Thread by @DrPJWilliams

Beginning thread arguing that Jesus spoke Greek—not all the time, but sometimes.

Often people simply assume he couldn’t.

Let’s start with his 12 disciples: 2 had Greek names: Andrew and Philip.

Andrew’s parents called their older son Simon, which works equally well in Hebrew or Greek, but when they had another son they gave him a rather rare name which only works in Greek.

This suggests that they either spoke Greek or aspired to speak Greek.

Although we might claim that the other 10 disciples names are Hebrew/Aramaic, this isn’t quite true.

Hebrew names can end in any letter.

Greek words and names only end with a vowel or the sound n, s, or occasionally r.

Look at the list of disciples in Matthew 10:2-4 and apart from the 2 Simons, everyone’s name ends with a Greek s.

This does not mean that the names Thomas or Bartholomaios or Iakobos are Greek, but it does mean they are presented as ‘nativised’ with Greek terminations.

Contrast Iakob in Matthew 1:2 with Iakobos in 10:2.

Contrast Ioseph with Iosepos (Latin Josephus).

Contrast Mariam (Hebrew) with Maria (Greek).

Often Jews adapted OT names to Greek endings.

In Jesus's immediate family we have Greek-adapted endings to OT names in Iakobos and Ioudas, a Greek and Hebrew name in Simon. The only purely Hebrew name for a sibling was Joseph (Matt. 13:55), named after his dad, but adapted to Greek morphology in the form Joses in Mark 6:3.

None of Jesus's disciples or brothers is reported as having a name with no evidence of adaptation to Greek endings.

Even the name Jesus ends with s because of Greek. That's no evidence he could speak Greek as Joshua son of Nun certainly couldn't.

Greek names could go to every sector of society.

A ruler like Niko-demos (John 3:1).

A beggar like bar-Timaios (Mark 10:46, combining Aramaic bar = 'son of' with a Greek name).

Maybe the beggar's grandparents liked Plato. Who can blame them?

Greek penetrated Jewish society so far that the governing council was called by a Greek name: Sanhedrin < sun(h)edrion.

Greek was on coins.

Greek was the main language was the main inscriptional language.

Jesus, like Joseph, was a tektōn, or builder.

Presumably the main building works in Galilee were not making nice wooden chairs for neighbours, or cottages for cousins, but the massive building works for Herod Antipas (NB a thoroughly Greek name).

Some people built a Greek amphitheatre in Sepphoris, less than 4 miles from Jesus's house.

Why not involve a local builder?

One reason people don't like this is Romanticism.

Romantics love to think of the free (primitive) Hebrew or Aramaic Jesus untouched by cold Greek logic.

Blame Aristotle, Plato, Augustine and Aquinas (the usual suspects) as sources of corruption to Primitive Christianity.

'If only we could get back to the truly Hebraic Jesus...'

But anyone who's read Mishnah or Talmud will know these sources are full of Greek words.

Every Aramaic dialect from round this period contains numerous Greek words.

Christian Palestinian Aramaic, attested in a 4-5th century AD Bible translation, is the best geographical match for Aramaic which Judaeans & Galileans used in Jesus' day.

But it's so influenced by Greek that the Greek particles de, gar, & oun are fully adopted into the language.

Now for some evidence that Jesus actually did speak Greek (not merely could).

We shouldn't understate the significance of the fact that the Gospels are in Greek.

Jesus uses Aramaic to a 12-year old girl (Mark 5:41), a man who couldn't speak (7:34), & for his last words.

But—

Jesus opens his opening NT speech with alliteration.

The first 4 beatitudes in Matt 5:3-6 all begin with pi (π).

Blessed are

the poor (ptochoi)

those who mourn (penthountes)

the meek (praeis)

those who hunger (peinontes)

If you like alliteration, here's your justification!

But that's not all.

5:8 'Blessed are the pure in heart'

Pure = katharoi (as in cathartic)

Heart = kardia (as in cardiac)

Jesus alliterates kappa alpha in both words.

5:6 'thirst for righteousness'

Thirst = dipsontes

Righteousness = dikaiosunen

Delta-iota alliteration.

