Jesus’ Native Tongue

Pope Corrects Israeli Leader: Actually, Jesus Did Not Speak Hebrew

Jesus was in Greek-speaking Egypt during some of His most formative language years, not in Jerusalem learning Hebrew words or in Iraq learning Aramaic words. If raised in Jerusalem, Jesus may have learned ancient Hebrew, if He hung around the wealthy educated class. If He had escaped to Iraq from about 2-4 years of age, Jesus may have picked up on a Babylonian language like Aramaic. Jesus was in Egypt as a toddler.

Egyptians are most remembered for their use of hieroglyphics, until the 4th century BC when they really cottoned on to the much more practical Greek language. 99% + of Jesus’ words (and His name) are still on record for us to read in Greek, with less than 1% of His speech recorded in Aramaic. Jesus wasn’t raised by the small number of religious elite in Jerusalem who still spoke Hebrew, nor was He raised in first century Iraq or Iran to speak Aramaic. Jesus was in Greek-speaking Egypt for a very influential year or two, in His development of language, and was then raised in Nazareth.

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth”, was not a commentary on their high class speech. Jesus was born and raised in a city of low repute, save for a very formative year or two in Egypt. Nazareth was certainly not the city known for guarding the sacred Hebrew language of the priests. So, why would the city of Nazareth insist on retaining the Aramaic language, many centuries after Greek became the common language of the kingdom?

Greek was used in Egypt after the conquest by Alexander the Great in 331 BC until about AD 750. The majority of the texts from this period are in Greek. It was not only the language of the administration, but also that of businessmen and schools. The Duke papyrus collection holds a large number of Greek texts ranging in date from the early third century BC to the eight century AD. Among them we find works of literature, sometimes hitherto unknown, magical texts and all kinds of documentary texts, such as private letters, contracts, tax accounts, receipts and petitions. https://library.duke.edu/papyrus/texts/language.html

Josephus was born in Jerusalem in 37 CE as the son of Matthias, a man from priestly descent, and a mother who claimed royal blood. He was born as a Sadducee and an aristocrat. Even though Josephus was upper-class Jerusalem-born, his works were written in Greek, not Hebrew or Aramaic. H. St. J. Thackeray (who translated Josephus’ Jewish Wars from Greek into English) points out a special work of Josephus that he wrote specifically for Aramaic-speaking converts to Judaism to read in their native tongue. “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, and Arabia, the Jewish dispersion in  Mesopotamis, and the inhabitants of Adiabene, a principality of which the reigning house, as was proudly remembered, were converts to Judaism.

Jesus was born in and mostly raised in Nazareth. He most likely spoke Greek and knew at least some Hebrew and Aramaic and maybe even Latin. Josephus was born and raised in Jerusalem and knew Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.