Talk:Language of Jesus/Archive 1

Archive 1

The Semitic utterances of Jesus are not proof for his use of Aramaic

We have three semitic utterances of Jesus. Indeed there are Aramaic words in them, but that is not enough to conclude for Aramaic as the language of Jesus. Why? Because the used forms of the verbs speek for normal Hebrew. The form 'koum' (in Talitha koum) is equal in Hebrew and in Aramaic and is not decisive.

The form 'sabachtani' (in Eloï Eloï lama sabachtani) is definitely Hebrew. In normal Aramaic and in Hebrew we would expect here 'sebachtani'. Without suffix the form is in Aramaic 'sebachta' and in Hebrew 'sabachta'. It is this Hebrew form that we recognize in 'sabachtani'. So we have here a les correct Hebrew form, but Hebrew anyway. Interesting is that the Aramaic word 'sebach' is used in the Mishna (Hebrew) instead of the old Hebrew word 'azab'. So the Aramaic 'sebach' was definitly a loanword in Hebrew in Jesus' days.

Than, last but not least: Effatha (Become open). In Aramaic this would be (two possibilities): Effetha (etpe'el) or Effattha (etpa'al). Comparing with Effatha we see in the first case 'e' instead of 'a', and in the second case 'double t' instead of 'one t'. The Hebrew form is 'Hiffatha', but in the Greek transliteration of the Greek New Testament and the Septuaginta (the old Greek translation of the Old Testament) 'Hi' becomes 'E'. And so the Heberew Hiffatha becomes Effatha in Greek transliteration. The same is to see in the word 'Geënna' (place of the dead) which is in Hebrew 'Gehinna' (hi becomes ë). There are more examples to give for this phenomenon in Hebrew: Ezekia, Ennom, Ellel, Eddekel, etc.

The conclusion is the simple fact that Jesus used Aramaic loanwords when he spoke sometimes Hebrew. It is not possible to conclude from the Semitic utterances of Jesus that Aramaic was daily life language in Israël in the first century. Archeological findings are neither conclusive for this standpoint. What is the meaning of this all?

1. The widespread idea that Jesus spoke Aramaic is a myth. 2. Hebrew and Greek were the two languages of the people in Jerusalem in Jesus time as we can learn from the two groups of christians in the Jerusalem church: a Greek speeking and a Hebrew speeking group. Greek representing the lower social class and Hebrew representing the upper class. (Acts 6:1-2) 3. As Jesus spoke in public to the lost sheep of Israël he spoke surely Greek (to the lower social class). 4. During the second temple Jews spoke Hebrew in Judea to keep the knowledge of the Old Testament (Hebrew) alive. 5. At home Jesus learned also Hebrew and he used it selectively, to people who had learned Hebrew at home, for instance to the daughter of the overseer of the synagogue in Kafarnaüm to raise her from the dead. 6. The teachings of Jesus in the gospels are not translations from Aramaic and even not of Hebrew. So we meet the original words of Jesus in the Greek New Testament. 7. The final conclusion is that Christians possess the original words of Jesus, the founder of their faith, in contrast with the opinion of both liberal and orthodox theologians that christians don't have the authentic words of Jesus (ipsissima verba) at all. (The mass of implications of this position for New Testament theology I have discussed in my book: 'De vastheid van het gesproken woord.' B.J.E. van Noort, Importantia Publishing, Dordrecht, Netherlands, 2004. www.teologia.nl) (preceding unsigned comment by 62.234.63.113 (talk · contribs) 22:15, 15 August 2005)

I can agree with most of what is said above, but some is simple point-of-view. I agree that this article also has a decided POV, which has been growing over the last few months, while I've been busy on other things. I would like to move this article to something a wee bit more useful, like Language in the New Testament. This means that the article is not just limited to Jesus or Aramaic — we could discuss Hebrew, Greek and Latin, and other NT writings. Also, a change in title might deter supporters of popular theories. --Gareth Hughes 19:37, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

'Just to discuss some of these points. talitha koumi is both recorded as talitha koum and talitha koumi depending on which Greek tradition one uses. In several dialects of Aramaic, the final yod is silent, but still written. Additionally the word talitha is not a Hebrew word at all.

When it comes to eloi eloi lama sabachthani, eloi comes from the Aramaic elâhi ("my God"). Greek is incapable of producing an "h" sound in the middle of words, and the rest is transcription, letter for letter. Second, sabachthani comes from shbaqtani (you have forsaken me) Greek lacking phonetic equivalents for shin and qof. It is transcribed letter for letter (as closely as possible) from Aramaic. sabachthani if read as Hebrew is jibberish, especially given how the Greek renders it.

Finally, with the case of effatha it comes from the Aramaic word ethfathakh (be opened), once again Greek phonology and syllabic formation being the major problem with translitterating foreign words.

I strongly suggest that you read the works of Bruce Chilton, Maurice Casey, and the late Matthew Black.

-- Steve Caruso 00:22, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Aramaic alphabet?

In the last sentence of many of the subheadings in this article, it claims that "In the Aramaic alphabet, it would be...", but what follows looks to me like Hebrew characters, not Aramaic. This might be a display problem on my part where it replaces Aramaic text with Hebrew, but as far as I know Unicode does not have Aramaic letters. --3345345335534 18:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I have suggested in the past that these lines were not appropriate, but they have been added back in. Of course, Hebrew 'square script' was used to write Aramaic long before it was used to write Hebrew, and long before the use of the Syriac alphabet. --Gareth Hughes 18:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Still, wouldn't naming it Aramaic alphabet be misleading? It is, after all, known as the Hebrew alphabet in modern usage. Maybe shortening the text so it reads "In Aramaic, it would be..." since that doesn't give the false impression that the actual writing system used is Aramaic. --3345345335534 00:07, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Writing early Aramaic which is not specifically Syriac with the Hebrew alphabet is a fairly common scholarly practice, and 1st. century A.D. Jews would have written the Hebrew and Aramaic languages with the same alphabet most of the time. The exact 1st. century A.D. script used would not be available as a font on most people's browsers, and wasn't structurally any different from the basic consonantal Hebrew alphabet anyway. AnonMoos

