YEHOSHUA SPOKE HEBREW
The Book "Jesus spoke Hebrew"
"BUSTING THE ARAMAIC MYTH"
BRENT MINGE
The powerful Mel Gibson movie, The Passion of the Christ, has once again raised the question of what language Yehoshua actually
spoke. Some say it
doesn’t matter, and in one sense they are right. Yehoshua is still the
Saviour of the world, who walked on water, raised the dead, and made atonement
for our sins by his blood, whether he spoke Hebrew or Hindustani.
Yet in another sense it DOES
matter. If your natural language is,
say, English, and I go about claiming it to be Dutch, I am clearly
misrepresenting you. While there is
nothing whatever wrong with Dutch, it is a simple matter of fidelity to the
record, and of doing justice to the person.
By the same token, if Yehoshua’ “mother-tongue” was Hebrew, then it is as much a misrepresentation to claim he
spoke Aramaic – as is all but universally held – as to say Churchill spoke in
Spanish, or Tolstoy wrote in Norwegian.
But there is another issue at
stake. Aramaic is nowhere mentioned in
the New Testament. Yet on numerous
occasions it speaks of the “Hebrew” language in first century Judaea – from the
title over Yehoshua’ cross “in Hebrew”
(John 19:20), to descriptions of
places like Gabbatha and Golgotha “in the
Hebrew tongue” (John 5:2; 19:13, 17; Rev. 9:11; 16:16), to Paul gaining the
silence of the Jerusalem crowd by addressing them “in the Hebrew tongue” (Acts 21:40; 22:2), to Yehoshua himself
calling out to Paul, on the Damascus road, “in
the Hebrew tongue” (Acts 26:14).
In each instance, the Greek
text reads “Hebrew” (Hebrais, Hebraios or
Hebraikos), the natural translation
followed by nearly all the English versions, as also by the Latin Vulgate and
the German Luther Bible. Do we have the
right to insert “Aramaic” for this plain reading – particularly when the Jewish
people of the period, as we shall see, were so insistent on distinguishing
them? The evidence is compelling that we
do not, and that the New Testament expression, “in the Hebrew language”, ought
to be taken as read.
DEAD SEA
SCROLLS
The Dead Sea Scrolls, known to date from the same general period, reveal an
overwhelming preponderance of Hebrew texts. The figure is generally accepted as around
80%, with Aramaic and Greek taking up most of the balance. In their comprehensive translation of the
Qumran literature, Michael Wise and others observe that:
“Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the dominant view of the
Semitic languages of Palestine in this period was essentially as follows: Hebrew had died; it was no longer learned at
mother’s knee. It was known only by the
educated classes through study, just as educated medieval Europeans knew
Latin. Rabbinic Hebrew … was considered
a sort of scholarly invention – artificial, not the language of life put to the
page. The spoken language of the Jews
had in fact become Aramaic …
The
discovery of the scrolls swept these linguistic notions into the trash bin …
the vast majority of the scrolls were Hebrew texts. Hebrew was manifestly the principal literary
language for the Jews of this period. The new discoveries underlined the still
living , breathing, even supple character of that language … prov[ing] that late Second-Temple Jews used
various dialects of Hebrew…”[1][1].
This sheer
dominance of Hebrew goes far beyond the Biblical writings, which actually
comprise, by Emanuel Tov’s calculations, just 23.5% of the overall Qumran
literature.[2][2] It includes also the famed Copper Scroll
(written, as Wolters notes, in “an early form of Mishnaic Hebrew”[3][3]), the day-to-day letters
(where Hebrew, says Milik, is the “sole language of correspondence”[4][4]), and its general
commentaries and literature (where, as Black concedes, “Hebrew certainly vastly
predominates over Aramaic”[5][5]).
No wonder
the Scrolls are said to “prove that late Second Temple Jews used various
dialects of Hebrew”. And not just as an
“artificial” language, but a “natural, vibrant idiom”, as the Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls
declares[6][6]. How else can such extensive evidence of the
Hebrew language be taken – from commentaries to correspondence, from documents
to daily rules?
Likewise
with the sixteen texts found at Herod’s stronghold of Masada, all predating the
fortress’ overthrow in 73. No less than
fifteen are definitely in Hebrew[7][7], with some doubt over the
final one. Is it conceivable that Hebrew
would have been used for ordinary communications (Biblical texts are again in a
minority) if it was not the language of daily life? Surely the burden of proof must lie with
those who would argue otherwise.
MOSES SEGAL
Well before
the Scrolls and Masada provided their archaeological insights into Hebrew’s
place in late second temple language, Moses Segal had come to the same
conclusion on purely linguistic grounds.
Co-translator of the Talmud and winner of the Israel Prize for Jewish
Studies, Segal was a Hebrew lexicographer of the first order. While still believing that Yehoshua, as a
Galilean, probably spoke Aramaic, he was in no doubt that the prevailing
Judaean language of the time was Hebrew, as he already wrote in 1927:
“In earlier Mishnaic [rabbinic] literature no
distinction is drawn between Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew. The two idioms are known as Leshon Hagadesh, the Holy Tongue, as
contrasted with other languages … What
was the language of ordinary life of educated native Jews in Jerusalem and
Judaea in the period from 400BCE to 150CE?
The evidence presented by Mishnaic Hebrew and its literature leaves no
doubt that that language was Mishnaic
Hebrew”.[8][8]
Such is the
observation of one of the outstanding Hebrew scholars of the twentieth century,
and editor of the Compendious
Hebrew-English, English-Hebrew Dictionary. For Segal, as for the Dead Sea scholars, there
is no doubt that the “language of
ordinary life” in first century Judaea “was
Mishnaic Hebrew”. It was the first
language acquired by children in the home, and the natural medium of
communication in daily speech. As Milik
early recognized, “Mishnaic [Hebrew] … was at that time the spoken dialect of the inhabitants of
Judaea”.[9][9]
WHAT IS GOING ON?
