What Language(s) Did Jesus Speak and Why Does It Matter?

markdroberts.com ^ | February 2004 (updated 2/2007) | Mark D. Roberts

[Mind Freed]

I see your point... Didn’t mean to sound all high and mighty.

[Nikas777]

I took no offense and you made a very valuable and valid point. There is no Greek or Jew in Jesus.

[Alex Murphy]

“If English was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for everyone else!” The woman is correct. Just ask your local 7-11 clerk, he will tell you.

And the person taking your order at the McDonalds Drive-Thru will back him up!

[SoCalPol]

There are over 30,000 Iraqis in San Diego, most are Chaldean Christians and speak Aramaic

[RAO1125]

lol Did Jesus also work for the Daily Planet?

[antisocial]

“But even more, it simply shrugs off the rock-solid accounts we have which are (hel-lo?) in GREEK. And it makes no sense of the occasional notes of Aramaic in the records. Why interject these little Aramaic spurts, if that was His characteristic language? There’s no deep significance to “Talitha kum” that couldn’t have been communicated by korasion, egeire, or some other Greek phrase.

But if He didn’t characteristically speak Aramaic in public, these rare little dabs make sense.”

Of course, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide for us one of the most dramatic and significant of the epigraphical evidences for Hebrew. The Dead Sea Scrolls include nearly 600 partial manuscripts, both biblical and non-biblical, indicated by some 40,000 fragments. The most telling evidence of the scrolls is found in the sectarian scrolls and the commentaries on the biblical scrolls. In the sectarian scrolls, the ratio of Hebrew to Aramaic is, again, nine to one, but all of the commentaries are in Hebrew. It is impossible to conclude that a commentary on the Scripture would be written in a language other than the popular language of the people.

[antisocial]

That was a quote from the link at #35

[Proverbs 3-5]

also see JESUS SPOKE AND TAUGHT IN HEBREW
http://www.cfi-interactive.co.uk/downloads/hebrew-jesus.pdf

[colorado tanker]

Rome was a wonderful production. True, they had to invent some history for characters about whom little is known and to drive a plot. What I've read is that they went to some trouble to get the look of the street and daily life pretty accurate.

[boatbums]

Are you ready? Jesus didn't speak English.

He could if he WANTED to!!!

[boatbums]

We had friends from the UK and he told me about a time he went to a bank in Florida. The teller was having a hard time understanding him and in exasperation said, “Sir, do you speak English?” To which he replied, “Young lady, we invented English!” True story! LOL

[wintertime]

When ever there is a British movie I put on the English subtitles.

Sorry, but it exhausting trying to understand them.

[boatbums]

stop it. everybody speaks english! even in galaxy’s far, far away and all aliens that the starship enterprise came into contact with!

Once they used the "Universal Translator" they could. Don't u remember the problems they had with traveling in uncharted space and running across a race of beings called the Antianna. The Antianna had a complicated language and it falls upon Ensign Hoshi Sato to translate this language and find out whether they are friend or foe.

Maybe one day?

[stripes1776]

Even the coins Pilate mined for the region were in Greek not Latin.

Exactly. That part of the world had been under Hellenistic influence since Alexander the Great. That is why the New Testament is written in Greek. Even the literary form of the epistle, used by St. Paul, is a Greek literary form.

[right way right]

My guess is he speaks the truth in any language and still does today.

[allmendream]

LOL! Good one!

I was living in San Diego in an Apt with a “No Soliciting” sign on the front door from a previous tenant. So when I got a knock at the door I was a bit perplexed to find someone giving me some spiel. I guess my dumbfounded look got the better of him because he asked me “Do you speak English?”

To which I replied, pointing at the sign, “Do you read English?” and shut the door on him. :)

[Iscool]

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 in the case of Jesus' usage. He's not saying that the place where God rules in coming near, but 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 when Jesus said "the malkuta dishmaya has come near," he didn't mean that the kingdom of the "the place we go when we die" has come near, but rather that God's kingly authority was at hand. Jesus proclaimed the reign of God and demonstrated its presence through doing mighty deeds, such as healings and exorcisms.

Bunk...

When Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, He was speaking of the Kingdom of Heaven...A physical Kingdom...With a King...On a Throne...

Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
in earth,

Just as the prayer says, When the Kingdom of Heaven comes, on earth, it will be like the Kingdom in Heaven...When Jesus rules on the earth during the Millennium, we will be in the Kingdom of Heaven...

Had the Jews accepted Jesus as their Messiah, they would have lived in the Kingdom of Heaven (on earth) with Jesus as their King...

Act 1:6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

And Jesus spoke any language He wanted to speak...The author implies that Jesus was 'only' a man and limited to what knowledge he could pick up on earth during his short lifetime...

There is no 'lost' Aramaic bible...The NT was written in Greek, not Aramaic...

[greyfoxx39]

You can tell by his name, Jesus spoke Spanish.

ROTFL!

[greyfoxx39]

stop it. everybody speaks english! even in galaxy’s far, far away and all aliens that the starship enterprise came into contact with!