The Language Of The Renewed Covenant
What language was the Renewed Covenant (B'rit Chadashah aka The New Testament) written in?
There has been much debate about this in recent years. Many say Koine Greek but others argue that it was written in a Semitic language like Aramaic or Hebrew instead.
The first way to resolve this discrepancy is to simply look at the historical and archaeological evidence. As is often the case with competing theories the way to get to the truth is follow the evidence.
First, we shall look at what the evidence says for the Renewed Covenant being written in Hebrew. The first known translation of the New Testament did not occur until 1560 AD. The fact is that there is not a single Hebrew language manuscript of the complete Renewed Covenant in existence today, that is older than the one translated into Hebrew by Isaac Edward Salkinson. The last mention of this undertaking being funded by the British Bible Society was 1877 and it was completed some time before his death in 1883. It was published in 1886.
In fact, there has never been found a single Hebrew manuscript for any book of the Renewed Covenant that is older than 1883, except for the Gospel of Matthew. The oldest Hebrew manuscript found for the Gospel of Matthew is from the 1300s.
However, there is plenty of historical evidence that the Gospel of Matthew (Mattiyahu) was written in Hebrew originally. Papias, who was a companion of Polycarp, wrote in 100 AD that the Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew and that the members of the mostly Greek speaking church had to interpret it as best as they could. (Polycarp was the disciple of John the Jew (Yochanon ben Zebedee aka The Apostle John) according to Irenaeus so it is likely that Papias was also a disciple of John the Jew.) Pantaenus, who died in 200 AD, went to India and found the church there that had been started by Bartholomew the Jew (The Apostle Bartholomew) still had in its possession a copy of the Gospel of Matthew that was written in Hebrew. He then brought back this copy of the Gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew back with him to Alexandria, Egypt. In fact, every church historian and writer up to the time of Jerome, who died in 420 AD, said that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew.
The first mention of a successful Koine Greek translation of the entire Gospel of Matthew was by Tertullian at about 200 AD. About 80% of the Gospel of Matthew also occurs in the Gospels of Mark and Luke and they were used to help translate those portions into Greek. By this time, the Gospel of Matthew had already been translated in Syriac Aramaic for more than 100 years according to some of the above mentioned church historians. (Syriac Aramaic was much more similar to Hebrew than Koine Greek and the translation would have been much easier.) It is certain that it had been translated into Syriac Aramaic by the time of Syriac Peshitta was completed (except for five books) in 190 AD. Accordingly, the Syriac Aramaic translation of the Gospel of Matthew was used to help translate the remaining 20% into Koine Greek since Syriac Aramaic was a much more widespread spoken language than Hebrew. This accounts for some cases of transliterated Aramaic words appearing in the Koine Greek text.
Not only that, but there has been continuous quotes of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew by Rabbis since shortly before 700 AD when it is quoted in "The Book of Nestor the Priest". The Rabbis have used it extensively to show that keeping the Law of Truth (Torah aka The Law) was in line with the teaching of the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) during various trials that they were put on by the False Church of Rome in Europe. The most famous of these were those used by Shem Tov in 1385 who successfully used the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew to keep the Jews of Aragon (modern Spain) from being killed for doing what was commanded in the Law of Truth. There were numerous Hebrew copies of the Gospel of Matthew used throughout the Middle Ages, although some were obvious translations from Greek or Latin translations. Still about ten years ago a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew was found in Saint Petersburg, Russia from that period that was a jot and tittle copy (meaning that even the font of them was the same) of the Bresslau (modern Wroclaw, Poland) #9 Hebrew Gospel of Matthew from the same period. These two Hebrew versions of the Gospel of Matthew show no evidence of being translations from Greek or Latin documents. This gives two actual witnesses that there existed an older Hebrew source text in the Middle Ages. In fact, the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew continued to be used by Rabbis to defend the practice of keeping the Law of Truth until 1869, about the time that the entire Renewed Covenant was translated into Hebrew.
Now that it has been established that the Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew originally, the question remains about the language that the other 26 books of the Renewed Covenant were written in. Many have espoused Aramaic since it has already been shown that the Gospel of Matthew was definitely translated into Syriac Aramaic years before it was translated into Koine Greek.
The first thing to know about Aramaic is that it is not Hebrew but rather a related language in the same language family (Central Semitic) as Hebrew. It is one of five languages in the same family with only modern Hebrew, Arabic and the Assyrian dialect of Aramaic still in use. (Aramaic is similar to Hebrew in the same way that Portuguese is similar to Spanish. These two languages are also part of a five member language family that includes French, Italian and Romanian. These are called the Romantic languages since they came from Latin that was spoken by the Romans.)
The second thing to know about Aramaic is who spoke it and why during the first few centuries AD.