Maybe there's some misunderstanding over what I'm trying to say. I'm not against using the Hebrew alphabet to write Aramaic, I'm against using the Hebrew alphabet and calling it the Aramaic alphabet. That's why I suggested shortening the text to "In Aramaic, it would be..." as to not create confusion. --3345345335534 14:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

THE SQUARE SCRIPT IS THE ARAMAIC ALPHABET. IT WAS ADOPTED TO WRITE THE HEBREW LANGUAGE. OLD HEBREW WAS NOT WRITTEN IN ARAMAIC SQUARE SCRIPT. THE SYRIAC SCRIPT, THE SCRIPT OF THE PESHITTA, WAS DEVELOPED AFTER THE ARAMAIC SQUARE SCRIPT. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION. Sorry I have to shout! See Hebrew alphabet: "The modern script used for writing Hebrew (usually called the Jewish script by scholars, and also traditionally known as the square script, or the Assyrian script—not to be confused with the Eastern variant of the Syriac alphabet), evolved during the 3rd century BC from the Aramaic script, which was used by Jews for writing Hebrew since the 6th century BC. Prior to that, Hebrew was written using the old Hebrew script, which evolved during the 9th century BC from the Phoenician script; the Samaritans still write Hebrew in a variant of this script for religious works (see Samaritan alphabet)." The Siloam inscription is in the original Hebrew alphabet. The Mesha Stele is in the original Hebrew alphabet. Etc.

Just to clarify, the Jews adopted the Aramaic square script to record Hebrew during the Babylonian exile between the first and second temple. First temple Jews used the Old Hebrew alphabet, which is not the Aramaic square script, see references above.

More info: Samaritan alphabet: "The Samaritan alphabet is a direct descendant of the paleo-Hebrew variety of the Phoenician alphabet, the more commonly known Hebrew alphabet having been adapted from the Aramaic alphabet under the Persian Empire. Large parts of the Hebrew Bible were originally penned in this script. Among the Jews it saw a short revival during the Hasmonean Kingdom. The Tetragrammaton was often still written in this script for some time after the current Hebrew alphabet was adopted among the Jews."

Of course, all the words that are discussed in this article are transmitted through the medium of Greek, so the Greek transcription is most important, and any Aramaic is, to some extent, a reconstruction. The Peshitta and Old Syriac texts are useful as witnesses in Aramaic, albeit in a later, eastern dialect. Reference to Syriac sources would be the one reason to used Syriac script in the article. Square script would be the most appropriate way to render the Aramaic words as individual entities (i.e. dictionary definitions, rather than reconstructions), remembering that we are dealing not with inscriptions, but with oral transmission through the medium of Greek. — Gareth Hughes 18:29, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Talitha

Interesting. I always thought that Talitha meant "she who is asleep". As a Chaldo-Assyrian, I know what I'm talking about - what about anyone else, who would care to discuss this possibility?Tourskin 03:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I pretty happy with the root טלא in Aramaic meaning 'young' and the feminine noun derived from it meaning 'girl'. I find that pretty straightforward. So, where do you get 'sleep' from? — Gareth Hughes 03:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Congrats

I just want to congratulate the authors of this article on a very thorough and informative piece of work. Very impressive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.124.62.19 (talk) 17:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

KJV and NIV English renditions in article

Hi all,
Ecclesiastes 3:7?
--Shirt58 (talk) 13:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion to move or rename article

This article covers a narrow point of view and goes well beyond general interest in the subject. It is in fact a controversy and should be moved to or renamed as a page about Aramaic in general. Burpboohickie (talk) 06:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

This article is specific, but not narrow. There is a rather full article on the Aramaic language, which only just touches on Jesus. Jesus' use of Aramaic and its perceived occurrence in the New Testament are widely discussed issues. The existence of controversy does not preclude the existence of the page. The evidence and academic opinion are broadly behind the stance of this article, which is cautious when making remarks that are not accepted by all. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 17:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with Gareth on this one. This page is too specific to be merged with the general article on the Aramaic language, but broad enough within scholarship to hold on it's own, with the published works of dozens (possibly hundreds over the years) of scholars who have sought after the issue of the Aramaic of Jesus, specifically. Furthermore, this article has no more controversy than nearly any other issue within Christianity, is well-worded and well-sourced. A move would not be appropriate. אמר Steve Caruso 15:01, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Correct: this article assumes that a figure who may be mythical is a historical reality; such an assumption is an act of faith; it is also unnecessary for the purpose of the article. (Philo (talk) 15:01, 23 February 2009 (UTC))

Other Wikipedias

The links in this article to some of the other language Wikipedias seem to be incorrect--for example the Polish link is Talitha ("Talita") (a name), and likewise for the Wolof Wikipedia which is to Boanerges ("Bowanerses")--152.3.129.88 (talk) 23:18, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

RE: Paul uses the Aramaic name

It is not known why Paul uses the Aramaic name rather than the Greek name for Simon Peter when he writes to the churches in Galatia and Corinth.

Paul's comment to the Galatians is in the context of Paul's emphasizing that he received no formal training in 'Christianity'. Intended or not, the least formal nickname "Cephas" is more fitting to the context than the most formal "Simon" or the normal "Petros" which had become Simon's de facto name rather than a nickname. Paul's comment to the Corinthians is probably intended to be silly (humorous hyperbole) and as everyone at the time would know, "Petros", both as a word and name is more serious sounding than "Cephas" as a word and nickname. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.159.224.65 (talk) 15:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Petros vs. Petras

The assertion that the Greek petros and petras had two different meanings when the New Testament was written is disputed by scholars. In some Protestant circles this assertion is made while it is disputed by Catholic and other scholars. Even the Protestant scholars W.F. Albright, David Hill, James G. McMcarthy, Oscar Cullmann and others all concede the fact that this difference in the Greek does mean that one is referenced to Peter and the other to his confession.

Greek was not the language being used during the conversation, which is attested to the use of the Aramaic transliteration in other parts of Scripture. In this case, both pertros and petras would have been kepha (rock) in the original conversation. “You are kepha and upon this kepha I will build…”

Additionally, at the time petros and petras were synonyms in the Greek, both meaning “rock”. The difference is due to masculine and feminine concerns in the Greek, not a difference in meaning.

In various writings, the Church Fathers argue that Christ is referring to both Peter’s profession and Peter himself. However, the assertion of one is not made at the expense of the other; allowing that the passage can rightly be interpreted as referring to both Peter and his confession. The current description in the article only gives on side of the argument without consideration to other interpretations.

