{"id":16914,"date":"2018-03-04T06:00:41","date_gmt":"2018-03-04T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/?p=16914"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:37","slug":"language-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/language-jesus\/","title":{"rendered":"The Language of Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have, on occasion, been taken to task by someone who claims that the King James Version of the Bible is the only valid Bible; that the modern language translations are, at best, erroneous and, at worst, heresy.\u00a0 They claim that the KJV is written as Jesus spoke, we HAVE to stay with that version.\u00a0 To which I must reply, “Are you nuts?”\u00a0 Here is why I must ask that:<\/p>\n

Jesus Was Hebrew<\/h2>\n

Jesus was born and raised Hebrew.\u00a0 The Hebrew people held tightly to their heritage and traditions.\u00a0 They most certainly used their own native language when among their own people.\u00a0 Jesus would have known and used Hebrew whenever possible.<\/p>\n

The Common Language<\/h2>\n

The Mediterranean Rim encompassed the area where Jesus and His followers would teach, preach and work miracles as they set up the first century church.\u00a0 Travelers and merchants from all around this region (and beyond) used Aramaic as a common language that allowed all of them to communicate with each other.\u00a0 Aramaic originated from southern Syria and was closely allied to Hebrew.\u00a0 Because the Hebrew people did not live in cloistered groups but dealt with a wide mix of peoples, Aramaic would need to be known to deal with them.<\/p>\n

The Language of Privilege<\/h2>\n

Greek Koine was spoken throughout the eastern Roman Empire.\u00a0 Businessmen and politicians who needed to communicate with members of the Roman Empire used Greek to do so.\u00a0 As a Palestinian Jew, Jesus might have known some Greek as well.\u00a0 Many of the original letters that became the New Testament were written in Greek, but it is not known how much use of this language Jesus made in his dissertations.<\/p>\n

Speaking To the Audience<\/h2>\n

When Jesus taught in the Temple and synagogues of Judea, it is safe to assume Jesus spoke Hebrew.\u00a0 When he pushed out into areas like Samaria and Galilee, He would have used a language commonly spoken there, which would be Aramaic.\u00a0 When speaking with the Roman soldier whose servant was sick, and when questioned by Pontius Pilot Jesus may have used Aramaic or Greek.<\/p>\n

I feel quite confident in stating that one language Jesus did NOT use was Old English (or what we call Old English, which is actually the oldest modern English.\u00a0 Actual Old English<\/a> is now almost unintelligible even to English speaking persons).\u00a0 When people state that Jesus spoke in terms like “ye”, “thee”, “thou”, “didst”, and “triest” that are particular to Old English, I point out that Jesus was not born in Sussex, but Bethlehem.\u00a0 These terms are brought into play because they are what translators used\u00a0 in the 1500’s and 1600’s as they attempted to produce a translation for the common people of Europe.<\/p>\n

KJV Not the First<\/h2>\n

The King James version of the Bible was not the first translation.\u00a0 Before that was the Vulgate<\/a>, which was written in Latin and was used by the priests of the Catholic church for centuries.\u00a0 And the King James Version we hold in our hands today was not even the second (or third!) translation.<\/p>\n

The first translation of the New Testament into English was printed by William Tyndale<\/a> in 1526 — and you may recall that he was executed by The Church for his efforts.<\/p>\n

The first translation authorized<\/strong> by the English church authorities was the Great Bible<\/a>, commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII (1535), and the second was the Bishops’ Bible of 1568<\/a>.\u00a0 The Authorized King James Version<\/a> (or Pure Cambridge Version<\/a>) was published in 1611 by the King’s Printer Robert Barker and was the fourth<\/strong> translation into English.\u00a0 It included all 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books of the New Testament, but no Apocrypha.\u00a0\u00a0 The New Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic.\u00a0 The English of the original 1611 published version is noticeably different from the 1769 revision, as the English and fonts have been updated for modern readers.\u00a0 People who are unfamiliar with the English language of the Elizabethan and Jacobean era can easily mistake the 1611 King James Version writing style for spelling errors.<\/p>\n

\"old<\/a>
The 1611 version used Jacobean English typography. Does your KJV look like this?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That history is interesting, but I’m getting a little off track.\u00a0 The point I was making is that Jesus did not speak Old English.\u00a0 Many people love the flowing language and prose rhythm of the KJV, others prefer more contemporary verbiage.\u00a0 As long as the translation of God’s Word you read was translated directly from the original texts (not interpreted from some previous translation) and is complete, it should be accurate.\u00a0 Beware, however, of those interpretive translations that twist the Word of God to support some sociopolitical point of view.<\/p>\n

But, please, do not tell me that if Jesus showed up on my front porch, he would say, “Wilt thou behest me enter thine abode and sup with thee?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have, on occasion, been taken to task by someone who claims that the King James Version of the Bible is the only valid Bible; that the modern language translations are, at best, erroneous and, at worst, heresy.  They claim that the KJV is written as Jesus spoke, we HAVE to stay with that version.  … Continue reading “The Language of Jesus”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16919,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[67,57],"class_list":["post-16914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-matters-of-faith","tag-jesus","tag-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16914"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21222,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16914\/revisions\/21222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}