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mojobadshah
Guest
What language or languages did the authors of the New Testament write the New Testament in?
Koine Greek
Koine Greek was the common language for the eastern Mediterranean and Near East throughout that era. It was also the language of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.
God bless,
Thomas
Koine Greek was the common language for the eastern Mediterranean and Near East throughout that era. It was also the language of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures.
God bless,
Thomas
Were they all Koine? I gotta go look stuff up, weren't some of them thought to be written in Hebrew? I do recall that all the aramaic were actually translated from koine back into the spoken language.
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mojobadshah
Guest
Does this mean that the authors of the New Testament ie. the apostles were all Koine Greek speakers?
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
The million dollar question nobody can honestly answer.
Its probably a pretty safe bet Paul spoke Greek, or at least some. The Greek language permeated the area, and was the language of commerce throughout the region, so it is not unreasonable to think that Jesus and the disciples had some familiarity with Greek, some more and some less. Its also known that many of the New Testament books are not necessarily considered now to have been written by the authors they are traditionally attributed to.
Its probably a pretty safe bet Paul spoke Greek, or at least some. The Greek language permeated the area, and was the language of commerce throughout the region, so it is not unreasonable to think that Jesus and the disciples had some familiarity with Greek, some more and some less. Its also known that many of the New Testament books are not necessarily considered now to have been written by the authors they are traditionally attributed to.
bob x
Well-Known Member
Paul was a native Greek speaker, and his epistles are written in quite good Greek ("koine", that is the vernacular, rather than "classical" Greek, but grammatically fine); Paul's authorship of some of the epistles is doubted precisely because the Greek is a little off. The author of "Luke" and "Acts" is also a very well-educated Greek-speaker with the best use of the language in the New Testament.
The gospel of Mark appears to have been written in Greek by someone who knew it as a second language and was "thinking in Aramaic" (that is, some of the sentences are clunky in Greek and are best understood as a wooden translation of Aramaic idioms; Lamsa's hypothesis that the Aramaic translation of Mark is actually the original is not accepted by most scholars, although it is possible).
The gospel of "Matthew" is a composite: the narrative is a reworking of Mark; the "Q" material (Quotations from Jesus, such as the Sermon on the Mount) was originally composed in an Aramaic heavily larded with Hebrew words (such as many Jews used for religious speech) and then translated into Greek (as we can tell by the preservation of some word-play that worked in Hebrew/Aramaic but doesn't carry over in translation, and from some translation errors); the "F" material (quotations from the Old Testament with little stories that "fulfill" the prophecies) is by a moderately-educated Greek-speaker who knows the Old Testament only in the Septuagint translation and knows no Hebrew at all: this author cannot be the same as the author of the "Q" material (who could very well have been the actual apostle Matthew) but is probably the same as the editor who reworked the Mark narrative and combined the other materials with it.
The "John" material is a mixed bag. The gospel and first epistle are in a Greek with some "Semitisms" (as in Mark, using idioms more commonly found in Aramaic; but not causing actual errors in the Greek as sometimes happens in Mark; this would be a native speaker of Greek, but in a dialect, much like someone in India speaking that dialect of "English" which is perfectly understandable but tells you right away where he is from). The book of Revelations has horribly butchered grammar: this is by somebody who barely knows the language. Most scholars think the gospel genuinely goes back to things the disciple John said and wrote, and that Revelations is from somewhere else, but I have the reverse opinion, that Revelations is the genuine voice of a 1st century Galilean peasant fisherman, and the gospel from a much later period.
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mojobadshah
Guest
Am I correct in that Greek was the lingua franca where Jesus and the Apostles came from and Hebrew was pretty much a dead language, only used for liturgical purposes? Would it be fair to say that Greek was/is the sacred language of Christianity like Sanskrit is to Hindus for example? Also I'm confused. Was it Classical (Attic?) or Koine Greek that the New Testament was first written in?
Well BobX is the man for this, but I'll put in my bit in the hope of learning something too!
Hebrew was a liturgical language, Aramaic was the local tongue of Jesus and His followers.
There is a well-documented evidence that 'ill-educated' peoples (that is, who don't read and write) actually learn languages quicker than those who do, for various reasons — necessity being an obvious one — but research among street kids in Eastern Europe, as I recall, shows that they have a surprising range of languages when exposed to multicultural influences. There is some evidence, I think, that 'literate' minds learn differently, and it is in fact harder. Some would say Jesus had Hebrew, Aramaic, Koine Greek, a smattering of Latin ... but this would not be to the level of street kids expounding complex theological ideas ... I think one can say they soak it up, rather than learn it?
