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There exists a consensus among scholars thatJesus spokeAramaic.[1] Aramaic was the common language ofRoman Judaea, and was thus also spoken by at least some ofJesus' disciples.
The villages ofNazareth andCapernaum inGalilee, wherethe Gospels record him as having been raised, were populated by Aramaic-speaking communities.[2] Jesus probably spoke theGalilean dialect, distinguishable from that which was spoken inRoman-era Jerusalem.[3] Galilee was known for its trade routes and for its interface with the wider spectrum ofHellenism;Matthew 4:15 references "Galilee of the Gentiles". As such, the Gospels understand Jesus' youth in Nazareth to be in a highly cosmopolitan area in which Greek was used frequently, 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the meeting of several major trade routes inSepphoris.[4] It is thus likely that Jesus was able to work inKoine Greek.
Additionally, given thatHebrew had continued to be used by Judeans who were left behind during theBabylonian captivity and is understood to be the language of composition for several canonical texts composed in theSecond Temple period,[5] Jesus was conversant in the Hebrew spoken among theSamaritans, according toJohn 4. Jesus was thus well versed inBiblical Hebrew, beyond its use as the liturgical language ofSecond Temple Judaism.[6][7][8][9]
Aramaic was thecommon language of theEastern Mediterranean during and after theNeo-Assyrian,Neo-Babylonian, andAchaemenid empires (722–330 BC) and remained a common language of the region in the first century AD. In spite of the increasing importance of Greek, the use of Aramaic was also expanding, and it would eventually be dominant among Jews both in theHoly Land and elsewhere in theMiddle East around 200 AD[10] and would remain so until theIslamic conquests in the seventh century.[11][12]
According toDead Sea Scrolls archaeologistYigael Yadin, Aramaic was the language ofHebrews untilSimon Bar Kokhba's revolt (132 AD to 135 AD). Yadin noticed the shift from Aramaic toHebrew in the documents he studied, which had been written during the time of the Bar Kokhba revolt. In his book,Bar Kokhba: The rediscovery of the legendary hero of the last Jewish Revolt Against Imperial Rome, Yigael Yadin notes, "It is interesting that the earlier documents are written in Aramaic while the later ones are in Hebrew. Possibly the change was made by a special decree of Bar Kokhba who wanted to restore Hebrew as the official language of the state".[13]
In another book by Sigalit Ben-Zion, Yadin said: "it seems that this change came as a result of the order that was given by Bar Kokhba, who wanted to revive the Hebrew language and make it the official language of the state."[14] Yadin points out that Aramaic was the regionallingua franca at the time.[15]
Hebrew historianJosephus comments on learningGreek in first centuryJudea:[16]
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, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their periods; because they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, not only to all sorts of free-men, but to as many of the servants as please to learn them. But they give him the testimony of being a wise man who is fully acquainted with our laws, and is able to interpret their meaning; on which account, as there have been many who have done their endeavors with great patience to obtain this learning, there have yet hardly been so many as two or three that have succeeded therein, who were immediately well rewarded for their pains.
— Antiquities of Jews XX, XI
In the first century AD, the Aramaic language was widespread throughout the Middle East, as is supported by the testimony of Josephus'sThe Jewish War.[17]
Josephus chose to inform people from what are now Iran, Iraq, and remote parts of theArabian Peninsula about thewar of the Jews against the Romans through books he wrote "in the language of our country", prior to translating into Greek for the benefit of the Greeks and Romans:
I have proposed to myself, for the sake of such as live under the government of the Romans, to translate those books into the Greek tongue, which I formerly composed in the language of our country, and sent to the Upper Barbarians; Joseph, the son of Matthias, by birth a Hebrew, a priest also, and one who at first fought against the Romans myself, and was forced to be present at what was done afterwards, [am the author of this work].