It is astonishing, in light of this, that the Aramaic assumption – at least
as it pertains to the language of first century Judaea – still persists. As relatively recently as 1994, Angel
Saenz-Badillos could claim, in his major study A History of the Hebrew Language, that
“the exile [ie., 586BC] marks the
disappearance of the [Hebrew] language from everyday life, and its
subsequent use for literary and liturgical purposes only”.[10][10]
What is going on here? On the one hand, the clear archaeological and
linguistic evidence for Hebrew’s daily use in late second temple Judaea, yet on
the other a protracted scholarly denial
of the same! No wonder Oxford’s Edward
Ullendorff takes Saenz-Badillos to task:
“I cannot accept the author’s novel argument [cited above] … This
assumption would curtail the active life
of Hebrew by about half a millennium.
Of course colloquial Hebrew will have changed somewhat, possibly as a
result of external influences, during the post-exilic era, but it no doubt remained the principal vehicle of
communication”.[11][11]
Time was, when Saenz-Badillos’
obituary for Hebrew as a living language would have held centre-stage. The
Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church spoke for virtually the entire
scholarly world (Segal and Harris Birkeland[12][12] two notable exceptions),
when, in its first edition of 1958, it confidently stated that Hebrew had
“ceased to be a spoken language around the fourth century BC”.[13][13] Yet such was the mounting weight of evidence
to the contrary, that by its third edition, in 1997, this had become
“Hebrew continued to be used as a
spoken and written language … in the New Testament period”.[14][14]
This represents a remarkable about-turn, due, not least, to the extensive
publication of the Scrolls in the intervening period. How fitting that from the lowest geographical
region on earth – the Dead Sea – where death reigned even in its name, there
should break forth from the “dead”, as it were, the vindication of Hebrew’s
primary place in the language of first century Judaea, exactly as the New
Testament consistently showed! Truly,
“this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes” (Psalm 118:23).
THE TALMUD
A clear distinction was made, among the Jewish people themselves, between
Hebrew and Aramaic. Not only was Hebrew
the choice of scholarship and literature, but it was also upheld as the
normative language of daily life. “In
the land of Israel”, said the Mishnah,
“why the Aramaic tongue? Either
the Holy Tongue (Hebrew, sic) or the Greek tongue”.[15][15] Aramaic had no “prestige”, and “commanded no
loyalty”, as Safrai and Stern observe, whereas Hebrew had both. Even in the later times of the Talmud, it was
forbidden to retrieve a burning Aramaic manuscript from a fire on the Sabbath,
whereas it was permitted of a comparable Hebrew text.[16][16] To depart from the synagogue service during a
Hebrew Bible reading was forbidden, but not for an Aramaic reading.[17][17] Even memorising the Scriptures in Aramaic was
not enough, whereas just to hear them
in Hebrew, without understanding a word, was to “perform [one’s] obligation”![18][18]
To the Jewish people, it was
Hebrew that was “the Holy Tongue”, whereas Aramaic was seen as “the language of
the Evil Force”.[19][19] Not that the latter was rejected altogether,
but that it was regarded as a second fiddle language to Hebrew – the real
“tongue of the fathers” and medium of ordinary speech. Thus the Jerusalem
Talmud declares that
“Four languages are of value: Greek for song, Latin for war, Aramaic for
dirges, and Hebrew for speaking”.[20][20]
That was the place for Aramaic
– in “dirges”. But to Hebrew
belonged the high ground of daily speech (“for speaking”) and worship. Thus for a Jewish father not to speak to his
son “in Hebrew”, from the time he was
a toddler, and teach him the Law, was “as if he had buried him”.[21][21] Concerning Aramaic, by contrast, the rabbis
warned:
“Whoever makes personal requests [in prayer] in Aramaic,
the ministering angels pay no attention, since angels do not understand Aramaic”[22][22].
This, of course, is not a
canonical position, but merely reflects the depth of feeling against Aramaic
among the Jewish scholars. Indeed, the
Talmud relates an earlier occasion when Gamaliel – the same Gamaliel under whom
Paul had studied (Acts 22:3), and whose astute word concerning the Christians
is recorded in Acts 5:34-40 – was sitting on the still-unfinished temple
steps. Someone showed him a copy of an
Aramaic translation of Job, the first and at that time the only “Targum”. So disgusted was he by it, that he told the
builder to “bury it under the rubble”.[23][23] Such was the regard for a pioneering attempt
at an Aramaic portion of Scripture, in the Judaea of Yehoshua’ time! The internal Jewish evidence is thus all one-way traffic for Hebrew.
JOSEPHUS
As a contemporary, and largely an observer, of the final years of the second
temple, Josephus (37-100AD) is an invaluable witness to the period. While not without his faults, they are, as
historian Paul Maier notes, heavily outweighed by his credits, particularly for
the period during which he and his parents lived, when, as Maier says, he is
“at his best”.[24][24]
Like the Mishnah and Talmud,
Josephus takes pains to distinguish Hebrew from Aramaic, showing that it was
Hebrew that was spoken in the first century Israel of which he was largely a
part. When news of the emperor Tiberius’
death is hastily conveyed to Agrippa on his way to the bath, the message is
given “in the Hebrew tongue” (glosse te
Hebraion, Antiquities xviii, 228).
Presumably Hebrew was the most natural and readily understood language
in such an emergency situation.
Concerning this “Hebrew
tongue”, he writes in another passage:
“… though their script seemed to be similar to the
peculiar Syrian (Aramaic, sic) writing, and their language to sound like the
other, it was, as it happened, of a distinct type” (idiotropon, Ant. xii, 2, 1. Thackeray translation).
Thus elsewhere he writes: the “Sabbath … in the Hebrew language” (Ant. 1:33); “Adam … in Hebrew signifies …” (Ant. 1:34); “Israel … in the Hebrew tongue” (Ant. 1:333); “written in
the Hebrew books” (Ant. ix, 208);
“the books of the Hebrews” (Ant. x,
218).
It is difficult to see how
“the Hebrew language” here can denote anything but Hebrew. Not only do the
uniquely Hebrew connotations of “Sabbath”, “Israel”, etc., require it, but so
too does the fact that, at the time of Josephus, the only holy “Hebrew books”
possessed by the Jews were the actual Hebrew Scriptures – the Aramaic Targums
(Job aside) not yet having come into being.
