Hebrew New Testament?

[BeatGuy83]

Hello All:

I’m having some very interesting conversations with a friend of mine who is a fallen-away Catholic. She now adheres to many of the teachings of the Hebrew Roots movement.

I’ve learned recently through our conversations that she believes the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew. She points to many Hebrew idioms that are used throughout the NT, as well as the use of individual Hebrew words in the NT, as proof. She claims that the NT we have received was translated into Greek, and many meanings were lost. She then uses this argument to basically claim that all of Christianity has been “Hellenized,” by which she means corrupted by Greek pagan ideas.

So, here is my question: is there any truth to her claim that the NT was originally written in Hebrew? If not, what evidence can I cite to prove this?

And a followup: She keeps saying the the Dead Sea Scrolls were written in Hebrew. My understanding is that they were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Do the Dead Sea Scrolls contain NT texts in Hebrew or Aramaic?

My thanks, forum users!

In Christ,
John

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Hello All:

I’m having some very interesting conversations with a friend of mine who is a fallen-away Catholic. She now adheres to many of the teachings of the Hebrew Roots movement.

I’ve learned recently through our conversations that she believes the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew. She points to many Hebrew idioms that are used throughout the NT, as well as the use of individual Hebrew words in the NT, as proof. She claims that the NT we have received was translated into Greek, and many meanings were lost. She then uses this argument to basically claim that all of Christianity has been “Hellenized,” by which she means corrupted by Greek pagan ideas.

So, here is my question: is there any truth to her claim that the NT was originally written in Hebrew? If not, what evidence can I cite to prove this?

And a followup: She keeps saying the the Dead Sea Scrolls were written in Hebrew. My understanding is that they were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Do the Dead Sea Scrolls contain NT texts in Hebrew or Aramaic?

My thanks, forum users!

In Christ,
John

Interesting.

I’m not sure how many Hebrew words there are in the N.T. (maybe she could produce a list), though there certainly are a sprinkling of Aramaic words and phrases. I think most of the “Hebrew” idioms that she is referring to would be better termed “Semitic” and I think if anything, some of the N.T. could have been originally composed in Aramaic, not Hebrew, since Aramaic was the lingua franca at the time. I don’t think it’s at all logical that Paul would have composed his letter to, say, the Corinthians in Hebrew and the Gospel of John is very intentional engaging and battling Greek philosophical notions–and to do something like that in Hebrew doesn’t make much sense. On the other hand, it is possible that the Gospel of Matthew could have been composed in a Semitic language and I don’t think you could prove or disprove that. As I recall, Eusebius claims that Matthew was not composed in Greek, but he’s writing hundreds of years after the fact.

Given some of the differences in early Christianity between East and West, I think she has at least some valid arguments that Western forms of Christianity have been deeply influenced by Greco-Roman culture, particularly in terms of notions like patronage and hierarchy.

The vast majority of the Dead Sea Scrolls are in Hebrew, although there are some in Aramaic and a very small number in Greek. Other than in the opinion of a few fringe thinkers (some of whom, sadly, have been given radio shows, and you can read about the one fragment here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7Q5) no texts of the New Testament were found at Qumran.

 

[BeatGuy83]

Great, thank you so much! Very helpful.