Additional information regarding this topic can be found in Stephen K. Ray’s Upon This Rock or here http://www.catholic.com/library/Peter_the_Rock.asp

I would prefer to see this section removed as it discusses an interpretation of the Bible passage and does not deal with a complex relationship between the written Greek and the spoken Aramaic. Additionally, the description of the Aramaic meaning is correct. This is not necessarily the place to argue over the meaning in scripture, which is expounded here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Peter#Religious_interpretations —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.211.73.142 (talk) 21:02, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Presuppose Aramaic Primacy?

How do the scholarly, well-accepted reconstructions of Jesus sayings recorded in Aramaic (in the Greek no less) presuppose Aramaic Primacy? Those words are in Aramaic.

Would it be best for me to put the reconstructions elsewhere, outside of the headers? (preceding unsigned comment by The Thadman (talk · contribs) 04:35, 5 July 2005)

There is no primary source that produces these words as you have written them: they are reconstructions. Also, there is a general rule-of-thumb in the Manual of Style that titles and headers are kept simple (they serve as anchors for internal links). As this is an English language encyclopaedia we should give the quotation in English first, then give the primary source for that quotation, which is still Greek, and only then suggest what the underlying Aramaic should be. If we jump straght to a reconstruction of Aramaic, we are not showing the reasoning behind that claim. Gareth Hughes 5 July 2005 09:36 (UTC)

The primary source is A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Bauer-Gingrinch-Danker. This is the standard reference. Of course it is primarily Greek, however it lists Aramaic words in the Aramaic alphabet also. I will check/verify the Aramaic and add it to the body. (preceding unsigned comment by 63.201.24.7 (talk · contribs) 02:48, 19 August 2005)

Nice to see a Wikipedia article based on the best sources (the Bauer lexicon) as this article apparently is. Good work, Colin MacLaurin (talk) 05:13, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Aramaic of Jesus

Haldrik,

This article is about the Aramaic of Jesus, not the Hebrew of Jesus. Most modern scholars agree that Jesus' mothertongue was Aramaic rather than Hebrew and that if he knew Hebrew that he did not know very much of it (Funk, Crossan, Borg, Chilton, Miller, Vermes, Tatum, Casey, Smith, Black, etc. etc. etc.). It is a small fringe group that believes that Jesus spoke Hebrew, and in an article such as this I believe that they are worth a mention in a section at the bottom of the article, but are by no means the consensus amongst scholars. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) 22:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The assumption that Hebrew itself was extinct and only a literary language is no longer tenable. Hebrew continued to flourish as both a spoken and written language throughout the Early Roman Period. I ask that certain statements regarding Hebrew per se be more cautious to reflect awareness of more recent scholarship. --Haldrik 22:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, whether Jesus himself spoke Hebrew or Aramaic is a separate question. Chilton does believe Jesus spoke Hebrew (as well as Aramaic). Vermes also believes he knew both, not to mention Meier. Crossan, Smith, and Funk and some other members of the Jesus Seminar are to some extent popularizing outdated scholarship. I don't mind this article focusing specifically on "what if" Jesus only spoke Aramaic because certain (but not all) transliterations seem Aramaic. I think a separate article called Hebrew of Jesus can be written for those who advocate "what if" Jesus only spoke Hebrew. --Haldrik 22:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I've read Chilton's books (and for a brief period of time I actually worked with him, and hopefully in the somewhat near future I will be doing so again). His conclusions were that any knowledge of Hebrew that Jesus would have had would have been more than secondary to Aramaic and in fact now he is working on a project to teach the Aramaic language through the reconstructed teachings and dialogue of Jesus. The same with Vermes and Meier: Hebrew as secondary (be it in written or spoken) to Aramaic. I've studied under Mahlon H. Smith for several years, and although his forté was Koine Greek, his understanding of Aramaic and linguistic studies on the topic were not outdated, and from what I have read from the rest I had mentioned, while there is a misconception here and there, most of their conclusions seem up to date. :-)

This all aside, I genuinely do like the idea of starting an article that goes over the Hebrew-speaking Jesus theories, as (although I may seem a bit stern over it) I do believe that there is some merit to go over in them. :-) Exploring published theories about the linguistic geography in Jesus' day is important and I feel a boon to this encyclopedia. אמר Steve Caruso _(desk/AMA) 01:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Ignored is the fact that the language comes from Eber; and Ebra-something became what was spoken. None of it is the form of hebrew which has survived to this very day. Furthermore, the New Testament directly calls Aramaic wordings (H)ebrew. The only difference is evolution of the language. Saying Jesus spoke in Aramaic can either be called a mistranslation, or an accidental statement of the history of the Hebrew Language.--207.191.211.248 (talk) 17:02, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

"Christians believe..."

The sentence "Christians believe that he knew all languages because he was omnipotent." comes as a shock to me as a Christian, as neither I, nor any other Christians I know hold this strange belief. Someone working on this page ought to either strike this sentence entirely or at least qualify it or provide information about precisely *which* Christians hold this belief. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Messmer (talk • contribs) 17:47, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Someone did revert it a few days later. But 'Dashee' has re-instated it (1 March). So I have reverted it again. His/her claim is (how to put this delicately?) 'surprising'. Can he/she adduce some decent citable sources to support the claim? Feline Hymnic (talk) 23:50, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

This could be qualified by writing "many evangelical christians believe that in His omniscience and as Creator of all, the Christ the Son of God was able to understand and speak all languages". Pete g1 (talk) 22:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

There is a source in antiquity that seems to suggest that the historical figure known as Jesus was quite conversant in Hebrew, unless of course Mr. Caruso and others are suggesting that those teaching in the temple conversed in only Greek and Aramaic:

Luk 2:46-47 And it came to pass, that after three days they found him [the 12 year old Jesus] in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.