So when we come to Josephus’ address to his own countrymen from outside
the walls of besieged Jerusalem, there can be no doubt as to what language he
speaks. He addresses them, of course,
“in their own language” (War 5:9, 2), which he explicitly states,
of the same episode, to be “the Hebrew
language” (War 6:2, 1). Given the consistent meaning of “Hebrew” as real Hebrew, not Aramaic, elsewhere in
Josephus, and the distinction he himself draws between the two languages, how
can “Hebrew” here be taken at anything
other than face value? That is,
Josephus’ address to the Jews of around 69AD, like Paul’s address to the Jews
of around a decade or so previously in the same city, were both – as the
respective texts of Josephus and Acts state – “in the Hebrew language”
(Acts 22:2). Logic would further require
that the only reason this was so, was because “the Hebrew language” was the vernacular of Judaean Jews at the
time.
JOT AND TITTLE
But what does this mean, in terms of our enquiry into Yehoshua’
language? A great deal, actually. Self-evidently there is a nexus between the
Jewish vernacular of first century Israel, and the language Yehoshua
spoke. It would fly in the face of
common sense if the “Word made flesh” addressed the very countrymen he was
first sent to by his Father, in anything other than their normal tongue.[25][25]
As face answers to face in a
mirror, so the prevailing language of his people at the time must, by any reasonable
standard, have been the language Yehoshua used.
Once that “prevailing language” is established, it requires no great
leap to determine what Yehoshua spoke.
The only way around this is to resort to the artificial construct of an
“interpreter”, or to the circuitous explanation of Yehoshua being fluently bi-
or tri-lingual during his earthly ministry, which – though by no means
inconceivable or, still less, impossible, for the very Son of God – certainly
has no actual support from Scripture, and must remain, therefore, a
supposition.
Consistent with this, we find Yehoshua
speaking of the “jot” and “tittle” of the Law in the Sermon on the Mount
(Matthew 5:18). By universal consent,
this refers to the text of the Hebrew
Bible. Let two modern authorities
suffice – one Catholic, one Protestant:
“‘Jot’ refers to ‘yod’, the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet; ‘tittle’ is a slight
serif [or hook] on a Hebrew letter
that distinguishes it from another”.
(The New Jerome Bible Commentary, emph. added).
Likewise John Broadus, in his Commentary on Matthew:
“Jot, in
the Greek iota, signifies the Hebrew letter iod (pronounced yod) …
tittle – in the Greek, horn – denoting a very slight projection
at the corner of certain Hebrew letters
…” (emph. added).
Would Yehoshua have used such
a term, indeed two of them, both
referring to the “Hebrew letters” of the “Hebrew alphabet”, if his immediate
audience did not understand Hebrew?
Would a French speaker, addressing his or her own countrymen today, use
the umlaut of the German Bible to
illustrate a point! Hardly. The most obvious conclusion is that, as Yehoshua was referring to the Hebrew
alphabet – which no one disputes – his hearers must have understood that same
alphabet, otherwise the point would have been lost on them. Logically, therefore, Yehoshua must have been
speaking Hebrew, and his audience
must have understood him in Hebrew.
Should it be objected that, as
the Hebrew and Aramaic alphabets were the same, Yehoshua could just as well
have been referring to the Aramaic alphabet, we would respectfully reply that
this is to miss the point. Yehoshua
expressly says “the jot and tittle of the
Law”, there being but one “Law” in Israel – the Hebrew Bible. Even the Talmud declares, “the Torah is in Hebrew” (Soferim 35a).
“EXAGGERATED”
INFLUENCE
But what of Yehoshua’ reference to “mammon” in the same sermon (Matt. 6:24)
– quite possibly an Aramaic word? This
is no difficulty. Loan words frequently
occur between languages, as with Italian
words like pizza and pasta today in English. There is no reason why Hebrew should be any
exception.
Yet we must beware of reading too many “Aramaisms” into
the New Testament. In a parallel
context, Segal observes that
“Aramaic influence on
the Mishnaic Hebrew vocabulary has been
exaggerated …. It has been the
fashion among writers on the subject to brand as an Aramaism any infrequent
Hebrew word …. Most of the
‘Aramaisms’ are as native in Hebrew as they are in Aramaic.”[26][26]
Even the very term “Mishnaic Hebrew” can, through overuse, become an
historical exaggeration, as though second temple Hebrew were a different
species from “normal” Hebrew – an inevitable result of emphasizing small
differences rather than recognizing greater commonalities. Just as Elizabethan English and modern
English are still, whatever their differences, both English, so Biblical Hebrew and “Mishnaic” Hebrew are likewise both
Hebrew.
DEMOLISHED
In New Testament studies, an over-exuberance for Aramaic at first led C.K.
Barrett to attribute a quotation in John (Jn. 12:40) to Aramaic influence, only
to change it to Hebrew in his
commentary of eight years later.[27][27] Luke 6:7, too, was once held by scholars like
Black, Fitzmyer and Wilcox to be an “Aramaic” construction, found nowhere else
in the Greek of the period.
Subsequently, J.A.L. Lee demolished this in his study “A non-Aramaism in Luke 6:7”, citing no
less than 23 parallel constructions in Greek literature of the period![28][28] Time
and again the Aramaic assumption has turned out to be a lemon, prompting
Semitist Kenneth Kitchen to observe that “some ‘Aramaisms’ are actually Hebraisms in Aramaic”.[29][29]
What is more, merely because a
word does not appear in the Old Testament Hebrew Bible, does not automatically
make it a candidate for the Aramaic club. “Hosanna” and “Gehenna” are words not
found in that form in the Hebrew Old Testament.
Yet both occur in Mishnaic Hebrew, and are found, in identical form, in
the modern Hebrew dictionary. Yet they
were once claimed to be “Aramaic”. And
even if originally they were, so
what! “Restaurant” and “serviette” are
good French words, yet today they are well and truly part of standard
English. Besides, as Glenda Abramson has
noted, there were some 20,000 words in “Mishnaic” Hebrew, as against some 8,000
used in the Old Testament Bible.[30][30] Thus there is statistically a 2½ times
greater likelihood that a Hebrew word will not
be found in the Old Testament, yet still be a regular part of the Hebrew
language of the New Testamental period.
So the days are gone for the reflex assignation of “Aramaic” to any New
Testament Semitism not found in the Old Testament.
