Hebrew
Scriptures (more-or-less along the lines of paraphrases) and the
latter among the Diaspora (which presumably used the Greek Septuagint and
perhaps Hebrew scrolls as well). That Aramaic was a common
vernacular is attested by these Targums (why else translate the Hebrew Scriptures
into Aramaic except that it was widely used). Much earlier, when Ezra came back
from Babylon several centuries before and publicly read the Torah, many of the
newly arrived returnees no longer could easily understand the Hebrew
Scriptures, since Aramaic was the lingua franca of the larger
Mesopotamia world, a language they had now adopted. They needed assistance with
either translation or interpretation or both (Neh. 8:7-8). As is well-known,
portions of Daniel and Ezra-Nehemiah are also in Aramaic.
When
one then addresses the spoken language of Jesus, it is entirely possible that
Jesus was conversant in all three languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek (Latin
is much less likely). However, the direct quotations of Jesus'
words outside Greek, mostly in Mark's Gospel, appear to be in Aramaic,
which is why many scholars have concluded that Jesus primarily spoke Aramaic. Whether
Jesus' vernacular was Hebrew or Aramaic (or both) is not entirely clear, as is
the question of whether or not he ever taught in Greek, or the wider
question of whether the current vernacular of the Jewish community was Hebrew
or Aramaic (with Greek as a second language for business purposes). The answer
to the one question bears upon the answer to the other. If the wider
language of the Jewish community was Aramaic, then it seems most reasonable that Jesus
would have addressed them in that language. If the wider language of the Jewish
community was Hebrew, then Jesus would have addressed them in Hebrew. Most
scholars have concluded that Aramaic was the conversational language of the
Galilean and Judean Jewish community, and therefore, that Jesus’ primarily
language was Aramaic. He may have used Hebrew on occasion, but most likely
those who would understand Hebrew were not the common people to whom he
regularly taught, but the rabbis, scribes and priests.
Related
to this issue is the fact that there is a difference between
language and script. In America, for instance, our language is English but our
script is Latin. We can use the term "English" to refer to both, even
though they are not the same thing. (The script of most European languages is
also Latin, the language differences notwithstanding, which is to say that
whether one is working in English, French or German, the working alphabet
is the same.) The same thing was true of Hebrew and Aramaic. Both languages used
the same script, even though the two languages were distinct (albeit there were
quite a number of common words between them). Hence, when the New Testament
uses the word Hebrais ("Hebrew"), which it certainly does in
describing various circumstances, it still is possible that this is a loose
usage that could be applied to Aramaic, since Aramaic used the same 22 alphabetic letters
as did Hebrew. That Jesus used Aramaic at least sometimes seem clear enough
from Mark's Gospel. Also, certain Aramaic words retained their usage in the
later non-Jewish church, even among Greek-speakers, since almost
certainly they were the original words of Jesus (words like "Abba"
and "Maranatha".) Could Jesus also have spoken Hebrew? Certainly. However,
if one is to conclude that Hebrew, not Aramaic, was the lingua franca of the
Jewish community in Galilee, I think the burden of proof is on them, for one
must also then explain why the Jews even translated their Scriptures into
Aramaic in the Targums and why what snippets of original language we have
from Jesus are in Aramaic. It also is possible that Jesus spoke Greek.
Certainly he was reared in the proximity of a Greek-speaking city, since
Sepphoris was only 4 miles from Nazareth, and Joseph, being a laborer (either
mason or carpenter), would in all likelihood have found some work there. When
Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue of Nazareth, the passage
he read was Isaiah 61:1-2, and at least as quoted in Luke’s Gospel, it seems
not to have been an Aramaic Targum. Actually, the citation seems to be from the
Greek Septuagint, probably because Luke’s non-Jewish audience would have been more
familiar with this version. Still, it is unlikely that the synagogue in
Nazareth used a Septuagint and much more likely that Jesus was reading from a
Hebrew text.
When
it comes to Paul, he seems fluent in both Hebrew and Greek. He quotes both from
the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint in his letters, though he uses the
Septuagint more frequently, possibly because, as with Luke, his audience was
largely Greek-speaking. Having spent a significant amount of time in Jerusalem
studying under Gamaliel, I would suppose that Paul was fluent in Aramaic
as well, though his speech at his arrest in the temple is described as being in
"Hebrew" in Acts 21:40. What is not clear is whether Luke is using
the term "Hebrew" in the sense of script or in the sense of
language. Most modern English versions opt for Aramaic as the language Paul
used on this occasion.
One
more facet of this issue concerns the terms Helleniston and Hebraious
in Acts 6:1. The distinction here seems primarily to be one of culture and
language, but both within the Jewish community. Most scholars argue that
while the one term applies to Diaspora Jews living in Jerusalem who had adopted
a Hellenistic culture and probably spoke Greek, and the other refers
to Jews native to Palestine who did not use Greek as their lingua
franca. How strong a case can be made of "Hebrew" over
"Aramaic" in this instance is unclear, since the primary linguistic
distinction may be between scripts (Greek uses an entirely different script
than either Hebrew or Aramaic, while Hebrew and Aramaic use the same script).
Now,
to Rabbi Jacob’s specific question about John 19:17: was it "Hebrew"
or "Aramaic"? There is no doubt that the Greek text of this verse
uses the word "Hebrew"; however, what is not clear is whether this is
a description of script or language. In John 19:20, just a couple verses later,
the inscription over the cross was written in three distinct lines, and it
specifies Hebrew, Greek and Latin, which are three different languages, to be
sure, but three different scripts as well. In John 19:20, I'm inclined to
think that the three designations of Hebrew, Greek and Latin refer to scripts,
but this is certainly not an opinion I'd die for.
Papias of Hierapolis, early in the second century, is quoted as stating "Matthew put the logia [the sayings of Jesus] in an ordered arrangement in the Hebrew language, but each person interpreted them as best he could." I assume that the reference to "Hebrew" could refer to Aramaic as well as Hebrew proper.
ReplyDeleteDo you find any evidence that the Gospel of Matthew that we have today was translated from Aramaic or Hebrew into Greek?
More important, if the written "Q" collection of the sayings of Jesus actually existed (I am not sure that it ever as a written document), is there any evidence that these sayings had an Aramaic origin before being "quoted" as Greek sayings in Matthew and Luke?
All of this raises a larger question, in which language or languages was the oral tradition of Jesus' words and deeds remembered and passed down?