76.115.86.248 (talk) 20:57, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

No one can be entirely sure in which languages 'teaching' in the Temple during the first century CE was done. It is likely that Hebrew was used at least to some extent. However, the existence of targumim suggests that some people needed Aramaic texts. Therefore, it is possible that the 'teaching' referred to here was based on Aramaic texts and oral discussion in the same tongue. There are plenty of problems reading Jesus' linguistic ability from certain NT texts, but we have him recorded twice reciting a psalm text in Aramaic at the cross. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 22:54, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The New Testament in the Greek says Aramaic is Hebrew. What do you make of that? --207.191.207.251 (talk) 11:52, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Unfulfilled reference

This articles has a link to page Pontius Pilate saying "See also Pontius Pilate for speculation on what language he spoke." but following the link to that page and reading the whole page I find no speculation on the language that he spoke. Type Dumper (talk) 03:04, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, I'm going to edit out that sentence. Mcswell (talk) 17:51, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Unfulfilled reference advice

For what I have seen on the talk page, there are no major controversies active, and the moderators have cleared out doubts, mistakes and kept good information so I think the advice on the top of the article should be removed. 201.103.186.162 (talk) 19:04, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Change in the Name

I have changed the name from "Historical Jesus" to "Jesus of Nazareth" firstly because its his actual name and secondly is a more general reference for the person that it is historical.201.103.186.162 (talk) 19:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Golgotha

«John 19:17: And carrying his cross by himself, he went out to the so-called Place of the Skull, which is called in 'Hebrew' Golgotha. This is clearly Aramaic rather than Hebrew.»
It's not correct! It's neither Aramaic nor Hebrew, it's Indo-European. Golgotha comes from Skr. Galūgāthā, where galū 'head' (Latvian galva) and gāthā 'way' (Latvian gāte, gatve 'avenue', gāt 'to go'). Roberts7 11:39, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that looks nice, but it comes from Aramaic. Although the root גלל is not the most clear of derivations, it happens to be well attested. — Gareth Hughes 19:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

even in modern Maltese, which is a language only distantly related to Aramaic, 'Tifla, qum' means 'little girl, get up'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.240.130.104 (talk) 18:56, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Use of Syriac Script

In the future, I strongly recommend that no one alter the script to Syriac script again, and instead rely upon standard Aramaic lettering. Syriac was not utilized by Jesus or his followers. אמר Steve Caruso 20:49, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Page quality and original research

This page is low on quality and loaded with WP:OR. Needs a 50% trim at least, if not a 70% trim, then better sources. I would even suggest a rewrite. History2007 (talk) 18:57, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

The Language that Jesus spoke.

It has been mentioned here that Jesus spoke many languages, but there it seems that none are definite.

It is my belief that Jesus probably spoke many languages, Including all that were native to that area. I mean think about it. We are talking about the Son of God Almighty, Jesus could speak any language He wanted to! Jesus could have even spoke with a Texas drawl if He cared to back then. So there really isn't any question about the language Jesus spoke is there? Unless you are a non-believer, then it is what ever you think, since you don't believe in the first place. I just hope and pray that all the Jesus did say was translated correctly and properly into every language to be understood by all.Commonsense4 (talk) 07:58, 18 June 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Commonsense4 (talk • contribs) 07:55, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you are right about Jesus being a multilinguist. However in order for him to communicate with his fellow contemporaries and others, then he would have had to use languages that they understood. The Romans spoke Latin, the Jews Hebrew and the rest of peoples many other languages but the lingua Franca was Greek. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.90.93.204 (talk) 21:14, 9 Aug 2018 (UTC)

Article Cleanup

Just completed a big cleanup. Let's hope this one sticks. אמר Steve Caruso 01:37, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

The Lord's Prayer

How would this have sounded in Aramaic please? Is available anywhere? (Too lazy to search for it myself :-) ) SmokeyTheCat 13:04, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

In truth, it depends on the dialect of Aramaic it's spoken in. The reconstruction I recommend is here [1] as it's my own attempt at getting it back into early Galilean Aramaic, but there are many other possibilities, none of which would be really appropriate for this article. אמר Steve Caruso 22:19, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Strange material in the introduction restored, for the moment

I was doing clean up and links on this article and got sidetracked, as I always do. Anyway, there was an edit conflict. I tried to preserve the changes that came after I started work, but one of those changes eliminated all of the strange material found in the introduction of the article. I restored that material, for now. I have no position on this article, and the material in the introduction does need to be fixed or deleted. However, I feel that perhaps there should be more discussion on the matter than was given in the edit summary of the deletion. I will not revert any edits again. Also, some clean up is just about consistency, not what is preferable. -- Kjkolb (talk) 03:24, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Tagg

Telpardec, could you please explain why do you think that this article is original research? It doesn't looks like one, it has sources and most of it seems to be correct. What is the problem? Can't notice any dicussion related to this tag. this is the first time somebody tagged this article. [2] Hafspajen (talk) 02:38, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

• If no reply tag will be removed again. Hafspajen (talk) 03:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Since there is no reply yet, tag can be removed. Jossyys (talk) 00:49, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Please note my remark about the "mass of WP:OR" in the #Move and or split? section above, as well as the reply by In ictu oculi. The Template:Original research tag was added by ColinFine in December 2012, who removed a small part of the OR the following December. See #Page quality and original research comments above also. Maintenance tags should generally not be removed until the resolution of the identified problem(s).
—Telpardec  TALK  01:28, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Unhelpful insertions

The recent introduction of 2 cites into an already sourced statement is problematic. The first ref, positioned after the word "Aramaic", was to a totally off-topic book on The Early Church. Google books search reported: "No results found in this book for Aramaic". The second ref was a non academic web site, which is unhelpful in that place, but possibly may be used in the body somewhere. —Telpardec  TALK  01:28, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

New Testament quotes in italics

Is there a reason the quotes from the New Testament are in italics? This seems contrary to MOS. Nurg (talk) 08:15, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Why is a crank like Dennis McDonald even here

Comparing the Gospels to the Homeric epics?? Come on, this isnt Germany in the 1850s! References to crackpot theories of this nature should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.6.77.2 (talk) 00:11, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Language of Jesus/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I was looking for a translation from english to aramaic : Watcher or guardian is the english word ...Do you know how it would be spelled in aramaic ? Blessins Kirt Bowers

Substituted at 18:04, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Essay/original research

Example:

Josephus also points out the extreme rarity of a Jew knowing Greek.

