Did Jesus Speak Greek?

By: G. Scott Gleaves

Did Jesus and his disciples speak and teach in Greek? What languages were spoken in first century Palestine? If so, does the New Testament preserve their actual communications?

These questions have generated rich debate through the years. It has been the general consensus among scholars that to recover the real Jesus of history it is necessary to uncover the Aramaic behind the Greek. For example, the late British scholar Maurice Casey stated, “If therefore we wish to recover the Jesus of History, we must see whether we can reconstruct his sayings, and the earliest accounts of his doings, in their original Aramaic. This should help us to understand him within his own cultural background.”

Since Roman Palestine was flanked by two dominant international languages—Greek and Latin—it naturally became a “linguistic border.” The linguistic situation in Roman Palestine was particularly influenced by its geographical location as the primary passage for trade within the Fertile Crescent, thereby (as Casey put it) “attracting merchants who spoke foreign languages to an area already populated by various ethnic groups.” Among this linguistic diversity Greek emerged as the dominant medium to disseminate the Christian message in both oral and written form.

Since the late 19th century scholars have held two basic assumptions regarding the influence of Aramaic upon the New Testament. First, scholars have assumed that Jesus spoke only in Aramaic. Second, they have also assumed that since Jesus spoke only in Aramaic his disciples preserved a record of sayings in Aramaic. Greater recognition, however, should be given to the fact that many languages were current in Palestine during the time of Jesus. While it is generally agreed that Aramaic and Hebrew were key languages of the period, I contend that Greek was widespread and that Jesus not only spoke Greek but also taught in Greek. Consequently, the Gospels may contain the very words that Jesus spoke instead of translations into Greek of Jesus’ original words in Aramaic.

Joseph Fitzmyer, noted scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls, argues that there are three important stages in the Gospel tradition. Stage one refers to the Aramaic period of the actual ministry and teachings of Jesus (1–33 C.E.), a period before the Gospels were written. Stage two represents the Apostolic period when the disciples and apostles taught and preached about the words and deeds of Jesus (33–66 C.E.). Stage three (66–95 C.E.) represents the canonical Gospel period reflecting a development of Greek writing. Fitzmyer’s point is to remind readers not to confuse later Greek tradition with the early Aramaic of stage one. To do so is, Fitzmyer warns, to “fall into the danger of fundamentalism.”

But I find Fitzmyer’s stages of gospel tradition unconvincing. They suggest bias toward a history-of-religions approach (in which religious beliefs are seen as shaped by their cultural milieu) by incorrectly presupposing that Aramaic was the dominant language of Palestine and that the Greek compositions of the Gospels represent an advancement (stage three) in gospel tradition. If Jesus did indeed speak Greek, then we may have, as British scholar A.W. Argyle put it, “direct access to the original utterances of our Lord and not only to a translation of them.” Consequently, much more than just a few Aramaic words and expressions can be connected to the Jesus of history.

Early in my academic studies I assumed that the dominant language in first-century CE Palestine was Aramaic and that Jesus and his disciples, therefore, taught and spoke in Aramaic. The problem I encountered in accepting the dominance of Aramaic related to my understanding of the relationship between the Greek New Testament and the teachings of Jesus. Did the gospel accounts represent accurately what Jesus taught, or were they misrepresentations of the historical Jesus? Was the Jesus of history different from the Christ of Scripture?

The Aramaic Hypothesis is an inadequate solution for many of my questions:

(1) If Aramaic was the dominant language in first-century CE Palestine (and throughout the Roman Empire), why were all the New Testament documents written in Greek?

(2) If Aramaic was the dominant language, why was Greek the common language (koinē) of the period?

(3) If Aramaic was the dominant language, why was Greek so prevalent in the literature, the architecture, and the culture of both Galilee and Judea in the first century CE?

(4) If Aramaic was the source behind the Gospels (and the New Testament), why do the documents of the Greek New Testament show signs of being original compositions rather than translations?

(5) If Aramaic was the dominant language, why would the Jews be bilingual (some even trilingual)?

(6) If Aramaic was the dominant language, why were many cities (such as Ptolemais and Scythopolis) and regions (like Decapolis and Idumea) called by Greek names?

(7) If Aramaic was the dominant language, why did many Jews adopt Greek names (e.g., Andrew, Philip, Nicodemus, and Theophilus)?

(8) If Aramaic was the dominant language, why were Greek customs and practices adopted by the culture, for example in measurements, pottery, and Greek loanwords?

(9) If Aramaic was the dominant language, why would Jews inscribe words in Greek on funerary ossuaries?

These questions lead me to reconsider Aramaic’s dominance in the first century CE. Contrary to contemporary scholarship, I find that Greek was more widely used in both written and oral form by Jesus, his disciples, and the Jews who inhabited first-century Palestine. Interestingly, the evidence reveals that Greek became the dominantlanguage spoken among Jews and Gentiles in Galilee in the first century CE. Fitzmyer’s statement admits more than he may have intended:

If asked what was the language commonly spoken in Palestine in the time of Jesus of Nazareth, most people with some acquaintance of that era and area would almost spontaneously answer Aramaic. To my way of thinking, the defense of this thesis must reckon with the growing mass of evidence that both Greek and Hebrew were being used as well. I would, however, hesitate to say with M. Smith that “at least as much Greek as Aramaic was spoken in Palestine.” In any case, the evidence for the use of Aramaic has also been growing in recent years.

The “growing mass of evidence” has now become a convincing witness to the wide use of Greek in Palestine even among the members of the inner circle of disciples who followed Jesus.

Scott Gleaves, is Dean and Associate Professor at the Kearley Graduate School of Theology, Faulkner University. He is the author of Did Jesus Speak Greek? The Emerging Evidence of Greek Dominance in First Century Palestine.