— Jewish Wars (Book 1, Preface, Paragraph 1)
I thought it therefore an absurd thing to see the truth falsified in affairs of such great consequence, and to take no notice of it; but to suffer those Greeks and Romans that were not in the wars to be ignorant of these things, and to read either flatteries or fictions, while theParthians, and theBabylonians, and the remotest Arabians, and those of our nation beyondEuphrates, with theAdiabeni, by my means, knew accurately both whence the war begun, what miseries it brought upon us, and after what manner it ended.
— Jewish Wars (Book 1 Preface, Paragraph 2)
H. St. J. Thackeray (who translated Josephus'Jewish Wars from Greek into English) also points out, "We learn from the proem that the Greek text was not the first draft of the work. It had been preceded by a narrative written in Aramaic and addressed to "the barbarians in the interior", who are more precisely defined lower down as the natives of Parthia, Babylonia, andArabia, the Jewish dispersion inMesopotamia, and the inhabitants of Adiabene, a principality of which the reigning house, as was proudly remembered, were converts toJudaism (B. i, 3, 6). Of this Aramaic work the Greek is described as a "version" made for the benefit of the subjects of the Roman Empire, i.e. the Graeco-Roman world at large.[18]
InActs 1:19, the "Field of Blood" was known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem in their own language asAkeldama, which is the transliteration of the Aramaic words "Haqal Dama".[19]
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".
Josephus refers to a Hebrew word with the phrase "the Hebrew tongue": "But the affairs of theCanaanites were at this time in a flourishing condition, and they expected the Israelites with a great army at the city Bezek, having put the government into the hands ofAdonibezek, which name denotes the Lord of Bezek, for Adoni in the Hebrew tongue signifies Lord."[20]
In this example, Josephus refers to an Aramaic word as belonging to "our language": "This new-built part of the city was called 'Bezetha,' in our language, which, if interpreted in the Grecian language, may be called 'the New City.'"[21]
On several occasions in the New Testament, Aramaic words are called Hebrew. For example, inJohn 19:17 (KJV), the gospel-writer narrates that Jesus, "bearing his cross[,] went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the HebrewGolgotha." The last word is, in fact, Aramaic. The word "Golgotha" is a transliteration of an Aramaic word, because-tha inGolgotha is the Aramaic definite article on a feminine noun in an emphatic state.[22]
The GreekNew Testamenttransliterates a fewSemitic words.[23] When the text refers to the language of such Semitic glosses, it uses words meaning "Hebrew"/"Jewish" (Acts 21:40; 22:2; 26:14:têi hebraḯdi dialéktōi,lit. 'in the Hebrew dialect/language')[24] but this term is often applied to unmistakably Aramaic words and phrases;[25][26] for this reason, it is often interpreted as meaning "the (Aramaic) vernacular of the Jews" in recent translations.[27]
A small minority of scholars believe that most or all of theNew Testament was originally written in Aramaic.[28][29] This theory is known asAramaic primacy.
In theGospel of Mark, 5:41:
And taking the hand of the child, he said to her, "Talitha kum", which translates as, "Little girl, I say to you, get up."
— Mark 5:41[30]
This verse gives an Aramaic phrase, attributed to Jesus bringing the girl back to life, with atransliteration into Greek, asταλιθὰ κούμ.[31] A few Greekmanuscripts (Codex Sinaiticus,Vaticanus) ofMark's Gospel have this form of the text, but others (Codex Alexandrinus, the text-type known as theMajority Text, and also theLatinVulgate) writeκοῦμι (koumi, cumi) instead. The latter is in theTextus Receptus and is the version which appears in theKJV.[citation needed]
The Aramaic isṭlīthā qūm. The wordṭlīthā is the feminine form of the wordṭlē, meaning "young".Qūm is the Aramaic verb 'to rise, stand, get up'. In the feminine singularimperative, it was originallyqūmī. However, there is evidence[clarification needed] that in speech, the final-ī was dropped so the imperative did not distinguish betweenmasculine andfeminine genders. The older manuscripts, therefore, used a Greek spelling that reflected pronunciation, whereas the addition of an 'ι' was perhaps due to a bookishcopyist.[citation needed]
In square script Aramaic, it could be טליתא קומי or טליתא קום.[citation needed]
Once again, the Aramaic word is given with the transliteration, only this time, the word to be transliterated is more complicated. In Greek, the Aramaic is written ἐφφαθά. This could be from the Aramaicethpthaḥ, the passive imperative of the verbpthaḥ, 'to open', since theth could assimilate in western Aramaic. The pharyngealḥ was often omitted in Greek transcriptions in theSeptuagint (Greek Old Testament) and was also softened in Galilean speech.[32]
In Aramaic, it could be אתפתח or אפתח. This word was adopted as the official motto ofGallaudet University, theUnited States' most prominent school for thedeaf.