“GHOST
WORDS”
That this vice – of seeing “Aramaisms” when they are not really there – is
still disturbingly with us, can be seen from Michael Sokoloff’s penetrating
review of the highly respected Koehler-Baumgartner
Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. He writes:
“Unfortunately, as we shall see in the following notes,
the author of the Aramaic section … has included in his discussions a large
number of ghost words from ‘Jewish
Aramaic’, non-existent and unreconstructed vocalizations of Aramaic words, and even Hebrew words which were mistakenly quoted as
being Aramaic”, adding, in his footnotes, that the author “quotes Hebrew words as if they were
Aramaic”.[31][31]
This is a trenchant criticism. Here
we have one of the leading Hebrew-Aramaic lexicons of our time, taken to task
for perceived “ghost words from ‘Jewish Aramaic’” (ie., they do not exist),
“non-existent and unreconstructed vocalizations of Aramaic words” (ie., they
are artificial creations), and “Hebrew words … mistakenly quoted as being
Aramaic” (ie., it simply confuses the two languages). How cautious this should make us against an
uncritical acceptance of so-called “Aramaisms” in the Bible, and the frequently
recycled textbook claims concerning them.
While some may indeed be in the text, many more exist only in the eye of
the beholder!
YEHOSHUA AT NAZARETH
Yehoshua’ appearance at the synagogue of Nazareth, where
he first read from and then expounded Isaiah 61, is highly instructive. In later times, when the Targums were
required in Jewish worship, the following was the laboured format for such
readings:
“… the Hebrew Pentateuch was read … one verse at a time. It was then translated orally, without reference to the written text … The translation was to be recited in a lower voice than that of
the reader. All these precautions were
to ensure that the uneducated public would not mistake the Aramaic translation
for the original Torah”.[32][32]
None of this with Yehoshua’ reading on that occasion. First he “stood up to read”, then he sat down
and “began to say to them … gracious words” (Luke 4:16, 20 – 22).
No rigmarole with lowered voice or translation. Just a straight reading from the Hebrew
Scriptures, followed by a plain exposition to an audience that clearly
understood both them and him. Their negative
reaction was not due to any linguistic change of track, but rather to their
taking exception to his claim that the Gospel was poised to pass from Israel to
the Gentiles, as represented by the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian
(vv. 25 – 27).
What are we to conclude, in light of these “givens” that
(a) The Targums were only widely
introduced to counter the decline in Hebrew,
(b) They were clearly not
present on this occasion, and
(c) The exclusive language of
liturgy and worship in late second temple Israel was Hebrew in any case,[33][33]
but that both Yehoshua and his
Nazareth audience spoke, and were speaking on that occasion, Hebrew.
There seems no honest way around this. Indeed, the very notion of a Hebrew-born
Messiah, first making his appeal to the Hebrew people (‘the lost sheep of the
house of Israel’), supported by the Hebrew Scriptures, in anything other than
the Hebrew language would seem a contradiction in terms.
What is more, Galilee as a region was well-nigh as Jewish as Judaea. Josephus described its population in his day
as predominantly Jewish, while “Hebrew
language and literature” still “dominated
the region at this time”[34][34], as Chancey and Meyers
note. The Mishnah says that
“The men of Galilee wrote in the same manner as the men of Jerusalem”.[35][35]
So Jewish was Galilee, in fact, that in 102BC its cities were considered
fair game by an enemy on the Sabbath, knowing the Galilean Jews would not go
out to battle on their day of rest.[36][36] The very synagogue itself took its
architectural shape from the “Galilean model”.[37][37] Tiberias, in Galilee, later
became the seat of the Sanhedrin, and it was there that the Mishnah received
its final form. To suggest, therefore,
that while Hebrew might have been the vernacular of Judaea, Aramaic will have to do for the Jewish population of Galilee, is a discrimination which is
historically untenable.
SAMARITAN DEALINGS
Yehoshua’ considerable dealings with the Samaritans –
his discourse with the woman at the well, his healing of the tenth leper, the
welcome on one occasion from “many [who] believed because of his own word”, and their refusal on another to have him
stay in their town [38] [38] –further point to his
language as having been Hebrew. Reduced
today to some 600 people (the last remaining group on earth who still sacrifice
the Passover lamb), the Samaritans are proud of what they see as their unbroken custodianship of the Hebrew
language from earliest times. The
centrepiece of Samaritan life has always been the ancient Hebrew scroll of
Moses’ five books, written in early Hebrew script, which every Samaritan child
is required to read from the age of four or five. As Encyclopaedia
Judaica notes:
“The child reads the Pentateuch in the ancient Hebrew script, and in the
special Samaritan pronunciation, as transmitted from generation to generation,
and also learns writing. Able children complete the reading of the
Pentateuch at the age of six, but some take as long as until the age of
ten”!![39][39]
So strict is their insistence on Hebrew that, to this day, Miriam’s song of
triumph at the Red Sea is read in Hebrew over the bride at every Samaritan
wedding, while, following a funeral, the entire
Hebrew Pentateuch is read at the home of the grieving family on the
following Sabbath.
It hardly needs to be said that such a people, so jealous of their Hebrew
scroll and so zealous for the preservation of the spoken Hebrew language down
to this day, spoke Hebrew at the time of Christ. Indeed several Samaritan writings have been
found in the Dead Sea Scrolls – all in Hebrew – prompting some scholars to
argue that the Scrolls community was actually Samaritan![40][40] A futile case, almost certainly, not only
because of the geographical location of Qumran in Judaea rather than Samaria,
but also because of the numerous Psalms, Prophets, and other historical Old
Testament books found at Qumran – none of which the Samaritans accept as part
of their Bible. Yet it does highlight
the Samaritan commitment to Hebrew, and their unbroken continuity of the Hebrew
language from before Ezra (whom they denounce as a “revisionist” of the Hebrew
script!), down to modern times.
What are we to make of this, in terms of Yehoshua’ repeated encounters with
the Samaritans? Must the stilted
explanation be invoked that he “switched languages”? Is it
not more natural, and certainly more consistent with the evidence, to accept
that as they spoke Hebrew – about
which there can be no doubt – so did Yehoshua.[41][41] This is confirmed by the fact
that the Samaritan woman, in her conversation with Yehoshua, used the Hebrew term “Messiah” (Jn. 4:25), not
the Greek “Christ” – one of only two times this Hebrew expression is used in
the Gospels, and showing the language in which their discussion must have taken
place.