Aramaic was the language of the Assyrians and the Assyrian dialect is still spoken today in Mosul which is on the opposite bank of the Tigris River from the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh. When the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, Aramaic began to be spoken there by the people that the Assyrians forced to live there instead of the Jews who they had exiled. The Assyrians also conquered Babylon and the people there in like manner adopted Aramaic as the official language. Centuries later when the Babylonians rebelled and overthrew the Assyrians, Aramaic had became the de facto language of the Babylonians as well. So when the Babylonians conquered the southern kingdom of Judah and the Jews there were exiled to Babylon then they too had to learn to speak Aramaic. The Persians conquered the Babylonian Empire but they did not force people to learn Persian, although many did as a second language. Eventually they made Aramaic the official language of the Persian Empire. Then the Greeks came and conquered the Persian Empire. After the death of Alexander the Great, the Greek Empire was split into four smaller empires. The Greeks then carried out a Hellenization campaign to make everyone throughout these four empires adopt Greek customs, clothing and speak only Greek.
The people in the kingdom of Osroene resisted and won independence from the Greeks in 120 BC. There was an immediate reaction to start getting rid of everything Greek by many people there and to return to speaking Aramaic. (They had continued to speak Aramaic privately similar to what the Maccabees did with Hebrew in the land of Israel.) This dialect of Aramaic is called Syriac Aramaic.
When the Romans conquered the western half of the Greek empires they allowed Greek to remain the official language although they made no effort to force people to speak it. Many other people throughout Syria and even into Samaria also resumed speaking Syriac Aramaic as well as many people throughout the Parthian Empire that replaced the part of the eastern most Greek Empire that was closest to the Roman Empire. So Syriac Aramaic had a large geographic distribution by 34 AD.
Also many Aramaic words had found their way into the common vernacular of people who spoke other languages like Hebrew and Greek in the areas where Aramaic was also spoken. This is not much different that Spanish words like "rodeo" and "adios" being used in the English spoken in the American southwest.
It was Jewish Aramaic that was commonly spoken by people in Israel during the time when the Renewed Covenant was being written. It used letters similar to modern block Hebrew letters while Syriac Aramaic used cursive letters similar to Arabic. It was becoming mutually unintelligible with Syriac Aramaic by the time that the Renewed Covenant was written. Jewish Aramaic was to Syriac Aramaic what Yiddish is to German.
Now the background has been explained we are ready to examine when the Renewed Covenant was written in Aramaic.
It is worth noting that there has never been any manuscripts found containing any part of the Renewed Covenant in Jewish Aramaic. All of the Aramaic manuscripts that have been found are written in Syriac Aramaic.
The earliest that the Syriac Peshitta (a version of the Book of Truth (The Bible) written in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic) can be shown with certainty to have been completed is about 190 AD except for the books of 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation. These five books were not added until after 500 AD. The Nestorian tablet of Sing-an-fu witnesses that the Book of Truth in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic (most likely the Syriac Peshitta) was being used in the heart of China before 700 AD. However, there is much evidence that most of the Syriac Peshitta had been completed long before 190 AD.
For example, there is strong evidence that the Gospel of Matthew may have been translated into Syriac Aramaic shortly after the Children of Truth (those who obey The Father of Truth because they love Him) were first called "Christians" (literally "like Messiah") at Antioch in 43 AD. Syriac Aramaic was very commonly spoken in Syria, where Antioch was located, at this time.
The king of Osroene became one of the Children of Truth no later than 70 AD and commissioned the translation of the Original Covenant (Tanach aka The Old Testament) into Syriac Aramaic.
(Osroene was a buffer kingdom between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire where the Syriac dialect of Aramaic (Syriac Aramaic) was the official language. It belonged to neither empire but did have nominal Parthian or Roman oversight at times. Until the time of Trajan in 114 AD the Romans left it alone so it could continue as a buffer state. So the universal persecution of Domitian in 95 AD did not extend to Osroene. The Syriac Peshitta was translated and compiled at its capital of Edessa.)
The Original Covenant portion of the Syriac Peshitta had been completed with certainty by 100 AD although it is likely that parts of the Original Covenant had been translated into some form of Aramaic as early as the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. The earliest definite historical proof that parts of the Renewed Covenant had been translated into Syriac Aramaic was by Hegesippus at about 170 AD. It appears from archaeological evidence that the translation of most of the Renewed Covenant (excluding 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation) could have been completed by 190 AD at the earliest into the Syriac Aramaic. However it is not known for certain if this was the Syriac Peshitta or a predecessor. What is known for certain is that there is absolutely no evidence that the any type of Aramaic was the original language of the Renewed Covenant as those who first mentioned the Syriac Aramaic versions of books of the Renewed Covenant all testified that they were translations from Koine Greek or Hebrew (in the case of the Gospel of Matthew).