Mark 14:36
Galatians 4:6
Romans 8:15
Abba, an originally Aramaic form borrowed into the Greek Old Testament as a name (2Chr 29:1) [standing for the HebrewAbijah (אביה)], common inMishnaic Hebrew and still used inModern Hebrew[33] (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.
Note, the nameBarabbas is aHellenization of the AramaicBar Abba (בר אבא), literally "Son of the Father".
Matthew 5:22
(The bracketed text does not appear in allrecensions and is absent in the LatinVulgate.)
Raca, orRaka, in the Aramaic and Hebrew of theTalmud, means empty one, fool, empty head.
In Aramaic, it could be ריקא or ריקה.
Gospel of Matthew 6:24
Luke 16:9–13
In Aramaic, it could be ממון (or, in the typical Aramaic "emphatic" state suggested by the Greek ending, ממונא). This is usually considered to be an originally Aramaic word borrowed intoRabbinic Hebrew,[34] but its occurrence in late Biblical Hebrew and, reportedly, in 4th centuryPunic may indicate that it had a more general "common Semitic background".[35]
In the New Testament, the wordΜαμωνᾶςMamōnâs isdeclined like a Greek word, whereas many of the other Aramaic and Hebrew words are treated as indeclinable foreign words.
Also in Mark 10:51. Hebrew formrabbi used as title of Jesus in Matthew 26:25,49; Mark 9:5, 11:21, 14:45; John 1:38, 1:49, 4:31, 6:25, 9:2, 11:8.
In Aramaic, it would have been רבוני.
Didache 10:6 (Prayer after Communion)
Depending on how one selects to split the single Greek expression of the early manuscripts into Aramaic, it could be variously one of the following:
This phrase, one of theseven sayings of Jesus on the cross, is given in two versions: in theGospel of Matthew, it is transliterated in Greek as Ἠλί, Ἠλί, λεμὰ σαβαχθανί; in theGospel of Mark, it is given as Ἐλωΐ, Ἐλωΐ, λαμὰ σαβαχθανί. The differences between the two are the use, in Mark, ofelōi rather thanēli, and oflama rather thanlema.
Overall, both versions can be said to be inAramaic, rather than inHebrew, because of the verbשבק (šbq) "abandon", which exists only in Aramaic.[36][37] The Biblical Hebrew counterpart to this word,עזב (‘zb) is seen in the second verse of theOld Testament'sPsalm 22, which the saying appears to quote. Thus, Jesus is not quoting the canonical Hebrew version (ēlī ēlī lāmā ‘azabtānī), which the psalm claims was ofKing David, but rather the version in an AramaicTargum (translation of the Bible). Surviving Aramaic Targums do use the verbšbq in their translations of the Psalm 22.[38]
The word used in the Gospel of Mark for "my god", Ἐλωΐ, corresponds to the Aramaic form אלהי,elāhī. The one used in Matthew, Ἠλί, fits in better with the אלי of the original Hebrew Psalm, as has been pointed out in the literature; however, it may also be Aramaic because this form is attested abundantly in Aramaic as well.[37][39]
In the next verse, in both accounts, some who hear Jesus' cry imagine that he is calling for help fromElijah (Ēlīyā in Aramaic).