THE GALILEAN ACCENT
The key that has been overlooked in the whole question of Yehoshua’ mother
tongue is the distinctive Galilean accent. Whereas Jerusalem Jews spoke a sort of “Oxford”
Hebrew, their Galilean brethren spoke a type of “Scottish” Hebrew – that is, a
Hebrew whose pronunciation differed from their own. The Universal
Jewish Encyclopedia notes this in observing, of the Galileans, that “their pronunciation of Hebrew (sic) was different from that of the Jews of
Judaea”.[42][42] Thus the
Talmud declares that
“The Judaeans … were exact in their
language … but the Galileans … were not exact in their language … A certain Galilean once went about enquiring,
‘Who has amar?’ ‘Foolish Galilean’, they said to him, ‘do you
mean an ‘ass’ for riding (hamar), ‘wine’ to drink (hamar), ‘wool’ for
clothing (amar), or a ‘lamb’ for killing (amar)?’”[43][43]
In both cases – “the Judaeans” and “the Galileans” – the same Hebrew language is clearly being spoken. Yet the Galileans speak it with a different accent (“their pronunciation of Hebrew was different from that of the Jews of
Judaea”). There are historical
antecedents for such regional differences.
In the celebrated “shibboleth/sibboleth” case of Judges 12:6, both
tribes were speaking the same Hebrew.
Yet those from Gilead could pronounce “sh”, whereas those from Ephraim
could not. Around the period of Yehoshua’
ministry, the Dead Sea Scrolls similarly reflect these dialect differences. Scrolls specialist Elisha Qimron draws
attention to “illusory cases of defective spelling”, which reflect no more
than differences in Hebrew dialect: “Ancient Hebrew was divided into dialects
… in dealing with Hebrew as a living language, we must recall that we are
dealing with … different traditions of
pronunciation”.[44][44] In much the same way, Noah Webster
in his early Webster’s Dictionary,
distinguished within American English between the New England dialect, the
Southern dialect, and the general American dialect – though all, of course,
represent English[45][45].
This is a salutary warning against over-speciation,
or reading too much into slightly varying forms. As the repeated “Aramaic” mirages, already
noted and dispelled, have highlighted, academy assumptions can be
“too-clever-by-half”.
It was the Galilean accent which furnished the most
striking examples of these “different traditions of pronunciation” in
Hebrew. Thus Spolsky
and Cooper observe:
“The Talmud goes on to discuss in
considerable detail the kinds of mistakes the people from Galilee made in their
spoken Hebrew (sic), … especially ... the careless pronunciation which led to humorous misunderstandings”.[46][46]
Recalling, of course, that what is held to be a “mistake” in one region,
may be perfectly acceptable in another, just as “fulfill” (with “ll” ending) is
deemed incorrect spelling in England, but represents correct usage in American
English. Shades of Qimron’s “illusory cases of defective
spelling”! To be different, is not
necessarily to be wrong, particularly with something so supple as
language. Merely because the Scots call
a lake a “loch”, does not make it “incorrect”!
Significantly Matthew draws
attention to this Galilean accent, in reference to Peter’s denials during the
night of Yehoshua’ trial:
“Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away” (Matthew
26:73b, NIV).
Likewise
with the Majority Text of the parallel passage in Mark:
“Surely you are one of them, for you
are a Galilean, and your accent shows it”
(Mark 14:70b, NKJV, and margin).
Two things are self-evident from this comment. First, that the Jerusalem bystanders understood Peter’s denials, even if they
suspected them, so they must have been
speaking the same language as he!
Yet that they also recognised his
Galilean accent (“you are a Galilean, and your accent shows it”, “your
accent gives you away”), just as a Londoner would immediately recognise a Scot
today. Same language, yet unmistakable pronunciation! No one, of course, recognises a different accent in someone speaking another language.
As Isaiah reminds us in his prophecy of Galilee’s future greatness, the
region was called “Galilee of the
Gentiles” (Isaiah 9:1). Not because
it was not Jewish, for he expressly calls it the “land of Zebulun and
Naphtali”, two of the twelve tribes.
Rather does his comment bespeak the considerable intermingling of Jews and Gentiles in Galilee (typical of the way
the Gospel itself would one day go forth to Jew and Gentile alike from the
pre-eminent Galilean, our Lord Yehoshua Christ; cf. v6.). Logically we would expect, from such an
ethnic melting pot, a greater “Gentile” influence upon the Hebrew language in
Galilee than in Judaea, which is exactly
what we do find. Yet Hebrew it still remains, as we have
seen from the Mishnah, the Talmud, the Jewish encyclopaedia, and the New
Testament itself, just as Glasgow English is every bit as much part of the
English language as its Oxford cousin, minor regional differences
notwithstanding.
YEHOSHUA’ WORDS
Not surprisingly, the seven words of Yehoshua recorded in their original
tongue, reflect these two aspects, namely
(i) their essential identity with known Hebrew; yet
(ii) some slight Galilean
regional differences*.
Ephphatha – Yehoshua’ command to the deaf mute to “be opened” (Mark 7:34) – is
directly from the Biblical Hebrew phphatha,
חתפ, meaning “open”,
as found in the standard Hebrew-English
Lexicon of the Old Testament,[47][47]. Thus even Bruce Metzger concedes that “‘ephphatha’ can be explained as
either Hebrew or Aramaic”[48][48]. Isaac Rabinowitz is less ambivalent,
declaring emphatically that “there are no valid philological grounds for affirming,
and there is every valid reason to deny, that ephphatha can represent an Aramaic … form. The transliteration can, indeed, only represent the Hebrew niphal
masculine singular imperative … Ephphatha is certainly Hebrew, not Aramaic”.[49][49]
Likewise, cumi, or cum, in Yehoshua’ command to the dead
daughter of Jairus to “arise” (Mark 5:41).
The word comes directly from the Old Testament Hebrew םוק, “cum”, meaning “arise, stand up, stand”, while to
this day the modern Hebrew for “get up” is cum.[50][50] What more appropriate, in the house of a
synagogue ruler so familiar with Hebrew, than such a rich Hebrew command: “arise” – not to his Sabbath congregation to
rise from their seats, but to his very own daughter to get up from the dead!
