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Course 5 · Lesson 1.1

The languages of the Bible: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek

13 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 5 outline

Module 1: What the Languages Are and What This Course Can Do

  1. The languages of the Bible: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek
  2. What an introduction can and cannot do: no fluency, and why
  3. Biblical Hebrew in brief: history, script and sound
  4. Koine Greek in brief: history, script and sound

Module 2: Hebrew Fundamentals

  1. The Hebrew alphabet, reading right to left, and the vowel points
  2. Roots, nouns, gender, number and the construct chain
  3. Hebrew verbs: perfect, imperfect and the seven stems in outline
  4. A core Hebrew vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 3: Greek Fundamentals

  1. The Greek alphabet, accents and breathing marks
  2. Nouns, cases and the definite article
  3. Greek verbs: tense, aspect, voice and mood in outline
  4. A core Greek vocabulary and how to learn it

Module 4: The Texts: Masoretic, Septuagint and New Testament Manuscripts

  1. The Masoretic Text and the codices that preserve it
  2. The Septuagint and where translators consult it
  3. Greek New Testament manuscripts and printed editions
  4. How variants are recorded in footnotes and critical editions

Module 5: How Translations Are Made

  1. Formal and dynamic equivalence, and the middle positions
  2. Who translates: committees, churches and traditions of translation
  3. Hard cases: idioms, word play, gender and untranslatable words
  4. Reading a translation’s preface to learn its principles

Module 6: Tools for the Reader

  1. Interlinear Bibles: what they show and what they hide
  2. Lexicons and concordances: how to read an entry
  3. How to do a word study, step by step
  4. Common word study errors and how to avoid them

Module 7: Evaluating Translation Differences

  1. Locating the Hebrew or Greek words behind a verse
  2. Types of translation differences: text, grammar, word meaning and style
  3. A worked example from the Old Testament
  4. A worked example from the New Testament
  5. Knowing your limits, and when to ask a specialist

All courses

Program / Course 5: Biblical Languages / Lesson 1.1

What you will learn

  • Name the three languages in which the books of the Bible were written and say roughly where each appears.
  • Explain why the Old Testament is mostly Hebrew, partly Aramaic, and why the New Testament is in Greek.
  • Recognize the Aramaic words and phrases that survive in the Greek New Testament.
  • Describe how Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Jewish communities have each related to the original languages.

The big idea

The Bible was not written in one language. Most of the Old Testament is in Hebrew, a few sections are in Aramaic, and the whole New Testament is in Greek. Each language carries habits of thought, word play and grammar that no English version can copy completely. Knowing which language stands behind a verse is the first step in judging why English translations differ. This lesson maps the three languages. It does not teach any of them to fluency, and it does not make a reader able to settle disputed readings alone.

Key terms

Hebrew
The language of most of the Old Testament, a Semitic language written from right to left.
Aramaic
A language closely related to Hebrew. It was the common language of the Near East for many centuries and appears in parts of Daniel and Ezra.
Koine Greek
The common form of Greek used across the eastern Mediterranean from about the fourth century before Christ. The New Testament is written in it. Koine means common.
Semitic languages
A family of related languages that includes Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic.
Septuagint
The ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is often written LXX.
Original languages
The languages in which the biblical books were first written, as distinct from translations.
Lingua franca
A language used widely between peoples who do not share a first language. Aramaic and later Greek served this role.

Background

The books of the Bible were written over many centuries by many authors in more than one place. Languages changed during that time, and so did the peoples who spoke them. Ancient Israel spoke and wrote Hebrew. Later the empires of Assyria, Babylon and Persia made Aramaic the language of administration and trade. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century before Christ, Greek became the common language from Egypt to the edge of Persia. The Bible bears the marks of all three periods.

A reader who wants to understand why English Bibles differ needs a simple picture of this history. Translators do not work from one language into one other. They work from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek into English, and sometimes they also consult ancient translations such as the Greek Septuagint or the Latin Vulgate. Each language has its own habits, and each leaves some meanings open that English must close.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Hebrew, the language of most of the Old Testament

Nearly all of the books of the Old Testament, which Jewish readers call the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, were composed in Hebrew. The language shows change over time. Early poems such as Exodus 15 and Judges 5 are written in an older style than later books such as Ecclesiastes or Esther. Scholars debate how much of this difference reflects real dates and how much reflects the choices of authors, so the dating of any single book is a matter of active discussion.