Almost all ancient Greek manuscripts show signs of trying to normalize the two slightly different versions of Jesus's saying, presented in Mark and Matthew. For instance, the peculiarCodex Bezae renders both versions with ηλι ηλι λαμα ζαφθανι (ēli ēli lama zaphthani). The Alexandrian, Western and Caesarean textual families all reflect harmonization of the texts between Matthew and Mark. Only the Byzantine textual tradition preserves a distinction.
The Aramaic word formšəḇaqtanī is based on the verbšǝḇaq/šāḇaq, 'to allow, to permit, to forgive, and to forsake', with the perfect aspect ending-t (second person singular: 'you'), and the object suffix-anī (first person singular: 'me').
The most likely rendition of the phrase in its original Aramaic, as said by Jesus, would have been "אלי, אלי, למה שבקתני",transliterated asEli, Eli, ləmā šəḇaqtanī.
In Hebrew, the saying would be "אֵלִי אֵלִי, לָמָה עֲזַבְתָּנִי" (ēlī ēlī, lāmā ‘azabtānī inBiblical Hebrew,eli eli lama azavtani inModern Hebrew pronunciation), while theSyriac-Aramaic phrase according to thePeshitta would beSyriac:ܐܝܠܝ ܐܝܠܝ ܠܡܐ ܫܒܩܬܢܝ,romanized: ʔēl ʔēl lǝmā šǝḇaqtān (Matthew 27:46) orSyriac:ܐܠܗܝ ܐܠܗܝ ܠܡܢܐ ܫܒܩܬܢܝ,romanized: ʾalāh ʾalāh lǝmānā šǝḇaqtān (Mark 15:34).
This saying is taken by some as an abandonment of the Son by the Father. Another interpretation holds that at the moment when Jesus took upon himself the sins of humanity, the Father had to turn away from the Son because the Father is "of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong" (ESV).[40] Other theologians understand the cry as that of one who was truly human and who felt forsaken. Put to death by his foes, very largely deserted by his friends, he may have also felt deserted by God.[41]
Others see these words in the context of Psalm 22 and suggest that Jesus recited these words, perhaps even the whole psalm, "that he might show himself to be the very Being to whom the words refer; so that the Jewish scribes and people might examine and see the cause why he would not descend from the cross; namely, because this very psalm showed that it was appointed that he should suffer these things."[42]
Matthew 5:18
The quotation uses them as an example of extremely minor details. In theGreek text translated asEnglishjot and tittle is foundiota andkeraia.Iota is the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet (ι), but since onlycapitals were used at the time the Greek New Testament was written (Ι; still, it is the smallest of all the Greek majuscules) and because the Torah was written in Hebrew, it probably represents the Hebrewyodh (י) which is the smallest letter of theHebrew alphabet.Keraia is a hook orserif.
Matthew 27:6
In Aramaic (קרבנא) it refers to the treasury in theTemple in Jerusalem, derived from the HebrewKorban (קרבן), found in Mark 7:11 and theSeptuagint (in Greek transliteration), meaningreligious gift oroffering.
The Greekκορβανᾶς is declined as a Greek noun, much like other examples.
Luke 1:15
Mark 11:9
This word is derived from הושע נא. It is generally considered to be a quote fromPsalms 118:25 "OLord, save (us)", but the original Biblical Hebrew form was הושיעה נא (hōšî‘āh nā). The shortened form הושע could be either Aramaic or Hebrew.[43][44]
Personal names in the New Testament come from a number of languages; Hebrew and Greek are most common. However, there are a few Aramaic names as well. The most prominent feature in Aramaic names isbar (Greek transliteration βαρ, Aramaicbar), meaning 'son of', a commonpatronym prefix. Its Hebrew equivalent,ben, is conspicuous by its absence. Some examples are:
Mark 3:17
Jesus surnames the brothersJames andJohn to reflect their impetuosity. The Greek rendition of their name is Βοανηργές (Boanērges).