[primary citation Josephus, nothing about 'extreme rarity', only about circa 'discouraged']

Mishandling a citation of a primary source is just one clear example of a (detestable) will to prove one certain point of view. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 05:57, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

I have to agree that the citation from Josephus does not establish the point it is being used to prove. There has been and continues to be a considerable amount of scholarly debate over the extent of Greek usage in 1st century Palestine, but it is only a tiny minority opinion that holds that the knowledge of Greek was an "extreme rarity." Ron Henzel (talk) 18:22, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Question

'Barabbas (Βαραββας from bar-Abbâ, 'son of the father'). ' - as far as I know, Abba was used as a name in that time, as well as its meaning as "Father". (preceding unsigned comment by 212.179.59.161 (talk · contribs) 08:37, 9 August 2005)

The article said, Aramaic as the early language of the Judeans, my question is, how about now, is there a change? Youngpiapi (talk) 17:19, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Etymologies of Bartholomew and "Thou fool"

• Could it be that the name Bartholomew came from Aramaic "bar" + the Greek name Ptolemaios?
  • About "Thou fool" (see Language of Jesus#Raca (Ρακά)), here "fool" is translated from Greek "mōron", but the Bible text describes what looks like an unrealistically severe punishment for merely calling someone a fool, and I have seen a suggestion that here, the text word "mōron" started as a Greek transcription of a Hebrew or Aramaic word "moreh" = "persistent rebel against God".
  • Anthony Appleyard (talk) 07:38, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Something Missing, the Name of Jesus in Aramaic

I'm trying to locate, where was the first spelling of "Jesus" & “Jew”, using those letters?

1. Jesus in his native language of Aramaic was name "Isa", (eesa). Same phonetic as Arabic.
2. The Romans spoke a language named "Latin" or old latin.
3. In Latin they 'conjugated' his name with the 'suffix' of "Citizen" = "-us".
4. Giving the Latin and later Italian spelling of his name as "ies'us." (ees'us)
5. Between 1150~1600CE an archaic way to draw "I" appeared which looked like a "J".
5a. Most lowercase "j" in print have an "i" dot' on top in honor of this history.
6. In those few hundred years the variation of I = written as "j" got its own sound.
7. At some point (author unknown) replaced the spelling of Ies'us, with a "Jes'us".
8. Giving the English spelling "Jesus", with the phonetic 'j' corruption of his name.
9. Summary, the True name of jesus is Isa (eesa) for Christians & Ies'us (ees'us) Catholics.
10. Note: God's name in Aramaic always began with "El" such as Elahh or Elohim.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.202.184.23 (talk) 22:01, 14 January 2014 (UTC) 

Most of your points are about medieval and early modern Europe, and so quite irrelevant to 1st century A.D. Judea or Galilee. Also, all early versions of the name in Semitic languages have the voiced pharyngeal ʕayin consonant at the end of the name, while in Arabic ʕisa it has mysteriously moved to the beginning. Also, Syriac is an eastern Aramaic language, not especially close to the western Aramaic language that Jesus spoke. In fact, the pronunciation of Jesus' name in 1st century A.D. Judean/Galilean western Aramaic was undoubtedly yēšūʕ, or something quite close to that... AnonMoos (talk) 09:26, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Words ἑβραις/ἑβραιστι in New Testament

In all probability, the words ἑβραις and ἑβραιστι in the Greek New Testament refer indiscriminately to both the Hebrew and Aramaic languages because the great majority of native Greek speakers had very little knowledge or interest in non-Greek languages. Since most of them really didn't care about incomprehensible Syrian barbarian jargons in the first place, they would have been extremely uninterested in learning that there were actually two different incomprehensible Syrian barbarian jargons... Josephus seems to have been rather careful in making distinctions, but the natural tendency of Greek linguistic solipsism was more likely to lead to the situation we find with NT ἑβραις and ἑβραιστι... AnonMoos (talk) 09:39, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

From Language of the New Testament

The following block of text was a hidden html comment block removed from the Language of the New Testament article and moved here in case any of it is usable here:

Most scholars acknowledge that Jesus likely used Aramaic as his everyday language. Occasionally, the Greek text of the gospels quote Aramaic phrases uttered by Jesus. Since Jesus and his disciples belonged to a lower stratum of the population, being carpenters, fishermen and the like (see also Cultural and historical background of Jesus), it is sometimes assumed that, with the exception of Matthew the apostle as a government official, they would have known little or no Greek. Some scholars challenge this view and point to a number of passages in the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, where Greek conversation is presupposed:

• Jesus speaks to a Syro-Phoenician woman who is described as a Hellēnis, "a Greek" (Mark 7:26).
• Jesus journeys in the Phoenician cities Tyre and Sidon and the Greek Decapolis (Mark 7:31-37).
• A Roman centurion approaches Jesus for the sake of his boy or slave (Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10)
• Some Hellēnes, "Greeks", went to see Jesus (John 12:20-36).
• Pontius Pilate questions Jesus (Mark 15;2-5; Matthew 27:11-14; Luke 23:3; John 18:33-38).
• The Apostolic Church included a group called Hellēnistai, probably Greek-speaking Jews (Acts 6:1–6).

In none of these cases is an interpreter mentioned. Even though it is impossible to estimate how fluent or eloquent Jesus and the disciples would be in their Greek, it is possible that they would be able to communicate in Greek when it was needed. W. S. Vorster and J. Eugene Botha (1995) argue that "Greek was the language of the marketplace... It can be assumed that most Jews, including Jesus and his followers, were to a greater or lesser extent bilingual, and could also speak Greek."

It should be pointed out that the Peshitta does not use ܝܘܢܝܐ (Greeks) or the like in Mark 7:26 or John 12:20. In the Peshitta:

• Mark 7:26 uses ܚܢܦܬܐ (godless, Gentile, heathen, foreigner, profane)
• John 12:20 uses ܥܡܡܐ (meaning peoples, nations, Gentiles)

The translator of the Peshitta may have used context to determine whether to translate 'Greeks' literally or not.

• References

---

Fringe?

The following is the first paragraph from the article Language of the New Testament with references:

The mainstream consensus is that the New Testament was written in a form of Koine Greek,[1][2] which was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean[3][4][5][6] from the Conquests of Alexander the Great (335–323 BC) until the evolution of Byzantine Greek (c. 600).

1.Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland The text of the New Testament: an introduction to the critical 1995 p52 "The New Testament was written in Koine Greek, the Greek of daily conversation. The fact that from the first all the New Testament writings were written in Greek is conclusively demonstrated by their citations from the Old Testament, .."