Hebrew is a Semitic language. Its words are built from roots of consonants. It has no capital letters. It was written without vowel letters at first, and the vowel marks used in printed Bibles today were added long after the biblical period by Jewish scribes. Later lessons take these points one at a time.

Step 2: Aramaic in the Old Testament

A small part of the Old Testament is in Aramaic. The best known sections are Daniel 2:4 to 7:28, which begin when the wise men of Babylon answer the king in Aramaic, and large parts of Ezra, from Ezra 4:8 on. A single verse, Jeremiah 10:11, is in Aramaic, and so are two words that Jacob and Laban use for a pile of stones in Genesis 31:47.

Aramaic and Hebrew are cousins. They share many roots and much grammar, and a reader who knows one will recognize a good deal of the other. This is also why a Jew of the time of Jesus could move between them with some ease, although how far ordinary people did so is debated.

Step 3: Greek, the language of the New Testament

Every book of the New Testament was written in Greek, even though most of its authors were Jews and much of its subject matter concerns Jewish history. The reason is practical. Greek was the language that could reach readers in many cities. Paul wrote letters to Greek speaking churches in Corinth, Philippi and Rome. The Gospels were written for communities spread across the Roman world.

Greek was also the language of the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures made by Jews in Egypt, beginning in the third century before Christ. Many Greek speaking Jews and Christians read the Old Testament in this form. For that reason New Testament quotations of the Old Testament often follow the Greek wording and not the Hebrew.

Step 4: Aramaic words inside the Greek New Testament

The Gospels preserve a few Aramaic sayings. In Mark 5:41 Jesus says “Talitha cumi”, and the evangelist translates it for Greek readers. In Mark 15:34 the cry from the cross is given as “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani”, a form of Psalm 22:1. Paul closes 1 Corinthians 16:22 with the word Maranatha, an Aramaic expression that can be divided in two ways, as Our Lord has come or as Our Lord, come. Jesus’ name for God as Father in Mark 14:36 is abba, also Aramaic.

Most scholars think that Jesus normally taught in Aramaic, and that the Gospels give his words in Greek translation. The book of Acts also says that Paul addressed a crowd in Jerusalem in what the King James Version calls the Hebrew tongue (Acts 21:40), which many scholars take to mean Aramaic. It follows that even the oldest written form of the sayings of Jesus involves translation.

Step 5: Putting the map together

A simple chart may help. The Old Testament is Hebrew with a few Aramaic portions. The New Testament is Greek with a few Aramaic words. The Septuagint is Greek. The Latin Vulgate, made by Jerome in the late fourth century, is a translation into Latin. Some books accepted as Scripture by Catholic and Orthodox Christians but not in the Hebrew Bible were written in Greek (such as the Wisdom of Solomon) or were written in Hebrew and survive in Greek (such as, in the main, Sirach, whose Hebrew was partly recovered in modern times). Check the language of each book in a reliable introduction before you rely on this summary.

  1. In which language was the passage I am reading first written, and which edition am I using?
  2. Does the verse quote the Old Testament, and if so does the wording follow the Hebrew or the Greek?
  3. Is any word in the passage an Aramaic word kept in a Greek text?
  4. Does my English Bible note an alternative reading in a footnote?
  5. What do I know about this passage that depends on the original language, and what am I taking from my translator?
  6. Who could I ask if I need a judgment that only a reader of the language can make?

Examples

An Aramaic section of Daniel

In Daniel 2:4 the narrative switches from Hebrew to Aramaic when the Chaldeans speak to the king, and it stays in Aramaic until the end of chapter 7. Editions of the Hebrew Bible mark this clearly. A reader of English will usually see no sign of the change unless a footnote mentions it.

A saying of Jesus in two languages

Mark gives the words to a dead girl as Aramaic and then supplies a Greek translation of them. The evangelist therefore shows the reader the Aramaic of the event and the Greek of the gospel text side by side.

A quotation that follows the Greek

When a New Testament writer quotes the Old Testament, the wording may match the Septuagint and differ from the Hebrew. Comparing the New Testament verse with both an English translation of the Hebrew and an English translation of the Septuagint shows which source the writer seems to follow. A beginner should treat such a result as a pointer to a question, not as a final answer.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Catholic Church long valued the Latin Vulgate, and the Council of Trent declared it authentic for public use. In the twentieth century, papal teaching and the Second Vatican Council encouraged scholars and translators to work from the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts. Catholic Bibles today are normally translated from the original languages.