The nameBoanerges has given rise to much speculation. Given the Greek translation provided by the Biblical text ('Sons of Thunder'), it seems that the first element of the name isbnē, 'sons of' (the plural of 'bar'), Aramaic (בני). This is represented by βοάνη (boanē), giving two vowels in the first syllable where one would be sufficient. It could be inferred from this that the Greek transliteration may not be a good one. The second part of the name is often reckoned to berḡaš ('tumult') Aramaic (רגיש), orrḡaz ('anger') Aramaic (רגז).Maurice Casey, however, argues thatrḡaš is a simple misreading of the word for thunder,rḡam (due to the similarity of theSquare script symbolssamech andmem, for the Aramaic [s] and final [m]).[45]This is supported by oneSyriac translation of the name asbnay ra‘mâ. ThePeshitta reads ܒܢܝ ܪܓܫܝbnay rḡešy, which would fit with a later composition for it, based on a Byzantine reading of the original Greek.
John 1:42
1 Corinthians 1:12
In these passages, 'Cephas' is given as the nickname of the apostle better known asSimon Peter. The Greek word is transliteratedΚηφᾶς (Kēphâs).
The apostle's given name appears to be Simon, and he is given the Aramaic nickname,kēpā, meaning 'rock' or 'stone'. The final sigma (ς) is added in Greek to make the name masculine rather than feminine. That the meaning of the name was more important than the name itself is evidenced by the universal acceptance of the Greek translation,Πέτρος (Petros). It is not known why Paul uses the Aramaic name rather than the Greek name for Simon Peter when he writes to the churches inGalatia andCorinth.[46] He may have been writing at a time before Cephas came to be popularly known as Peter.
According toClement of Alexandria, there were two people named Cephas: one was Apostle Simon Peter, and the other was one of Jesus'Seventy Apostles.[47] Clement goes further to say it was Cephas of the Seventy who wascondemned by Paul in Galatians 2 for not eating with the Gentiles, though this is perhaps Clement's way of deflecting the condemnation from Simon Peter. In 1708, a French Jesuit,Jean Hardouin, wrote a dissertation that argues "Peter" was actually "another Peter", thus the emphasis of using the nameCephas (Aramaic forPeter).[48] In 1990Bart D. Ehrman wrote an article on theJournal of Biblical Literature, similarly arguing that Peter and Cephas should be understood as different people, citing the writing ofClement of Alexandria[49] and theEpistula Apostolorum and in support of his theory;[50] Ehrman's article received a detailed critique byDale Allison, who argued that Peter and Cephas are the same person.[51] Ehrman later retracted his proposal, deeming it "highly unlikely".[52]
In Aramaic, it could be כיפא.
John 11:16
Thomas (Θωμᾶς) is listed among the disciples of Jesus in all four gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. However, it is only in John's Gospel that more information is given. In three places (John 11:16, 20:24 and 21:2), he is given the name Didymus (Δίδυμος), the Greek word for a twin. In fact, "the Twin" is not just a surname, it is a translation of "Thomas". The GreekΘωμᾶς—Thōmâs—comes from the Aramaictōmā, "twin". Therefore, rather than two personal names, Thomas Didymus, there is a single nickname, the Twin. Christian tradition gives him the personal name Judas, and he was perhaps named Thomas to distinguish him from others of the same name.
In Aramaic, it could be ܬܐܘܡܐ.
Acts 9:36
The disciple's name is given both in Aramaic (Ταβιθά) and Greek (Δορκάς). The Aramaic name is a transliteration ofṬḇīthā, the female form ofטביא (Ṭaḇyā).[53] Both names mean 'gazelle'.
It may be just coincidence thatPeter's words to her in verse 40, "Tabitha, get up!" (Ταβιθᾶ ἀνάστηθι), are similar to the "talitha kum" phrase used by Jesus.
In Aramaic, it could be טביתא.
Matthew 26:36
Mark 14:32
The place where Jesus takes his disciples to pray before his arrest is given the Greek transliteration Γεθσημανῆ (Gethsēmanē). It represents the AramaicGath-Šmānē, meaning 'the oil press' or 'oil vat' (referring to olive oil).