The same alliteration is in 5:10 'persecuted for righteousness'

Persecuted = dediogmenoi a form of dioko, beginning with delta-iota.

Jesus alliterated lots.

The beatitudes have 8 initial terms.

3rd declension plurals are grouped in beatitudes 2-5.

Beatitudes 2 & 4-7 end with the rhyming sound ontai, which ends a verb.

The final position of these verbs is not compulsory. Contrast object-final v5 with verb final v9.

In addition the initial phrase 'poor in spirit' has two consonant clusters beginning with pi: PT for ptochoi/poor & PN for pneumati/in spirit.

But surely Jesus wouldn't have given the Sermon on the Mount in Greek!

Have you noticed where the crowds come from?

Matt 4:25: Galilee, *Decapolis*, Jerusalem, Judaea, Transjordan.

Broad Galilean Aramaic wouldn't help the folk from the notoriously Greek Decapolis, would it?

Now let’s go to Luke 6:

4 beatitudes
4 woes

Beatitudes 1&2 begin with pi.

They are rough equivalents of Matthew's beatitudes 1&4.

Luke famously has 'blessed are the poor' without Matthew's 'in spirit'.

Some clever folk therefore say that Matthew added 'in spirit'.

One problem with this view is that the 'addition' fits the wider pattern of pi-based alliteration. Both 'poor' and 'spirit' begin with consonant clusters starting with pi.

But look at woe #1:

'But (p) woe to you rich (p) because you have got (p is first consonant) your comfort (p).

Woe 2#:

'Woe to you who are filled (empeplēsmenoi with reduplicated root p) now for you will hunger (p).'

Woe #3:

'Woe those who laugh now, because you will mourn (p) and weep.'

Woe #4

'Woe when all (p) people say (1st consonant = p) well of you, for in the same way their fathers (p) did (1st consonant = p) to the false-prophets (p-p).'

Now if there's a deliberate heaping of Ps in the beatitudes in Matthew and in the woes in Luke, it becomes less plausible that either comes from the evangelists, and more plausible that it is something they inherited.

But doesn't Papias of Hierapolis say that Matthew 'collected the sayings [of Jesus] in the Hebrew dialect, and each interpreted them as well as he could'?

Yes, and I see no reason to deny such a Hebrew (or Aramaic) composition.

But clearly our Matthew's gospel precedes Papias.

If it presents Jesus as teaching in Greek, that chronologically precedes any testimony that he taught in another language.

This is not, of course, to say that he did not teach occasionally or mostly in another language.

Stanley E. Porter, Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, vol. 1, p. 382, gives the 8 cases when he thinks it most likely that Jesus spoke Greek. I think that #2-4 are the strongest.

But there could be many more. It all depends on how we judge the levels of language use, which is notoriously controversial.

Matthew 5:22 'But whoever says to his brother "Raca" will be liable to the Sanhedrin.'

If Jesus said this in Aramaic, he used the Greek-origin word Sanhedrin in the sentence.

If he said this in Greek, he still used the Aramaic word raca.

If he spoke Aramaic, it was probably peppered with Greek words.

If he spoke Greek, it may still have involved many Semitic words: Corban, Mam(m)on, Raca.

Units of measure could even come from Latin (Mile in Matt 5:41; 'basket'/modius in 5:15).

Greek had penetrated the local languages so deeply that it had changed their fundamental structures.

In Egypt by the 4th century about 15% of Coptic vocabulary was from Greek.

The Greek word nomos for 'law' made it into Coptic, eastern Aramaic (e.g. Palmyra) & Arabic.

The Greek particle gar 'for' which likes to occur in 2nd position in Greek invaded Coptic, Christian Palestinian Aramaic & Syriac, to perform almost the same function.

So when Jesus spoke Aramaic, he may have used Greek particles to connect sentences & Greek theological vocab.

Thread ended.

RT if appreciated.

Next up: on the literary relationship between Genesis 1, 2, & 3.

Appendix:

Link distilling evidence of the spread of Greek names among Jews of Palestine.

mosaicmagazine.com/observation/20…

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