What Language Did Jesus Speak?

He Actually Knew Three

Jesus of Nazareth was a Judean Jew who lived in the first century. His everyday language was likely Aramaic, a language the Jewish people began speaking five centuries earlier, while exiled in Babylon, after the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 586 BC.

Before this, Hebrew had been the language of the Jewish people, dating back to the time of Moses and the Exodus. While Hebrew shares many similarities with Aramaic (they are both ancient Semitic languages), they are not altogether the same. Aramaic originated in Aram, the area known today as Syria, and migrated east over time. Hebrew originated nearby, amongst the Jewish and Canaanite people in modern-day Israel, but was never widely spoken outside of Jewish communities.

By the time Jesus was born, Jews all over the Judean territory spoke Aramaic. Most of these people were the direct descendants of ancestors who had been exiled to Babylon, but subsequently returned in the following centuries with a new language and new cultural trends. Being that Jesus was from Galilee, he likely spoke a dialect of Aramaic slightly different from that of the people who stayed year-round in Jerusalem.[1]

While Hebrew was still used in religious services and other formal settings, it was no longer an everyday language by the first century. Despite this, Jesus likely understood and read Hebrew well. Where did he learn it, considering it was no longer the vernacular? Most Jewish children growing up in Judea in the first century underwent religious education at their local synagogue from around ages five to twelve. Here, they would have been responsible for memorizing the Torah, as well as other religious prayers and liturgies, in their original language.

Based on the evidence of the gospels,[2] Jesus also spoke Greek, the language of the Roman middle class and the first ever lingua franca of the ancient world. Unlike those living in Southern Judea in the first century (like Flavius Josephus),[3] Northern Jews were much more exposed to the Greco-Roman culture developing outside Judea. Not only were Gentiles from all over the known world regularly passing through Galilee during Jesus’ lifetime by way of the Via Maris,[4] but religious services were much less formal the further one got from Jerusalem. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, was likely much more accessible and well-circulated in the Northern regions of Judea than in the Southern area around Jerusalem, where a concerted effort was made to inculcate the holy city from outside influences.

[1] See Matthew 26:69-73. Peter, Jesus’ disciple and fellow Galilean, is recognized by certain Jews in Jerusalem as being from Galilee based on his accent.

[2] In the Gospel records, several of Jesus’ apostles have Romanized Greek names, along with their Semitic names. Galileans are also regularly seen communicating with Romans and other Gentiles, who undoubtedly spoke Greek. Jesus himself had an intricate conversation with Pontius Pilate in John 18:28-40, which would have undoubtedly been had in Greek, not Aramaic or Latin (the language of Roman elites).

[3] Josephus writes about having to learn adequate Greek later in life, a problem that did not seem common to Jews from the Northern region of the country. Antiquities, 20.11.263.

[4] The Via Maris had been a major international trade route since the late Bronze Age, and passed directly through Galilee of Judea. It ran partially along the Sea of Galilee, and passed through cities like Capernaum and Magdala. It connected Egypt with other major areas in the Middle East, like Syria and Mesopotamia.

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What Language Did Jesus Speak?

Blake Barbera is the founder and Lead Teaching Minister at That You May Know Him. He has been teaching the Bible for more than two decades, and has served the Church in various capacities during that time, including as a missionary and pastor. He currently teaches New Testament and Biblical Interpretation part-time at a Bible College and Seminary, along with his work for That You May Know Him.

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