New Testament Languages

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BTW, I noticed some of those OT similarities when I once voluntarily (and all by myself) attended a Sabbath Service as a sort of self-initiated study in comparative religions.

As we read through the prayer book, it was an interesting experience because you could identify themes Christ picked up on and ran with… Since it was a first exposure, my conscience wasn’t fluid enough to fully grasp distinctions, but - like I said - the interesting thing was you could see a formation occuring within the themes… While I only went once, it made for a wonderful exegetical experience…
 
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Gorgias said:
ing Ptolemy II commissioned a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures for his library in Alexandria
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That’s right. But Classical Hebrew had been, for quite some time (a few centuries or more), been losing ground to local vernacular languages, especially in Egypt after the it had been conquered by Alexander. This was likely a strong impetus for composing the LXX.

At the same time, Hebrew did not completely exit use. I’m not sure if linguists would label it a dead language at the time of the LXX’s composition (3rd century BC) or even at the time of Christ’s ministry. It was certainly spoken and written and learned (varyingly depending on region), but in limited circumstances. I’ve mentioned liturgy, but there have also been unearthed large amounts of legal documents (e.g. marriage contracts) from Jesus’ time that were written in Hebrew.

There are also uncertainties as to the prevalence of Koine Greek. It was certainly the lingua franca of the broader mediterranean, but it was unlikely in some areas - particularly Palestine - for many Jewish to be fluent in it.
Wm777 said:
Relation to Jewish prayer
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It’s inevitable that parts of the NT will reflect Hebrew and/or Aramaic figures of speech and liturgical formulae. But most scholars agree that the NT is, overall, a wholly original composition in Koine Greek.
 
Wm777 said:
BTW, I noticed some of those OT similarities when I once voluntarily (and all by myself) attended a Sabbath Service as a sort of self-initiated study in comparative religions.
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Have you ever prayed the Catholic Liturgy of the Hours? I’ve been to Jewish sabbath services, and they seemed to me to be very similar to Catholic Evening Prayer (with the exception of the NT reading, the Marian Canticle, and the Lord’s Prayer, of course)…
 
Yes, I have. So many times I have parts of it just memorized by now… 🙂
 
Bithynian said:
Relation to Jewish prayer
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It would have to go one step further, though…

We see the OT (or parts of it) as incomplete, but valid… The valid parts were kept, obviously… and, then, the stuff the Bishops rejected was not used…

Sometimes what is not used is just as revealing as what was used… Meaning it was probably rejected for a reason, so one of my questions (which I’m not putting you on the spot to answer) would be “Why was such and such a phrase rejected?”

In any case, I can’t imagine what the NT would be like without the OT to build upon… All of Genesis, The Exodus, The Psalms and so on… these all validated and prefigured the stuff Jesus did in the NT… so I just wish I knew more Hebrew is all… 🙂
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Yes, there are many expressions and turns of phrase in the Greek New Testament that point to a Hebrew or Aramaic origin. One example:

And do not presume to say to yourselves, “We have Abraham as our father,” for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
John the Baptist’s warning to the Pharisees and Sadducees in Matt 3:9 and Luke 3:8 is a pun in Hebrew: abanim, stones, followed by banim, sons or children.

The whole question has been studied in great depth. Here, for instance, is an article in the Brill Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (link below). If you’re interested, you can register at Brill free of charge to be able to read a limited number of articles from the books and journals they publish.

http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopedia-of-hebrew-language-and-linguistics/hebraisms-in-the-new-testament-EHLL_COM_00000110
 
Wm777 said:
To some, that is a good thing…
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I wasn’t saying that Hebrew is a “dead language” is a good or bad thing. Just that at the time, it was no longer the language spoken in that region of the world. While some were no doubt still educated in it, the vast majority of people no longer spoke it and likely could not read it. No need to apologize. Wasn’t making a criticism of the language, was just stating a description of the time.
 
OurLadyofSorrows said:
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Hodos:
Hebrew was essentially a dead language by the first century.
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Biblical Hebrew was the language of worship in the Temple and synagogues. Every devout Jew knew and understood it either orally or written also for reading Scripture.
It is a language of the Dead Sea Scrolls also. It was and is not a dead language.
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That’s not what “dead language” means.
  • An “extinct language” is one where there is no one alive who knows how to pronounce the words.
  • A “dead language” is one where people do speak it, but it’s not a vernacular language. Meaning, it is NO longer evolving and NOT growing via slang, figures of speech, idioms, dialects, etc.
  • While a “living language” is one where it is a vernacular language, and IS evolving and IS growing via slang, figures of speech, idioms, dialects, etc.
  • A “resurrected language” or “revived language” is one that was “dead” and is now back to “living.” Hebrew is the most successful example of this.
In regards to Hebrew, it was a “dead language” before Christ and until the 20th century. It was only used liturgically for over 2000 years. However, in the 19th & 20th centuries, secular Jews started to resurrect it, and eventually Hebrew was fully resurrected as a vernacular language when Israel became a nation. This resurrection was to the disapproval of religious Jews, who wanted Yiddish to be the vernacular and wanted Hebrew to remain a dead language for liturgy only. It was the secular Jews wanted Hebrew to be the vernacular, they won and practically made Yiddish illegal in Israel.
 
