“Not necessarily. Granted, many lower-class rural folk did speak the more native languages of either Aramaic or Hebrew, and there was indeed a more negative view of Greek in later years (especially post-AD 70). But Greek was not discarded wholesale: in Palestine, about two-thirds of funerary inscriptions found in ossuaries dating from the period are purely Greek, with the remaining one-third are bilingual, composed of a mixture of Greek and Hebrew/Aramaic.”
That Jewish ossuaries of the early first century would be inscribed in Greek is interesting and surprising. All of them? I don’t know how to respond. Could they be forgeries?
“Josephus actually wrote Wars in his native language (Aramaic?) first, but later prepared a Greek translation. His later works are all originally in Greek - which he is quite good at, save for some clumsy idioms. In one enigmatic passage in Antiquities, Josephus takes pride in his Jewish learning (20.263-264), but adds that Greek was so common among his people that it was not much of an achievement (and thus, many Judeans never found any reason to learn it perfectly), since even slaves who wish to know it are able to do so!”
I would disagree. Source?
Josephus wrote Wars in Latin originally for the pleasure of Titus, his patron. He had no reason to write it in Aramaic. He then learned Greek to translate it correctly, and also made a Hebrew version. Josephus spoke conversational Latin from a young age- that was why at 26 he was selected to go to Rome to negotiate the release of captive priests.
The Romans admired Greece, and their philosophies and culture, and so Greek became the intellectual and elite language of the Roman Empire. The Jews worshiped one God and looked down at the paganism of the Greeks and Romans. As an aristocratic priest in the Second Temple, Josephus would have looked down as well upon the Greeks and not learn their language. Josephus would later write that the Jewish culture was far more ancient than the Greeks, and Pythagoras assimilated many of his ideas from the Essenes.
But the High Priesthood knew that it owed its power and position to Rome, and the High Priesthood during that time served as de facto Roman administrators. Realizing this, the Temple elders would have made sure that the most promising of their young Priests would be fluent in reading and writing Latin.
There was always animosity between the Greek-Syrians and the Jews, though the merchant class had inevitable business dealings with them. The Roman prefects and procurators would play one faction off against the other in minor skirmishes, and make money off criminal enterprise preying on both groups. In A.D. 67, when the Jews attempted to break away from Rome, the Temple priesthood formed their own army. Josephus was made a general. One of his mandates was to protect the Jews of the Galilee from the aggression of the Greek-Syrians in the various towns.
As an aside, this bias might have greatly affected Saul, later Paul. Half Greek, it would be interesting to see how he was treated as a priest at the Jerusalem Temple. Likely, early in the game, he realized that as half-Greek he would always be a second-class citizen at the Second Temple! His initial zeal against the Christians might have been an attempt to prove himself and gain stature in front of the High Priesthood. Unsuccessful in that respect (and after an epiphany, of course!), Saul converted to Christianity and worked against the Temple priesthood with great energy, and, not without controversy, embraced all Greeks and non-Jews and welcomed them into the new Christian sect.
(source Hagan “Year of the Passover” “Fires of Rome”