The idea of a 'sacred language' is interesting for esoterists — certainly there is evidence that some Greek theology does not translate easily into Latin, a classic case being the Latin 'Verbum' for the Greek 'Logos' — 'Logos implies far more, for example, than the common English term 'word' which derives from the Latin 'verbum' ... and once you get into terms like 'substance' and 'essence' and 'nature' etc., you're into freefall in translation if you haven't a firm grip of the idea behind the term, hence the arguments between Greeks and Latins about what they're saying.
There was a schism between the Greco-Latin and the Coptic, one saying Jesus is two natures in one Person, whilst the Coptic say He's one Person of two natures, which to me says the same thing, but was fuel enough for them for a major falling-out. Added to that both sides were citing Cyril of Jerusalem, and some of his ideas have been shown to be actually false attributions ... so your in murjy waters.
Then again, 'verbum' sums up theological ideas in a different way than 'logos', but neither are necessarily more right, or wrong. I use both, depending on what I'm getting at. Logos is more technical, to me, Verbum is somehow more poetically expressive.
Of course, as I think BobX and others might say, the Latins might have derived a whole theology from a mistaken interpretation of the Greek — if you're going to be a serious scholar, you need them all. My course director spoke Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Ugaritic (!?), Italian, French ...
For example, I'm reading Paul Ricoeur on philosophy, and my director asked if I was reading hi in French! Sheesh ... I have enough trouble understanding English at that level!!
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On another point, BobX, we had no little discussion around the idea that John was not a poor fisherman, but actually a well-educated and comfortably situated son of a well-to-do fishing business, and moved easily in the upper echelons of his society.
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A Greek scholar I was talking to about the works of St Maximus the Confessor said it sometimes took him hours to translate a single phrase, because you need to research his whole philosophical vision to understand what he's saying, and if you follow the translators there are good ones and bad ones.
Origen of Alexandria, for example, learnt Hebrew to read their Scriptures in its native language, rather than rely on the Greek Septuagint translation. He was one of very few Fathers of Catholicism who did so. He's accused of being too focussed on the symbolic use of language ... but that might well be because he has a greater sensitivity to the Hebrew way of expressing profound ideas in a mythopeic sense, rather than the Greek reliance on a more technical philosophical lexicon.
So not only do you have to translate the word in its context, but also the use of that word on every other occasion to see how and why the philosopher deploys it.
The only safe conclusion I can say is the language that is 'yours' and which you know best is the one you swear in most effectively! If only we knew what Jesus said when He stubbed His toe!
But then 'love', which is the core of the Gospels, is a universal term.
God bless,
Thomas.
It appears that most of the apostles may have been koine speakers but we don't know that any of the apostles were NT authors, with the exception of Matthew in parts....
My understanding is also most spoke Aramaic...but it contanined far fewer words, but words with many meanings and the meaning had to be derived from the content of the remainder of the sentence.
A few things... I have a friend who was sent to the Brazilian war college to get his masters...he spoke no Portuguese when he arrived yet all his classes were in that language and he got his degree. yikes.
Another, wasn't some of what we had prior to the 20th century discoveries translated from Greek to Coptic origninally but the Coptic was only remaining so we went from Coptic to Greek to Latin to English, not having some of it in the original tongue at all?
Lastly, logos...I know we've gone into some of this before....but I'm wondering if the missing meaning has to do with the power of the "word". In that we know how folks can utilize their tongues as weapons to cut an enemy to shreds or as chariots to lift someone to the heavens....
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
Bob is pretty much the go-to guy around here as far as the linguistic forensics, and Thomas has a very good working knowledge of some of the classical texts (even if I do feel there is a certain leaning sometimes, but its all good). About the only thing I can think to add is that there was also an intense ultra-nationalism afoot prior to and after the life of Jesus, and that lasted up until about the time of the Bar-Kociba or Bar-Kochba revolt. This movement was focused in and around Galilee, and according to at least one Jewish scholar looking into the life of Jesus (Geza Vermes) suggests in some sense that there was a bit of a backlash resistance to anything "foreign," although how extensive that resistance was has long been a question. Did Jesus speak Greek? There are a few variables that cannot fully be accounted for. Was Jesus an ultra fundamentalist that distanced himself from any foreign influence? There are some traditional ascriptions that suggest that Jesus interacted outside of the Galilean clique...not least the Samaritan woman (although some say this passage is a late addition). Such interaction would require at the least a willingness to step outside of the clannish norm.
While the New Testament Gospels purport to be the words of Jesus, it is evident textually and by tradition that he didn't write any of them, and it is far from clear that he preached in Greek. If I recall, the earliest Gospel text that was written was begun some 20 or so years after Jesus was executed.
So it really depends to what level and what extreme one wishes to take the matter to. If one were so inclined to believe that by "sacred language" one meant the actual language used for the sermons that came from the mouth of Jesus, I would be inclined to think that language would be Aramaic or some dialect of it.