2.Archibald Macbride Hunter Introducing the New Testament 1972 p9 "How came the twenty-seven books of the New Testament to be gathered together and made authoritative Christian scripture? 1. All the New Testament books were originally written in Greek. On the face of it this may surprise us."

3.Wenham The elements of New Testament Greek -p xxv Jeremy Duff, John William Wenham - 2005 "This is the language of the New Testament. By the time of Jesus the Romans had become the dominant military and political force, but the Greek language remained the 'common language' of the eastern Mediterranean and beyond, and Greek ..."

4.Daniel B. Wallace Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament 1997

5.Henry St. John Thackeray Grammar of New Testament Greek ed. Friedrich Wilhelm Blass, 1911 "By far the most predominant element in the language of the New Testament is the Greek of common speech which was disseminated in the East by the Macedonian conquest, in the form which it had gradually assumed under the wider development ..."

6.David E. Aune The Blackwell companion to the New Testament 2009 p61 CHAPTER 4 New Testament Greek Christophe Rico "In this short overview of the Greek language of the New Testament we will focus on those topics that are of greatest importance for the average reader, that is, those with important ..."

The following is also from the same article, another section:

Main article: Koine Greek

Whereas the Classical Greek city states used different dialects of Greek, a common standard, called Koine (κοινή "common"), developed gradually in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC as a consequence of the formation of larger political structures (like the Greek colonies, Athenian Empire, and the Macedonian Empire) and a more intense cultural exchange in the Aegean area, or in other words the Hellenization of the empire of Alexander the Great.

In the Greek Dark Ages and the Archaic Period, Greek colonies were founded all over the Mediterranean basin. However, even though Greek goods were popular in the East, the cultural influence tended to work the other way around. Yet, with the conquests of Alexander the Great (333-323 BC) and the subsequent establishment of Hellenistic kingdoms (above all, the Seleucid Empire and Ptolemaic Kingdom), Koine Greek became the dominant language in politics, culture and commerce in the Near East.

During the following centuries, Rome conquered Greece and the Macedonian Kingdoms piece for piece until, with the conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, she held all land around the Mediterranean. However, as Horace gently puts it: "Conquered Greece has conquered the brute victor and brought her arts into rustic Latium" (Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit et artis intulit agresti Latio.[8]) Roman art and literature were calqued upon Hellenistic models.

Koine Greek remained the dominant language in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, extending into the Byzantine Empire as Byzantine Greek. In the city of Rome, Koine Greek was in widespread use among ordinary people, and the elite spoke and wrote Greek as fluently as Latin. Jewish Koine Greek did not exist as a separate dialect, but some Jewish texts in Koine Greek do show the influence of Aramaic in syntax and the influence of Biblical background in vocabulary.

As you can see from this Wikipedia Article, yours is a personal point of view which does not match most scholarly sources. This article, while not original research, does fit into the category of a fringe point of view and does not give equal space to any other point of view except that of the author. This article needs some major revisions, adding other points of view.

I usually do not write in talk pages on Wikipedia, but this article was insulting to me on a personal level as a Christian of a liturgical tradition. Mine is not just a personal point of view, but one that is backed by Church Tradition across Christianity including Churches of the East. This tradition is backed up by many different widely accepted sources, none of which occur anywhere in this article.

While I have decided to take the time to write this, I will not spend hours trying to edit and reference an article that should have equal points of view expressed throughout or in a section that acknowledges the traditional, mainstream belief of many Christians backed by many sources, too many to list here.

I find it disappointing to see an article titled "Language of the New Testament" only to find that it belabors a long discredited belief about the New Testament.

Please, also see Septuagint for more background information.

I hope someone will use the links provided to add balance to this article. Sandhillman (talk) 01:59, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Sandhillman, I've now read this three times and I still don't know what you're trying to say.

Between two articles, Language of Jesus and Language of the New Testament, you point out that Jesus spoke to the people in his community in Aramaic, well-cited in one article, but that the unnamed authors of the Gospels, writing elsewhere, wrote in Greek, well-cited in another article. OK, I follow you so far. But could you be a bit more explicit about the problem you see that offends you?

You also said “yours is a personal point of view which does not match most scholarly sources”, but it's not clear, at least to me, which of the article's many contributors you're talking to.

Finally, in claiming that “Mine is not just a personal point of view, but one that is backed by Church Tradition”, I'm sure you know that some of the world's religious traditions have occasionally skimped a bit on standards like peer-reviewed scholarship, verifiable evidence, reproducible results, and the like. Nevertheless, I'm sure no one is trying to exclude that tradition from mention in this article. To start, could you provide a handful of those many sources, the ones too numerous to list here?

Thanks for pointing out an area where the article might be improved.

 Unician ∇  07:08, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you Unician for the courteous reply.

The point of the articles was to point out how the Lord Jesus most likely spoke not just Aramaic, as well as maybe Hebrew, but also Greek as well.

The Septuagint article shows that after Alexander the Great's conquest and colonization of many areas of the Eastern Mediterranean and Holy Land in the 4th century BC many Jews were forced to learn Greek to interact in the villages and cities with others. After a few generations this Hellenization lead to the Jewish scholars' translation we call the Septuagint today in order to give Greek-speaking Jews access to their Holy Scripture.

In the Gospel According to St. John 12:20-23 in the Authorized King James Version, we read where first the Apostle Philip, then the Apostle Andrew, and finally the Lord Jesus himself speaks directly to Greeks that had come to worship at the feast. No translator was necessary because they spoke Greek, not Aramaic.

Jews did speak Koine Greek, some only Koine Greek. It was their only language, contrary to the opinion of some, or the protestations of the Jewish community today. It is a fact that the variant readings were "standardized" by the Masoretes in the 8th century AD.

I hope this further explains what was intended by my comment. Sandhillman (talk) 16:18, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Sandhillman -- The Septuagint was translated in Alexandria, Egypt — not Judea or Galilee. Those Jews who admired and assimilated themselves to Hellenistic civilization, and/or had regular contacts with non-Aramaic-speaking government officials or merchants certainly did often learn Greek (if only a rough spoken Greek -- Josephus by his own testimony, had insufficient knowledge to write a Greek text with the necessary literary polish, even though having a sufficient command of practical spoken Greek). However, by all available evidence (including paleographic), the daily spoken home language of the main body of Jews in Judea and Galilee in the 1st century A.D. was Aramaic -- and those who wanted to be taken seriously as knowledgeable religious leaders had to know at least enough Hebrew to be able to read a scroll of Bible text (as Jesus did in Luke 4:16-19). AnonMoos (talk) 09:52, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Move and or split?

