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What Language Did Jesus Speak?The "scholars" tell us that Jesus spoke Aramaic. Wikipedia gives the standard view:
One of the reasons for this view is his statement on the cross: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?) What they fail to notice is, if Jesus is speaking mostly Aramaic, why are those the only Aramaic words in the New Testament? You say, because the New Testament was written mainly for speakers of Greek. My question still reamins. The use of this Aramaic, followed by the Greek translation, is there because it is different from what he commonly spoke. We use many Latin phrases today, but we do not speak or read in Latin as our common language. For example we even have Latin phrases on our money, such as E PLURIBUS UNUM. But that does not mean we use Latin every day. Jesus was doing the same, he was speaking an Aramaic phrase, the way we speak Latin phrases: Carpe diem, means "seize the day." And Caveat Emptor means "buyer beware."
When Pilot made a sign and put it above Jesus, JESUS OF NAZARETH, KING OF THE JEWS, it was written in three languages: Greek, Latin, and Hebrew (John 19:19-20). If the majority of the Jews of that time and place were speaking Aramaic, he would have written it in Aramaic. This is powerful evidence that the main language of the Jews of Israel during the first century was Hebrew!
But WAIT! There's more!
In the book of Acts it says that Paul spoke HEBREW. What's more, Paul said that when Jesus appeared to him, that Jesus spoke to him in HEBREW. Yes, it actually says that.
There you have it, clear PROOF that Jesus spoke Heberw, Paul spoke Hebrew, the crowd understood Hebrew so they must have spoken it as well, and even the Roman governors understood Hebrew. Therefore, the primary language of Jesus and the Apostles was not Aramaic, but Hebrew.
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