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mojobadshah
Guest
So the Jesus and the Apostles may have spoken Koine Greek. But it's my understanding that Koine Greek came into use during the Hellenistic period which began in the year of Alexander's death or 323 B.C. Wouldn't that mean that the Greek versions of the NT would have been written around then too? What am I missing?
bob x
Well-Known Member
"Modern English" began to be spoken around the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I of England. Does that mean that all the posts on interfaith.org were written around then?
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mojobadshah
Guest
What I mean is would that not mean that the Koine versions of the NT could not have been written before around 323 B.C.? Is this a trick question? Because if Modern English "began to be spoken" around the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I of England wouldn't that mean that any literature we have in Modern English could not have been written too long before these figures lived?
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mojobadshah
Guest
Wait a minute. Silly me. I kept on thinking 323 B.C. was 323 A.D. Sorry to have wasted your time. Disregard my last post.
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mojobadshah
Guest
Wait a minute. I'm an idiot. I kept on thinking 323 A.D. instead of 323 B.C.
juantoo3
....whys guy.... ʎʇıɹoɥʇnɐ uoıʇsǝnb
The New Testament didn't begin to solidify until 325 AD as a result of the Council of Nicaea. It wasn't until a few councils later that the NT was actually formally solidified. The Book of Revelations, for example, was hotly contested for quite a while. Other NT era books now held as Apocryphal were dis-included. Even a cursory comparison of a Catholic Bible with a standard KJV shows the Catholic Bible includes the book of Baruch, where the KJV does not. There is also a standard set of pre-NT Apocrypha that were included in the original KJV that are dropped from later versions...including books such as 1st and 2nd Maccabees, Bel and the Dragon, and Ecclesiasticus.
Amergin
Well-Known Member
No, this means that the apostles most likely did not write anything including the New Testament. One or two generations separate the people of Jesus ERA Israel. Thomas is correct. Greek was the commonly spoken language in everyplace from Dalmatia, the heel and toe of Italy, Sicily, Macedonia, Greece, Asia Minor, the Eastern Shore of the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt, and Eastern Libya.
Local native languages like Aramaic were spoken in Syria and Palestine. However, the language of official documents and government was Greek.
If Jesus' apostles in Aramaic speaking Israel wrote the N.T., it would probably have been Aramaic because their initial communities were among the Aramaic speaking people of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. Most common, poor, and uneducated people were not fluent in Greek. The Gospels were written from near the end of the First Century and early Second Century. This occurred after the first Jesus Messianic/Prophetic followers lost their position by retaining Judaism.
Greek speaking Roman citizens wrote the N.T. some 50 years or more after Paul of Tarsus began the separation of a new religion apart from Judaism. Paul was a proto-Arian, who wrote of Jesus as subordinate to God. When the Roman converts wrote the N.T. they were espousing the Arian form of Christianity, later further expounded by Bishop Arius. The dominant Arian Christians expelled Athanasius, heavily influenced by Polytheistic Paganism several times from Alexandria. In the Third Century, Athanasian Christianity was the heresy while Arian Christianity was Orthodox. Several emperors were Arians.
The initial triumph of Arianism and the fact that the Gospels were written in contemporary Greek, indicates the fact that Christianity was evolving into Pagan Indo-Europeanism and not genuine Judaism. The later triumph of more paganised Athanasian Christianity made Jesus into a High God with the Trinity Paradox. This severed irreparably Trinitarian Christianity from Judaism. Christianity had evolved to be more similar to Celtic and Greek Paganism (i.e. Polytheism with trinities.) The use of the Greek language is what I would have expected.
Amergin
Ah, you forgot, the earliest written books were "Coptic", and are still preserved today. You really should read the history of scripture...
But they came from Aramaic verbage...(written/oral? I don't know).
bob x
Well-Known Member
We have a lot of Coptic papyri of old date because Egypt has a lot of desert with good climate for paper preservation. Most of it is translation, from works composed in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek; some of it may have been new composition in Coptic. For the "gospel of Thomas", for example, we have fragments in Greek and a long well-preserved papyrus in Coptic: the Greek fragments match sayings in the first half of the Coptic text, while the second half of the Coptic text is rather different in character with a pronounced "Gnostic" ideological bent; while "1st Thomas" was originally written in an Aramaic larded with Hebrew words (as we can tell from certain linguistic peculiarities), it is possible that "2nd Thomas" does not reflect even a Greek original but was newly written in Coptic.Ah, you forgot, the earliest written books were "Coptic", and are still preserved today. You really should read the history of scripture...
kiwimac
God is NOT about Fear
Jesus' home was in sight of cities of the Decapolis which were undergoing expansion during the period of his lifetime. It is likely that he, being a wright, worked there which would mean that he possibly had a passing understanding of koine Greek himself. As for the rest Bobx is quite right.