In Aramaic, it could be ܓܕܣܡܢ. This place name is more properly an Aramaized version of an original Hebrew place name.Gath גת is a normal word for press in Hebrew, generally used for a wine press not an olive press though; andshemanei שמני is the Hebrew wordshemanim שמנים meaning "oils", the plural form of the wordshemen שמן, the primary Hebrew word for oil, just in a construct form (-ei instead of the ordinary plural suffix-im). The word in Aramaic for "oil" is more properlymišḥa (משחא), as also attested inJewish writings in Aramaic from theGalilee (see Caspar Levias, A Grammar of Galilean Aramaic, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1986).
Mark 15:22
John 19:17
Gagūltā Aramaic, means 'skull'. The name appears in all of the gospels except Luke, which calls the place simplyKranion (Κρανίον) 'the Skull' in Greek, with no Semitic counterpart. The name 'Calvary' is taken from the LatinVulgate translation, Calvaria.
In Aramaic, it could be ܓܓܘܠܬܐ. Though this word has the Aramaic final form-ta /-tha, it is otherwise also closer to theHebrew word for skull,gulgolet גולגולת, than to the Aramaic form.
John 19:13
The place name appears to be Aramaic. According to Josephus,War, V.ii.1, #51, the wordGabath meanshigh place, orelevated place, so perhaps a raised flat area near the temple. The final "א" could then represent the emphatic state of the noun.
In Aramaic, it could be גבהתא.
Acts 1:19
The place ofJudas Iscariot's death is clearly named Field of Blood in Greek. However, the manuscript tradition gives a number of different spellings of the Aramaic. TheMajority Text reads Ἀκελδαμά (Akeldama); other manuscript versions give Ἀχελδαμάχ (Acheldamach), Ἁκελδαμά (Hakeldama), Ἁχελδαμά (Hacheldama) and Ἁκελδαμάχ (Hakeldamach). Despite these variant spellings the Aramaic is most probablyḥqēl dmā, 'field of blood'. While the seemingly gratuitous Greek sound ofkh[x] at the end of the word is difficult to explain, the Septuagint similarly adds this sound to the end of the Semitic nameBen Sira to form the Greek name for the Book ofSirakh (Latin:Sirach). The sound may be a dialectic feature of either the Greek speakers or the original Semitic language speakers.
In Aramaic, it could be חקל דמא.
John 5:2
Bethesda was originally the name of a pool inJerusalem, on the path of the Beth Zeta Valley, and is also known as theSheep Pool. Its name in Aramaic means "House of Grace". It is associated withhealing. InJohn 5,Jesus was reported healing a man at the pool.
For other Aramaic place names in the New Testament beginning withbeth ("house of"), seeBethabara,Bethany,Bethphage andBethsaida andBethlehem.[54]
In Aramaic, "Bethesda" could be spelled בית חסדא.
Based on the symbolic renaming or nicknaming of some of hisapostles, it is also likely that Jesus or at least one of his apostles knew enoughKoine Greek to converse with non-Judaeans. It is reasonable to assume that Jesus was well versed inHebrew for religious purposes, as it is the liturgical language ofJudaism.[6][7][8][55]
Jesus and the Apostles are believed to have spoken Aramaic.
It is generally agreed that Aramaic was the common language of Israel in the first century AD. Jesus and his disciples spoke the Galilean dialect, which was distinguished from that of Jerusalem (Matt. 26:73)
There is general agreement that two main periods of RH (Rabbinical Hebrew) can be distinguished. The first, which lasted until the close of theTannaitic era (around 200 CE), is characterized by RH as a spoken language gradually developing into a literary medium in which theMishnah,Tosefta,baraitot and Tannaiticmidrashim would be composed. The second stage begins with theAmoraim, and sees RH being replaced by Aramaic as the spokenvernacular, surviving only as aliterary language. Then it continued to be used in later rabbinic writings until the tenth century in, for example, the Hebrew portions of the twoTalmuds and in midrashic andhaggadic literature
Since it wasn't actually a name anyone ever had, it seems unlikely that two people were independently given it as a nickname.
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