Seems that this article is about two things:

• A Aramaic terms in the Greek New Testament (fact)
• B Languages spoken by Jesus and his disciples (wild speculation)

Is it beneficial to have these two subjects bundled into the same article per WP:FORK? In ictu oculi (talk) 12:30, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

It may be that the answer is yes. Rename the article as A (the sourceable stable material), and have B down at the bottom as the OR-magnet? In ictu oculi (talk) 12:32, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm leaning toward the idea that the name of this article needs to be plural, not singular: Languages of Jesus. The Porter reference pretty much shoots down the idea that Jesus only spoke Aramaic. Greek was the universal language of commerce in those days. The Aramaic terms are a mass of WP:OR and way too bloated at present. I'm thinking maybe reformat the words as a list in a table with minimal information and clickable links to the individual articles, and one or two paragraphs with a general (sourced) summary of how they relate to the issue of what languages were in use in Palestine in the 1st century.
—Telpardec  TALK  13:40, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes it certainly should be plural, no one was a monoglot in the Roman Empire. Agree with the following comments too. In ictu oculi (talk) 14:16, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

In_ictu_oculi -- I bet a lot of people were monolingual in the Roman empire, starting with Greeks who had no close contacts with Roman officialdom, and including many semi-isolated rural and/or tribal inhabitants of remote regions scattered throughout the empire. Greek being the "language of commerce" in the Eastern Mediterranean, points to the fact that those who had no involvement in international/long-distance trade and little admiration for Hellenistic civilization often had little motive to learn Greek. Furthermore, the discussion of languages spoken by Jesus and his disciples is not "wild speculation", but well-informed speculation, based on facts such as that the main body of Jews in Galilee and Judea had Aramaic as their native language, and Jesus is described as reading a Hebrew Isaiah scroll at Luke 4:16-19... AnonMoos (talk) 10:06, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

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Jesus and Hebrew

How can it be said that there "is little evidence either from within the New Testament or beyond to support" Jesus' knowing Hebrew, when it says in Luke 4 that he picks up an Isaiah scroll and reads from it? Hebrew may not have been "important" in 1st. century A.D. Palestine in the sense of being spoken by large numbers of people in everyday usage, but it must have been extremely difficult to get yourself accepted as any kind of educated Jewish religious leader (i.e. one qualified to "teach in a synagogue") without knowing it... AnonMoos 20:47, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Within the timeperiod of the 1st Century, Judea had long since started using Aramaic Targums in a tradition of reading the Hebrew followed by this Aramaic interpretation. Steve Caruso 00:36, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

According to Paul V.M. Flesher and Bruce Chilton, the earliest Targums date by the middle of the second century. In the conclusion of the chapter "Dating the Targums of Israel" in their book The Targums - A Critical Introduction, they said: "we find a chronological range for all the Targums of approximately four centuries, with the initial composition of Targum Onqelos coming at the beginning of that period, by the middle of the second century, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan coming toward the end, before the composition of the Palestinian Talmud. The origins of the Palestinian Targums lie somewhere in the centuries between." Theophilius (talk) 00:04, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Any Aramaic would have been in addition to the Hebrew, not instead of the Hebrew. Formal Torah Scrolls would have been completely in Hebrew (with no Aramaic), and someone who couldn't handle one would have been considered a poor claimant to being a Jewish religious leader. AnonMoos 18:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

However, formal Torah scrolls found contemporary to Jesus' lifetime are riddled with evidence that Hebrew was not the vernacular language of the communities (be this in the form of Aramaic words, grammar, spelling, commentaries etc.). The idea of a leader not being "trustworthy" because they do not know the original language of what their religious texts is a new phenomena. Back then it was rare if one could read. :-) We have no chronicles of any such disputes (as far as I know) other than some outcry against the influx of Greek over Aramaic (i.e. Flavius Josephus). We can also note that in the 1st Century there was an emphasis on the forming Oral Torah within various sects of Judaism, which was carried down in Aramaic. --Steve Caruso 00:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

It being singly attested to in Luke (or does Matthew also mention it? or was it in the corpus of Q reading? I cannot recall at the moment..) that Jesus "picked up the Isaiah scroll" is not sufficient evidence that he was extremely well versed in the Hebrew language (in my humble opinion). It 'could' have been a Targum and within Luke, the actual story quoted is closest to the Septuagint in rendition rather than any existant Hebrew Tanakh, if I'm not mistaken. -- Steve Caruso 00:36, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

This would only be relevant if you imagine that someone wrote down Jesus' words as he read them, and that this steganographic record was then translated into Greek completely independently of all other scriptural texts. AnonMoos 18:26, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Then, as I said before, it is not good evidence. As far as what's discernable, he could have read from a Coptic scroll. However, that would be extremely unlikely. ;-) All the story (which does not fit several historical criteria proposed by the Jesus Seminar) claims is that Jesus picked up the scroll of Isaiah. Nothing more. --Steve Caruso 00:05, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

There is overwhelming evidence that Jesus spoke Hebrew as his mother tongue. The notion that Aramaic replaced Hebrew after the return of the Jews from Babylonian captivity is unfounded. When one begins to actually study the evidence from the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, the Intertestamental period, the New Testament, extra Biblical sources as well as the very words of Jesus that have been transliterated, it becomes extremely apparent that Hebrew was the language that He used with His disciples, in the market places, teaching the masses and having debates with the religious leaders of His day. For a comprehensive discussion on the language of Jesus visit: [[3]]

Unfortunately, the vast majority of scholarship disagrees with that assertion for many reasons, some of which are:

• The shift to Aramaic in the youngest books of the Tanakh,
• The "square" Hebrew script that is in use today (and at the time of Jesus) is an Aramaic script that was adopted from the Babylonians.
• Mundane Aramaic items such as shopping lists, pottery shards, minted coins, etc.
• The bulk of commentaries on the Hebrew texts in Aramaic including oral traditions and the Targums,
• Aramaic words, grammar, and spelling creeping into Hebrew documents (many wonderfun examples can be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls),

The list goes on... :-)

--Steve Caruso 16:33, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

If someone could read Aramaic, they would have little trouble reading Hebrew. Hebrew was used as a liturgical language in Jesus' time. However, the prevalence of targums and formal Jewish documents and contracts in Aramaic suggests that even religious Jerusalem Jews used Aramaic as their first language. Religious Jews would probably have been taught how to read biblical Hebrew, but targums were read alongside them. The internal evidence from the untranslated words attributed to Jesus in the gospels is that he spoke Aramaic. --Gareth Hughes 18:34, 23 December 2005 (UTC)See: Wiki under Hebrew under discussion.