Orthodox

The Orthodox Church receives the Greek New Testament and uses the Septuagint as the text of the Old Testament in worship. For Orthodox Christians, the Greek language is closely tied to the life of the church, though the Greek of the New Testament differs from the Greek spoken today.

Protestant

The Reformers appealed to the Hebrew and Greek texts and wanted them put in the hands of translators. Protestant translations are typically made from the Hebrew text preserved by Jewish scribes and from a critical edition of the Greek New Testament. Protestants differ on how much ordinary believers need to know about the languages.

Jewish

For Jewish readers the Hebrew Bible is read in Hebrew, with Aramaic translations (the Targums) and commentaries beside it. Jewish tradition regards the Hebrew text as the form in which the Scriptures are rightly read, and translations as aids.

Scholarly

Historians of the languages agree on the broad map given here. They debate details, such as how widely Hebrew was spoken in the first century and how much Semitic influence appears in New Testament Greek.

Why it matters

Every English word in a Bible stands in for a word in another language. When two translations disagree, the cause often lies in the language behind them. A reader who knows which language lies behind a passage, and what kind of text it is, can ask better questions and is less likely to be misled by confident claims about what the original says.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The whole Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek.

Correction: Parts of Daniel and Ezra, and a few other words, are in Aramaic. Aramaic words also appear in the New Testament. The picture is of three languages, not two.

Misunderstanding: Jesus spoke Greek because the New Testament is in Greek.

Correction: Most scholars think Jesus normally spoke Aramaic, and that the Gospels present his words in Greek. He may have known some Hebrew and some Greek as well, but this is a matter of reasoned inference, not of direct record.

Misunderstanding: Greek is the original language of the Old Testament in the Orthodox Church.

Correction: The Orthodox Church uses the Septuagint, which is a Greek translation of Hebrew books. Its status as the Church’s Old Testament is a matter of church teaching, not a claim that the books were first written in Greek.

Misunderstanding: A translation into English can be checked by anyone who learns the Greek letters.

Correction: Knowing the letters is a start. Reading the language takes much more. Later lessons explain what a beginner can safely check.

Knowledge check

Which languages appear in the Old Testament, and which is dominant?

Hebrew is dominant. Aramaic appears in parts of Daniel (2:4 to 7:28), parts of Ezra, one verse of Jeremiah (10:11) and two words in Genesis 31:47. Hebrew and Aramaic belong to the same Semitic family, which explains many of their similarities in vocabulary and grammar.

Why was the New Testament written in Greek?

Greek was the common language of the eastern Roman world, so it could reach readers in many cities. The apostles and evangelists wrote to churches in Greek speaking places, and many Jews and Christians already read the Old Testament in the Greek Septuagint.

Name two Aramaic expressions that survive in the Greek New Testament.

Examples are Talitha cumi (Mark 5:41), Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani (Mark 15:34), abba (Mark 14:36) and Maranatha (1 Corinthians 16:22). Any two are correct. Mark translates the first two for Greek readers, which shows that the evangelist knew the Aramaic would be unfamiliar to them.

What is the Septuagint, and why does it matter to the New Testament?

It is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, begun in the third century before Christ. Many New Testament quotations of the Old Testament follow its wording, so a reader comparing the testaments must sometimes consult it as well as the Hebrew.

Does knowing these facts make a person able to read Hebrew or Greek?

No. A map of the languages is not the ability to read them. This course gives a working acquaintance with each language and a method for using reference tools, not fluency. A student who wishes to read the languages needs structured study over years.

Think it through

  1. What difference does it make to your reading of a Gospel to know that Jesus’ words reach you in a translation?
  2. Which of the traditions described here comes closest to your own, and what strengths of the others do you notice?
  3. What is one passage in which you have already seen a footnote that mentions another language or text?
  4. Why might a community choose a translation of Scripture as its everyday text, as the Orthodox have the Septuagint?

Independent assignment

A map of the languages

In your own notebook, write 300 to 500 words. Make a table of ten books of the Bible you know and, with the help of an introduction to the Old and New Testaments, record the language in which each was written. Add the Aramaic passages named in this lesson and read at least two of them in an English Bible, noting what the footnotes say. Write a paragraph on one thing you learned and one thing you still do not know. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study