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I think Matthew may have originally written his gospel in Hebrew. But with the persecutions of Christians incited by Jews, especially after the early 40s AD with the martyrdom of James the Greater, the other gospel writers would likely not consider Hebrew.
 
I said to my Grandfather once, Latin is a dead language. He btw was not Catholic. His response left me in no doubt in my country, Australia, and globally, Latin is not a dead language. The same would be applied to Biblical Hebrew in the last century BC and first century AD. He was a very educated man and knew what he wason about.
 
OurLadyofSorrows said:
I said to my Grandfather once, Latin is a dead language. He btw was not Catholic. His response left me in no doubt in my country, Australia, and globally, Latin is not a dead language. The same would be applied to Biblical Hebrew in the last century BC and first century AD. He was a very educated man and knew what he wason about.
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This depends on syntax. Some people (esp in the older generations) had another word or description for what we today call a “dead language.” They used “dead language” to refer to what we call today an “extinct language.”

Last week alone, I heard an older gentleman talk about this… he said Latin wasn’t a dead language and called it something else (which I don’t remember).

Point is - there used to be different terms.

Below is a blog post from a language company discussing Latin

 
He dealt in definitions and words. He knew. My point is this language, Biblical Hebrew was the language of oral tradition, scripture and the Temple and Synagogues. If you were a Jew and were learning scripture, law and anything else related to God, or were reading or reciting Scripture, you did it in Hebrew. The Masorites in the middle ages ( Masorite means tradition in Hebrew) developed the system of Vowel pointing to accompany the oral tradition of Hebrew when it was written. The Dead Sea Scolls circa that time contain a lot of Biblical Hebrew text. Then we have the Leningrad Codex and its earlier cousin the Aleppo Codex.

Biblical Hebrew was used. Losing ground does not mean dead. The culture dictated with Alexander and then the Romans, people needed those languages to trade.

Look at Pilates inscription on Jesus Cross, 3 languages.

There are some wonderful examples in coinage during the various revolts of AD 70 and the later revolt.
 
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Grandfather put me firmly in my place with the comment I made. I think it was in relation to the sciences and the law. 🙂😎🙀
A bit disappointed vegemite isnt on that list…
 
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OurLadyofSorrows said:
He dealt in definitions and words. He knew. My point is this language, Biblical Hebrew was the language of oral tradition, scripture and the Temple and Synagogues. If you were a Jew and were learning scripture, law and anything else related to God, or were reading or reciting Scripture, you did it in Hebrew. The Masorites in the middle ages ( Masorite means tradition in Hebrew) developed the system of Vowel pointing to accompany the oral tradition of Hebrew when it was written. The Dead Sea Scolls circa that time contain a lot of Biblical Hebrew text. Then we have the Leningrad Codex and its earlier cousin the Aleppo Codex.

Biblical Hebrew was used. Losing ground does not mean dead. The culture dictated with Alexander and then the Romans, people needed those languages to trade.

Look at Pilates inscription on Jesus Cross, 3 languages.

There are some wonderful examples in coinage during the various revolts of AD 70 and the later revolt.
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Correct. What you describe here is called a “dead language,” at least in the United States.

🙂

This is different syntax… to us there is a major difference between a “dead language” and an “extinct language”
 
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We must have different definitions. 🙂

Interesting to note Biblical Hebrew in the form of the book of Jonah is found 3 times in the Dead Sea Scrolls and once in Greek at this point. The scrolls, fragments really date between 1BC and 1AD
 
phil19034 said:
Correct. What you describe here is called a “dead language,” at least in the United States.
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As an Australian, our definition of “dead language” is the same as the US.

That being said, I’ve looked at a few sources (including the Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine): it does not seem that it was a dead language in the first century AD.

Smelik, Professor of Hebrew at University College London, in his chapter ‘Languages of Roman Palestine’, writes of “vernacular Hebrew” or “Mishnaic Hebrew”, referring to its “colloquial features” and that “most scholars maintain [it] was spoken in the first century CE”. This is to be distinguished from “biblical Hebrew” which was used as a liturgical and literary language.

“Indeed, most scholars now tend to view Mishnaic Hebrew as the vernacular of the Second Temple period, when biblical Hebrew is deemed to have become restricted to literary usage. Only in the second half of the second century CE, in the aftermath of the two Jewish revolts against Rome, did Mishnaic Hebrew disappear as a vernacular. In the following centuries, Hebrew seems to have been used as a liturgical and academic language only.” (p. 125)
 
Yes. I ignored the whole thing about liturgical language vs spoken dialect… but I think it got pretty well-covered. But it’s an excellent point! 💙
 
I think that’s the case only if the are mislabeling it. Biblical Hebrew, vernacular Hebrew and Aramaic are each distinct languages though they look alike and are somewhat understandable to each other…especially the Hebrews. Even in the Hebrew Bible there are some earlier archaic forms.

Edit to correct Aramaic! Thanks @BartholomewB
 
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