Don't forget that the text would be unpointed, so if one knew the letters but did not know Hebrew well, or had not memorized the text, their reading would be intolerably sloppy and chaotic. Anyone who has read the Torah in a synagogue knows how much effort it takes to learn to recite a passage correctly, even if they know Hebrew well, and vastly more effort if they don't. One who read Isaiah in a synagogue in Jesus's time would either know Hebrew well, or have memorized the passage, or be laughed out of the room.

I have not seen any proof that Aramaic was not the original form of Hebrew. I base this on the New Testament saying so. The vowel point system exists today to correct spelling errors caused by not using enough voweled letters. That being said Jesus probably read from a Koine Greek Isaiah scroll which differed heavily from the neohebrew scroll which purports to come from the same author, and the same scroll didn't predict a virgin birth. The New Testament says the scroll would be a Jeremiah scroll.--207.191.211.248 (talk) 19:23, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Lexicographer Gesenius derives “talitha” from the Hebrew word for lamb (ta·leh′).—A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, by Brown, Driver, and Briggs, 1980, p. 378.

No, Gesenius is comparing it with the Hebrew word, not deriving one from the other. Both come from a common Semitic ancestor

E′li, E′li, la′ma sa·bach·tha′ni? would most likely said in Hebrew, since he was quoting the hebrew text, ’E′·li, ’E’·li, la′ma′ aza·ba·tha′ni Psalm 22:1 "My God, my God, why have you left me? [Why are you] far from saving me,[From] the words of my roaring?".

In the first couple of centuries BCE and CE, the spoken language of the Jews in the Galilee was Aramaic, and in Judea it was Hebrew. Lots of surviving documents, inscriptions, and references in canonical texts add up to make that clear. If Jesus grew up in the Galilee, it's virtually certain that his "mother tongue", his ordinary spoken language, was Aramaic. If he was educated as a Jew, he would have learned at least some Hebrew, and possibly learned it very well. If he spent much time in Jerusalem or the south, he would probably have picked up some ability to speak Hebrew conversationally. This is not controversial or mysterious, so I'm surprised that no one so far has mentioned the well-established difference between Galilee and Judea. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.186.215.227 (talk) 00:28, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Palestine did not exist in Jesus’s time

I changed the word “Palestine” to Israel 3 times. In Jesus’s time there was no place called Palestine. There were no Palestinian people, language or country. It is never mentioned in the Old or New Testaments of the Bible. Nor anywhere else. I also deleted the word “Palestinian” from the phrase “Jewish Palestinian Aramaic” for the same reason. Immediately I made my changes they were deleted, despite there being no historical substance. The disputes between Israel and Palestine today are not relevant to Jesus’s time and should not be used to rewrite history for propaganda purposes. Barry D Kearney (talk) 00:19, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

What do the sources say? Our articles are meant to be based on reliable sources, mainly secondary. See WP:VERIFY and WP:RS. We can't use our own opinions, knowledge or even experience, we call that original research. Doug Weller talk 15:59, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

"It is also likely that Jesus knew enough Koine Greek to converse with those not native to Palestine"

But he probably read the whole Septaguint in Greek. Could he have access to Herodotus, for example, or Homer? If there was a library in Jerusalem, in what languages were the books? A temple library? I can believe that the Old Testament was his main reading material. Jesus, however, was a child prodigy, though later a carpenter.82.177.40.11 (talk) 08:50, 20 November 2018 (UTC)

Maranatha

Paul uses the Aramaic phrasa Maranatha in 1 Corinthians 16:22. Should that be added to the list of Aramaic phrases in the Greek NT? Hspstudent (talk) 14:38, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

His existence

While we argue 'his' native language i think a discussion of his existence is more progressive. OneNation666 (talk) 15:32, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

That is outside the scope of this article. —C.Fred (talk) 18:35, 11 March 2021 (UTC)

Archive?

This Talk page has become big and a bit hard to navigate. I'm hoping to get a consensus on using a archiving bot (or, if anybody will be willing to manually do it, as I am not the most experienced editor). Imurmate I'ma editor2022 (talk) 15:18, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

@I'ma editor2022: I've configured MiszaBot to start archiving the page. Let's give it a day or so to start archiving threads and see if that helps. —C.Fred (talk) 15:30, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Thank you :). Imurmate I'ma editor2022 (talk) 15:33, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

"is not just a surname" (Thomas "Twin" section)

Could this be a mistranslation of surnom, French for nickname? 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:20E5:D38C:221A:CA9C (talk) 13:31, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Assumptions are just not good enough

Assumption #1: "It is also likely that Jesus knew enough Koine Greek to converse with those not native to Judea,"

Ever heard of interpreters? ie: Peter

Assumption #2: " and it is reasonable to assume that Jesus was well versed in Hebrew for religious purposes."

You can attend religious ceremonies performed in non-local languages for decades but it doesn't necessarily mean that you understand what's being said.

The truth of the matter is that WE DON'T KNOW if Jesus spoke any other languages, and that's exactly where the section should stop! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.109.70.205 (talk • contribs) 19:06, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Assumption 1. This is like assuming that most non-native speakers of English alive on planet Earth in 2022 do have at least some English - the "koine" of our day. So, likelihood from context. Perhaps a reference to the use of Koine Greek in order.

Assumption 2. This is trickier. The Jesus as usually depicted in our Western tradition was a figure of religious learning, and the assumption is a natural adjoint to this. "The" Jesus could of course be an amalgamation of various historical messianistic individuals, and some among them may have been charismatic movement leaders rather than the scholarly type. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:20E5:D38C:221A:CA9C (talk) 13:37, 17 April 2022 (UTC)