Eloi, Eloi (“My God, My God”, Mark 15:34) is clearly related to the Hebrew word used
at times for “my God” in the Psalms (cf.
יחלא, “my God”, Ps. 18:28; 139:19; יחלא, “My God”, Mk. 15:34). Astonishingly – given that Eloi, Eloi has always been cited as
proof of the Aramaic source of the
words – we find that the Targum of Psalm 22:1(2) does not begin with “Eloi, Eloi” but “Eli, Eli”, as in the Hebrew.[51][51] In two ways “Eloi, Eloi” is different from
the Aramaic – with “oi, oi” instead of “I, I” and the short “E, E” instead of
the long “Ay, Ay” (as in “day”).[52][52]
Clearly, we must look elsewhere than to Aramaic for its pronunciation. The obvious explanation lies in the distinctive Galilean accent which we
have noted. That is, in Eloi, Eloi we have the Galilean Yehoshua
quoting Psalm 22:1(2) from the Hebrew Bible, carefully recorded with his
distinctive pronunciation by Mark. With
equal fidelity to what transpired, Matthew dispenses with the accent as such,
but still records the same utterance straight from the Hebrew Bible. This alone
can account for the seemingly contradictory facts that
(a) the bystanders misunderstood
the form of address (“he is calling Elijah”); yet
(b) they rightly understood the
rest of the cry as representing Yehoshua’ deep desolation (“Let us see if
Elijah will come and rescue him”),
though obviously yet blind to the fact that here, in the very week of the Passover, the Lamb of God was
bearing the sins of the world.
Given that the cry was uttered “in a loud voice”, there is no possibility
of it having been misunderstood on the grounds of its being inaudible. The only
explanation, therefore, that adequately addresses both questions (how could
they have misunderstood Yehoshua, yet
perfectly understood the rest of the
utterance from the Hebrew Bible?), lies in the fact that they (ie. the Jewish portion of the crowd) and he (ie. Yehoshua) were speaking the same Hebrew language, but he
with a Galilean accent. If the accent is removed, there is no
explaining how they could have misunderstood so loud a cry, while if a different language is invoked (they
speaking Hebrew, he Aramaic), there is no way they would have understood him at
all!
Lama, הםל (Mark
14:34), or “lema” in some texts, is
the stock Hebrew Old Testament word for “why?”, and is used over 170 times in
the Hebrew Bible[53][53]. The identical word, lama, also means “why?” in modern Hebrew.[54][54]
Sabachthani,
ינתקבש, is directly from the Mishnaic Hebrew קבש, sabach,
meaning “forsake, abandon”.[55][55] It is identically reproduced by Matthew, who,
as Douglas Moo notes, “betrays no fondness for Aramaic”[56][56], so its Hebrew identity is
further confirmed. To this day, the
modern Hebrew for “forsake” – “zab” or “sab” – suggests an abbreviated form of
it.
Even talitha (“little girl”, Mark
5:41), at first glance the “least” Hebrew of all the seven words, is known to
have been used by other Jews of the period, as it occurs in the Targum of
Genesis 34:3 for “young woman”[57][57]. Merely because a word is in the Targum, of
course, does not preclude it from being Hebrew, as the Targums contain many
words – by one count almost half – either identical, or very similar, to the
Hebrew Bible[58][58]. Talitha
too has Hebrew roots, coming from the Hebrew talah, meaning “lamb” – a term hardly out of place on the lips of
the Good Shepherd. Merely because it has
a “tha” ending does not, of itself, make it “Aramaic”, since Gamaliel – whose
strong views concerning Aramaic have already been noted – had a devout Jewish
maidservant with the closely related name of Tabitha[59][59]. This is not, again, to deny a
possible Aramaic influence for talitha,
just as “lassie” is a regional Scottish term derived from old Norse for a young
woman. Though not normally used in wider
English, its use in Scotland does not mean the Scots speak “Norse”!
Why then, given the clear Hebrew lineage of all these words, and in every
case their perpetuation to this day, either directly or in closely related
form, in modern Hebrew, is there any need to cast around for an “Aramaic”
explanation for Yehoshua’ speech? It may
have done for the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when the hubris of German critical scholarship
led it to downplay the “Jüdischen” at every turn – their history, their heroes,
and their holy tongue. But it will not
do in the real world of 21st century scholarship, when fresh
evidence is being uncovered, new insights are breaking forth, and the idols of
the Schoolmen are at last being ground to dust.[60][60]
______________________________________________________________________________________________
The above is an excerpt from Yehoshua Spoke Hebrew: Busting the Aramaic Myth by Brenton Minge, published by Shepherd
Publications (Brisbane, 2001). For more information or to order the full
hard copy of this book ($US6) please write to Shepherd Publications, 30 Lytton
Road, Bulimba Q 4171, Australia or email marty@sharesong.org.
See also The Great Da Vinci "Con" by Brenton Minge. Also Harry Potter and Tolkien's Rings by DJ
Gray.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
KEYWORDS: The Passion of the
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Josephus Mel Gibson Mel Gibson Mel Gibson Jewish religion bible studies cross
Samaritans cave 9 bible article Qumran studies bible Christianity good law
Christianity Qumran eschatology torah Jewish culture plays history God Qumran
scroll Samaritans Christianity Dead Sea Scrolls Qumran good Messiah biblical
Jewish Messiah translation Brenton Minge Qumran Samaritans community gospels
Eli Eli Elisha Qimron Qumran Hebrew Psalm 22:1 Emauel Tov Eli Eli Eloi Eloi
Talitha cumi ephaphatha Masada Israel Drazin Minge Which language Yehoshua
spoke Yehoshua mother-tongue Aramaic myth Koehler Baumgartner Harris
Birkeland Yehoshua Spoke Hebrew Talmud gospels Dead Sea Scrolls Mel
Gibson The Passion of the Christ move Moses Segal Samaritans Tarquem Aramaic
Josephus Nazareth Koehler Baumgartner Jot and Tittle Eloi Pentateuch Caiaphas
Galilee Cephas Galilean accent Talitha cumi abba ephphatha
[1][1] Michael Wise, Martin Abegg Jr., and
Edmund Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (Hodder &
Stoughton, 1996), pp. 8, 9, emph. added.
