Jesus
spoke Hebrew and Aramaic. I have written a lot about Hebrew in the past, but
not much about Aramaic lately. Below are some things you need to know about
three of the five dialects of Aramaic that are related to the Bible.[1]
●
Ancient Aramaic is the language of the ancient Aramaic
inscriptions up to 700 BCE (from Upper Mesopotamia, northern Syria, and northern Israel).
●
Official Aramaic was in use from 700 to 300 BCE. This
particular Aramaic dialect served not only as the official language of
Persia but also as the lingua franca of the Near East. The
Aramaic parts of the Bible are: Genesis 31:47 (two words); Jeremiah 10:11;
Daniel 2:4–7:28; and Ezra 4:8–6:8; and 7:12–26.
●
Middle Aramaic was used from 300 BCE to the early
centuries CE. The Aramaic inscriptions in Jerusalem and the
Aramaic words found in the New Testament, are all in Middle
Aramaic.
During
the time of Jesus Middle Aramaic was the language of commerce and widely spoken
in Judea and the Galilee. It was the language of schools and markets. In
synagogues, the Hebrew Bible was orally translated into Aramaic, line by line,
for the benefit of those who did not understand Hebrew. Later Aramaic became
the language of the Talmud. This creates a very unusual and challenging
situations in Christianity.
Jesus spoke and taught
in Hebrew and Aramaic,
but every book in the
New Testament was written in Greek.
We
do not know whether Jesus spoke or understood Greek. It is likely that he knew
a few words, the kind you might use at the market or on the street. But there
is no evidence that Jesus thought, taught or prayed in Greek. What evidence
we have is overwhelmingly against it. This creates a unique phenomenon in the
histories of religions:
A religion whose sacred
texts were written in a largely unintelligible
language its founder and
original members would not have been able to read.
This
brings us back to the history of Christianity. In the first decades after the
Romans executed Jesus, his movement could have gone in either of two directions
and become:
●
A Hebrew/Aramaic speaking Jewish sect under the leadership of Jacob (James)
the brother of Jesus.
●
A Greek speaking Hellenistic Jewish sect under the leadership of Saul a.k.a.
Paul.
The
Greek speaking movement of Paul rapidly increased in size because he attracted Hellenists
Jews and God-Fearing Gentiles that adopted some aspects of Judaism, e.g., kept
Shabbat, attended synagogues, etc. A critical component of Paul’s movement was the
Septuagint -- the Greek translation of the Hebrew Jewish
Scriptures made in Ptolemaic Egypt in the third century BCE. It was the first
Bible Gentiles read, taught and memorized stories. Greek was the natural
language of thought for Paul, the writers of the Gospels, the authors of
the other books of the New Testament, the early Church Fathers and the
first Christian theologians. It was their genius that shaped Gentile Christianity.
If
Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic been closely related languages, this might have been
of little consequence. But first-century Greek and Hebrew were not just
different languages – they were different types of societies with realities
that were diametrically opposed. Concrete acts were the pillars of Jewish societies.
Reason and abstract thought produced beliefs that were the foundation of the
Greek societies.
Later,
for Gentile followers of Paul, the meanings of the Hebrew words ELOHIYM,
YHVH, TZEDAQAH, SHALOM, AHAVAH, TESHUVAH, etc. were unknown. They were
replaced by the meanings of the Greek that replaced them in the Septuagint. A
good example of this is the verse that Paul’s gospel and movement are based on.
It is Paul’s answer to a question he asked in Romans 4:3 – “For what does the Scripture say?” This was his answer:
“Abraham believed God,
and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
For
Greek speakers, “believed God” was understood to mean “construct
philosophical proofs of the existence of God.” But the verse in
Romans is a direct quote of Genesis 15:6 -- which was written in Hebrew.
Abram trusted God, and He credited it to him as TZEDAQAH.
“Trusted
God” in Hebrew meant “being faithful to God.” In Hebrew,
“faithfulness is a matter of how people behave, not a matter of what people
think.” Believing and doing are part of a single
continuum -- both are a measure of a living relationship
characterized by loyalty to God and to those created in His image.
Faithfulness to God is
a relationship in which humans become
God’s partners in the
work of doing acts of TZEDAQAH –
concrete acts that are TOV
that restore SHALOM.
For
Paul’s Greek speaking Gentile followers, believing God was demonstrated
by the strength of their reasoned arguments about abstract
notions – when Jesus became the Christ; whether God and Jesus are
creatures of the same substance; how one changes his mind to repent; what one
must believe to be saved from Hell; what the afterlife will be like; to name a
few.
For
Jesus and his Hebrew speaking Jewish followers, “faithfulness to God was
observable” – everyone could see concrete acts of compassion, generosity,
kindness, and understanding; i.e., feeding the hungry, healing the sick,
housing the homeless, visiting prisoners, forgiving others, and fighting for
justice.
After
the Romans beheaded Paul (between 64 and 67 CE), and then destroyed the
Jerusalem Temple (70 CE), Paul’s movement quickly lost any links it had to
its Jewish roots. It rapidly spread through Gentile cultures which resulted in “new
beliefs based on reasoned arguments, persecutions by Roman emperors and
internal wars between Christians themselves.” From those things, the universal
Gentile religion emerged that caught the attention of Constantine the Great,
Emperor of the Roman Empire.
However,
embedded in the Sacred Scriptures of this Gentile religion are “the
stories of the Jewish Hebrew speaking Anointed One” – the one they
call “The Christ.”
Today those original
stories are being heard again!
Choose
Life 1st by Doing TOV,
Jim
Myers
Helping People Examine Their Beliefs
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