What Language Did Jesus Speak?

Aramaic? Hebrew? Greek?  Latin?

Or did Jesus speak more than one language?

Scholars, especially scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries, have been divided on the language of Jesus. From the pat answers of the past, we have evolved to a more nuanced understanding. From my viewpoint, I stand mostly on the shoulders of scholars before me, especially the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Studies (through the Pasadena teachings of E. William Bean), and on discoveries during research for my Master's thesis on the Letter of Jude (especially from the foremost scholar on Jude, Richard J. Bauckham). I have also consulted the excellent Patheos blog post of Mark D. Roberts to refresh my mind on this subject.

Jesus Spoke Aramaic

Aramaic was the language of the East, with roots in what is now Iraq. Starting in the 6th century BC, conquerors from the east established Aramaic as the official government language of the region of Galilee and Judea. By the time of Jesus, Aramaic was still the most common language in Palestine, even though the official government language was now Greek, brought in by Alexander the Great and his successors, and reinforced by the dominance of the Roman Empire. Aramaic would be especially prominent in rural villages such as Nazareth where Jesus grew up, while Greek would be more common in the newer, Roman-inspired cities such as nearby Sepphoris.

We have solid Biblical evidence that Jesus spoke Aramaic. Although the Gospels are written in Greek, in certain places they quote actual Aramaic words spoken by Jesus. Prominent among these is Mark 5:41, in which Jesus enters a home in Capernaum where a young girl has died. Jesus held her hand and said to her, "Talitha, koum!" which means, "Little girl, get up!"  These are words in Aramaic, the common language of the people, and the most likely words that the girl would understand.

Jesus spent a considerable portion of his ministry going from small town to small town, preaching the message of the Gospel. In these circumstances he would be mostly using Aramaic, to be understood by the majority of his listeners there.

Jesus spoke Hebrew.

Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we now know that the overwhelming majority of the manuscripts of the Old Testament in first-century Palestine were written in the original Hebrew language. In Egypt the Jews used the Greek translation of the Scriptures, but in Palestine, most synagogues would read from the original Hebrew. After a reading from the Five Books of Moses, their liturgical worship would go on to the Haftarah, a reading "after the Torah" from the books of the prophets. It was just such a reading that we find Jesus doing in Nazareth at Luke 4:16, showing that he not only spoke Hebrew, but also could read it from a scroll, and had been doing that as "his custom."

If he then translated that reading into Aramaic for the listeners in the synagogue we do not know. He may have expected his listeners to understand Hebrew. More likely, Luke skips over the translation task and cuts to the chase: Jesus' pesher "inspired interpretation" of the reading, delivered in the common language of the people, Aramaic (Luke 4:21). This method of teaching from scripture is well attested from the Dead Sea Scrolls collection.

But on other occasions, Jesus would have been using Hebrew as the prime language. Hebrew was the "language of religious discourse" used by scribes and by the great schools in Jerusalem. Jesus would have used Hebrew when he was in dialogue with Jerusalem's Pharisees and Scribes (Matthew 15:1-9) about matters of Jewish law, putting himself on a level plain with the great teachers of Jerusalem, who considered him and his disciples to be "unschooled."

Hebrew was also the language of patriots and zealots, the "national language" of those opposed to outside rulers, even as it is today. Jesus had at least one of these zealots among his disciples, and he may have used Hebrew when teaching such nationalists a more precise understanding of the Gospel message.

Jesus spoke Greek.

This is less certain than Aramaic or Hebrew, for we lack a direct citation of him speaking in Greek. Mark Roberts notes that we find Jesus in conversation with the Roman governor Pilate, who might not want to "lower" himself to speaking the common language--and certainly would not hear an official trial in anything but Greek. But here again, if there were translators present the Gospel writers would likely pass over their role in silence.

More to the point, Greek was prevalent in the major cities (perhaps not Jerusalem) and would have been the language of commerce. There were any number of major construction projects under way around Galilee, not only in Sepphoris but also in Herod Antipas' regional capital of Herodias on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. As a construction worker (the real meaning of "carpenter"), Jesus during his earlier 30 years would have worked on some of these projects, where great sums of money were spent to build elaborate structures.

For use of Greek I would point to Jesus' older brother Jude, one of the many offspring of Joseph and his first wife, before Mary. (This was the familial relationship understood and accepted during the first 200 years of Christianity--and certainly not a "cousin.") Jude's letter, while lacking in structures such as dependent clauses, is a powerful seven-minute sermon in fine sophisticated Greek using a broad vocabulary with sound structures such as alliteration and onomatopoeia. Jude certainly was exposed to Greek during his two or more years in Egypt as a boy, and I find it hard to accept that Jesus, although he was a toddler in Egypt, would not have picked up Greek from his four brothers and his two or three sisters.

Jesus may not have spoken Latin.

Although it is certain that there would have been Latin loan-words that crept into the Aramaic and Greek languages, the Roman Empire did not require Latin for its dependent territories to its east. On the other hand, there were Rome-loving cities in Syria and Palestine (the 10 towns of the Decapolis) where they were eager to adopt anything Roman, and would likely value its language. But the Bible does not attest to dealings of Jesus in these Rome-loving areas other than the boat trip that put him in contact with the man possessed by a legion of demons. The reaction of the citizens of the area was to ask Jesus to kindly leave the premises.

So, Jesus spoke Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, and could probably read all three. This is far from some of the teachings of mid-20th century Christianity, which loved to portray Jesus and his disciples as uneducated, illiterate, poverty-stricken peons of the Nazareth countryside. Although Jesus had much to say about the treatment of such common people, these other perceptions were well off the mark.

But what about our teenage hero John? What language(s) does he speak? He grew up in the Aramaic-speaking village of Bethsaida, so that part's known. But does he speak Hebrew? If so, where did he learn it? And Greek? Same questions. If John the Baptist in his wilderness outpost takes young John in as his disciple, will he have to teach him how to read the Hebrew scrolls? Check out Episode One, where I deal with these issues in chapters 3 through 7!