[2][2] Emanuel Tov, “A Qumran
Origin for the Masada Non-Biblical Texts?” Dead Sea Discoveries,
7:1 (2000), 63.
[3][3] Al Wolters, The Copper Scroll (Sheffield Academic Press, 1996), p. 11.
[4][4] J.T. Milik, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert
(Oxford, 1955ff.), vol. 2, p. 70.
[5][5] Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (3rd
edition, 1967), p. 47.
[6][6] Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C.
VanderKam, eds., Encyclopaedia of the
Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford University Press, 2000), vol. 1, p. 344, emph.
added.
[7][7] Shemaryahu Talmon, “Hebrew written
fragments from Masada”, DSD 3:2 (1996), 168. Tov,
op. cit., 57.
[8][8] Moses Segal, Mishnaic Hebrew Grammar (Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 1927), pp.
2, 13; emph. added. Likewise Jacob
Neusner (ed.), Dictionary of Judaism in
the Biblical Period (Peabody, Mass., Hendrickson, 1999), p. 280, where
Qumran Hebrew “is a continuation of Late
Biblical Hebrew, and is attested c. 200 BCE – c. 70CE”; emph. added.
[9][9] J.T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (London, SCM
Press, 1959), 95; emph. added.
[10][10] Angel Saenz-Badillos, A History of the Hebrew Language (1994),
p. 52, emph. added; cited by Edward Ullendorff in his review of the same name, Journal of Jewish Studies, xlvi,
1-2. (Spring/Autumn 1995), 287.
[11][11] Ullendorff, op. cit., 287, 288;
emph. added.
[12][12] Harris Birkeland, The Language of Jesus (Oslo, Dybwad,
1954). While Birkeland erred in
supposing that, though ordinary Jews spoke Hebrew, the “upper class” spoke
Aramaic, he was still closer to the mark with Hebrew than his modern
detractors. Cf. John P. Meier’s
dismissive comment, “Birkeland’s work is almost an embarrassment to read
today”. John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew (New York, Doubleday,
1991), vol. 1, p. 288. Needless to say,
Meier’s view is that “Jesus regularly and perhaps exclusively taught in
Aramaic”, ibid., p. 268.
[13][13] F.L. Cross, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, first edition (Oxford,
1958), entry “Hebrew”, 614.
[14][14] F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian
Church, third edition (Oxford,
1997), entry “Hebrew”, pp. 741, 742; emph. added.
[15][15] Tracate
Sotah 49 b, cited in S. Safrai and M. Stern, The Jewish People in the First Century (Philadelphia, Fortress
Press, 1976), vol. 2, pp. 1032, 1036.
Rabbi Meir (c. mid 2nd
century), in a choice piece of “salvation by works”, said that “everyone who is
settled in the land of Israel, and speaks
the sacred language [ie., Hebrew] … is a son of the age to come”, j. Sheqalim 3, 3; cited in J.A. Emerton,
“The problem of vernacular Hebrew in the first century AD”, Journal of Theological Studies, xxiv, 1
(1973), 15; emph. added.
[16][16] E. Levine, The Biography of the Aramaic Bible, in Z.A.T.W., vol. 94, (1982), p. 358.
[17][17] Megillah
4, 4, cited in Levine, ibid., p. 374.
[18][18] D.H. Aaron in The Blackwell Reader in Judaism, ed. J. Neusner and A.J. Avery-Peck
(Blackwell, 2001), 204.
[19][19] Zohar,
Exodus 129, cited in Levine, op. cit., p. 359.
[20][20] Jerusalem
Talmud, Tracate Sotah 7:2, 30a.
[21][21] Sifre,
Deut. 46, cited in Safrai and Stern, op. cit., p. 1034; emph. added.
[22][22] b Sota 33a; b Shabbat 12b.
[23][23] b Shabbat 115a, j Shabbat 16:15c. Elsewhere the same Gamaliel is recorded as
having conversed “in Hebrew” with the emperor’s daughter; b Sanhedrin 90b-91b. For
the question as to whether the fragmentary Qumran Job should even be designated
a true Targum, see David Shepherd, “Will the real Targum please stand up?”, Journal of Jewish Studies, LI, 1
(Spring, 2000), 113.
[24][24] Paul L. Maier, The New Complete Works of Josephus (Grand Rapids, Kregel, 1999), p.
13. Idem, Josephus: The Essential Works
(Kregel, 1994), p. 11. Per Bilde
confirms Josephus’ accuracy re contemporary events: “In fact, the accounts of Philo and, especially, of Josephus correspond with
the Dead Sea Scrolls to a very large extent, as has often been demonstrated”;
in Frederick H. Cryer and Thomas L. Thompson (eds.), Qumran between the Old and New Testaments (Sheffield Academic
Press, 1998), p. 67, emph. added.
[25][25] See Matthew 15:24; John 5:36;
1:11.
[26][26] Segal, op. cit., p. 8; emph.
added. Interestingly, “mammon” also
occurs in the Mishnah, Aboth 2, 17.
[27][27] Craig A. Evans, “Isaiah 6:9-10 in
Mark and John”, Novum Testamentum
vol. 24 (1982), 133.
[28][28] J.A.L. Lee, “A Non-Aramaism in Luke
6:7”, Novum Testamentum vol. 33, 1
(1991), 28ff.
[29][29] As per J.D. Douglas and others, New Bible Dictionary (Leicester UK, IVP,
1996), p. 67; emph. added.
[30][30] Glenda Abramson (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Jewish Culture
(Basil Blackwell, 1989), p. 314.
[31][31] Michael Sokoloff, book review, Dead Sea Discoveries 7:1 (2000), 79;
emph. added.
[32][32] M. L. Klein, “Palestinian Targum
and Synagogue Mosaics”, Immanuel 11
(1980), 37, 38; emph. added.
[33][33] “The first sure references to the
reading of the Targum in the Synagogue … actually date only to the period when
the sages who had survived the Bar Kokhba revolt [135] and the subsequent
persecutions regrouped at Usha in Lower Galilee”; so Zeev Safrai, Immanuel 24/25, (1990), 189.
[34][34] Mark Chancey and Eric M. Meyers,
“How Jewish was Sepphoris in Jesus’ time?”, Biblical
Archaeology Review, (July – August, 2000), p. 33.
[35][35] Ketuboth
52b., emph. added.
[36][36] Encyclopaedia
Judaica (Jerusalem, Keter Publishing House, 1972), entry “Galilee”,
vol. 7, p. 266.
[37][37] Lee I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue (Yale
University Press, 2000), p. 198.
[38][38] See John 4:26; Luke 17:11-19; John
4:40-42; Luke 9:52, 53.
[39][39] Encyclopaedia
Judaica, vol. 14, p. 743; emph. added.
[40][40] Thord and Maria Thordson, Qumran and the Samaritans, reviewed in Dead Sea Discoveries, vol. 6 (March
1999), 94 – 98. Paul E. Kahle, The Cairo Geniza, 2nd ed.
(Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1959), pp. 153, 154, re ancient Samaritan Hebrew
speech.
[41][41] Whether or not Jesus may also on
occasion have spoken Greek is a moot point.
Certainly there is no evidence for it, though it cannot be ruled out as
a possible “second” language in cosmopolitan Galilee. While Paul, as a learned former Pharisee, was
fluent in both Hebrew and Greek (Acts 21:37,
40), Jesus never claimed any “academy” learning (cf. John 7:15),
but rather that his doctrine was “His who sent Me” (v. 16). As the “Word
made flesh”, he was saturated with the Scriptures, and so wise beyond measure
that, even at twelve years of age, he amazed the temple scholars with his
“understanding and answers” (Luke 2:42,
46-47). Yet, as the same “Word made flesh”, he chose in his Father’s
will to be made like us, representatively, in all things, only without sin. This
naturally includes having a “mother tongue” – for which Greek, whatever its
considerable status in first century Palestine, could never be a serious candidate,
particularly in light of his known recorded utterances in their original, like ephphatha, cumi, sabachthani,
etc.. Not forgetting, too, the pains
that learning Greek caused even Josephus, who confessed that “because I have so
long accustomed myself to speak our own tongue [ie., Hebrew], I cannot
pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness”. Ant.
20:11, 2.
[42][42] The
Universal Jewish Encyclopedia (New York, 1944), vol. 4, pp. 500, 501; emph.
added.
[43][43] Erubin
53a and b, Soncino edition, vol. 5.
[44][44] Elisha Qimron, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert:
Qumran
Cave 4 (Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1994), pp. 66, 107; emph. added. Likewise F.I. Andersen, “Orthography in
ancient Hebrew inscriptions”, Ancient
Near Eastern Studies 36 (1999), 19, sub-heading “Hebrew Dialects”.
[45][45] Paul Johnson, A History of the American People (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1997), p. 801.
[46][46] Bernard Spolsky and Robert L.
Cooper, The Languages of Jerusalem
(Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 22; emph. added. Interestingly, The Universal Jewish Encyclopaedia says that “these differences
[ie., between ‘the Judaeans’ and ‘the Galileans’ in pronunciation] have
survived in the Sephardic and Ashkenazic dialects” down to modern times! Op
cit., vol. 4, p. 501.
[47][47] Francis Brown, S.R. Driver and C.A.
Briggs, Gesenius’ Hebrew-English Lexicon (Oxford,
1958), p. 834.
[48][48] Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan
(eds.), The Oxford
Companion to the Bible (Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 272.
[49][49] Isaac Rabinowitz, “Ephphatha (Mark
vii:34): Certainly Hebrew, not Aramaic”,
Journal of Semitic Studies, 16
(1971), 155; emph. added.
[50][50] Reuben Grossman and Moses Segal, Compendious Hebrew-English Dictionary
(Tel Aviv, Dvir Publishing House, 1952), in. loc.. The
Oxford-English Hebrew Dictionary, (Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 366.
* No
pretence is made of one’s being a Hebrew expert (I barely scraped through my
five years of seminary Hebrew). But
these are facts basically accessible to anyone prepared to do a little digging.
[51][51] Douglas J. Moo, The Old Testament in the Gospel Narratives
(Almond Press, 1983), p. 267.
[52][52] Ibid.
[53][53] Francis Brown and others, op. cit.,
p. 554. James Barr, “Why? In Biblical
Hebrew”, Journal of Theological Studies,
vol. 36, (April 1985), 9. Both the
Received and Nestle texts have lama.
[54][54] Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (New
York, Macmillan Publishing, 1987), p. 302.
Grossman and Segal, op. cit., p. 171.
[55][55] Grossman and Segal, op. cit., p.
371.
[56][56] Douglas J. Moo, op. cit., p. 267.
[57][57] Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament
(Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1993), vol. 3, p. 332.
[58][58] Based on a specimen comparison from
Genesis 48 in Alexander Sperber, The
Bible in Aramaic (Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1973), vol. 4(b), p. 411. See also Targumic
and Cognate Studies, ed. by Kevin J. Cathcart and Michael Maher (Sheffield
Academic Press, 1996), pp. 61, 62, for a comparison between parallel texts of
Targum On(k)elos and the Massoretic Hebrew.
[59][59] J. Israelstam and Judah J. Slotki, Midrash Rabbah Leviticus (London,
Soncino, 1983), xix, 4. That the
still-used Hebrew name “Tabitha” is no longer held to mean “gazelle” (Acts
9:36, mg.) is no problem, as the Jewish New
Name Dictionary lists “Davida” as related to it, and it means “fawn”
(Jonathan David Publ., 1989, 153).
Compare the way the KJV near-equivalent of “hart” has virtually given up
the ghost in less than four
centuries!
[60][60] It is hardly coincidental that
Wellhausen, popularizer of the now-discredited “documentary hypothesis”
concerning the Pentateuch (which
Jesus expressly ascribed to Moses, John 5:46,
47), was also a leading proponent for an “original Aramaic” behind Mark’s Gospel
– a view which likewise turned out to be a “fizzer”. For an up-to-date and extensive expose of the
Wellhausen Old Testament theory, see Josh McDowell, The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (Nashville, Thomas Nelson,
1999), pp. 392 – 533.