So in summary, Aramaic is not the same as Hebrew, Aramaic is just as much a pagan language used by Gentile nations that oppressed the Jews as Greek or Latin, there are no Jewish Aramaic manuscripts for the Renewed Covenant, the Syriac Aramaic version was a translation from Greek text (Hebrew text in the case of the Gospel of Matthew) according to those who first mentioned it, the translation of most of the books of the Renewed Covenant (other than the Gospel of Matthew) into Syriac Aramaic did not begin until about 75 years after the last book of the Renewed Covenant had been written and that the only known complete ancient translation of the Renewed Covenant into any form of Aramaic, the Syriac Peshitta, was not completed until sometime after 500 AD. It is safe to say that no part of the Renewed Covenant was originally written in any form of Aramaic based on the historical and archaeological evidence.
This takes us to examining the historical and archaeological evidence for the Renewed Covenant being originally written in Greek.
Every single historian from 100 AD onwards records that all of the books of the Renewed Covenant, except for the Gospel of Matthew, were written in Koine Greek. There is not one single reference by any historian within a thousand years of the writing of the Renewed Covenant of any book, except the Gospel of Matthew, being translated into Koine Greek from another language.
Clement of Rome quotes passages from ten of the books of the Renewed Covenant books in his epistle he wrote to the Corinthian church in 95 AD. This was the same year as the last book of the Renewed Covenant was written showing that these books were already in common circulation. This epistle is in Koine Greek and contains word for word quotes from these ten Renewed Covenant books showing that these books were written already in Koine Greek. Some of these Renewed Covenant books had been around for less than thirty years at this time.
Ignatius of Antioch quotes from an incredible seventeen books of the Renewed Covenant in the epistles that he wrote before his death in 107 AD. In fact, he quotes from the book of Revelation only about ten years after it was written. Again, these quotes were word for word from the books of the Renewed Covenant and in Koine Greek. This is a second witness that these books of the Renewed Covenant had been written and widely distributed in Koine Greek.
These two authors quote passages word for word from all but 7 books of the Renewed Covenant (Mark, 1 Thessalonians, Colossians, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John and Jude) in Koine Greek.
However, Polycarp in his short epistle to the Philippians that he wrote in 120 AD quotes word for word from 16 books of the Renewed Covenant and paraphrases passages in the other 11 books of the Renewed Covenant in Koine Greek. (The parts of the Gospel of Matthew that were quoted had plainly been translated in Koine Greek by that time.) So by 120 AD there is definite proof that all 27 books of the Renewed Covenant were already in Koine Greek except perhaps part of the Gospel of Matthew. (The Gospel of Matthew does not appear to have been completely translated from Hebrew into Koine Greek until about 200 AD.)
The archaeological evidence of the books of the Renewed Covenant being written originally in Koine Greek (excluding the Gospel of Matthew) mirrors the historical evidence.
The earliest fragment of the Renewed Covenant found so far is a 3.5 inch by 2.5 inch piece of the Gospel of John called the Rylands Library Papyrus P52. This fragment contains part of the John 18 written in Koine Greek. It is dated at 125 AD and is one of many fragments of the books of the Renewed Covenant that are dated no later than 200 AD in the Rylands Library. All are written in Koine Greek.
Another collection of manuscripts of books of the Renewed Covenant that have been dated no later than 200 AD is the Chester Beatty Papyri P46. This is a collection of 104 pages from an early codex (bound book) that contains almost all of the writings of Paul the Jew (Shaul aka Saul aka The Apostle Paul). Most of the papyri in this set are almost complete pages with only a few lines missing at the bottom from deterioration. The Chester Beatty Papyri P45 is similar in composition and contains portions of all four Gospels and the book of Acts. It is dated at about 250 AD. The Chester Beatty Papyri P47 contains part of the book of Revelation and is also dated near 250 AD. All of these manuscripts were written in Koine Greek.
In fact, there are 10 more collections of papyri containing various portions of the Renewed Covenant that are dated no later than 200 AD. There are many more that are dated no later than 250 AD. These collections collectively contain the entire Renewed Covenant and all of them are written in Koine Greek. In fact, there are 5800 Koine Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. By contrast the earliest Aramaic manuscript is dated to be about 400 AD.
So in summary, all of the writings about the Renewed Covenant from within as early as the year that the Renewed Covenant was completed that have been found are written in Koine Greek and the all of the manuscripts of the Renewed Covenant dated before 400 AD that have been discovered are written in Koine Greek.
The evidence for the original language of the Renewed Covenant from history and archaeology have been followed. The preponderance of evidence makes it clear that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew while the remaining twenty six books of the Renewed Covenant were originally written in Koine Greek.
However, there is one more source of evidence that should be examined to remove any shadow of a reasonable doubt. That is the evidence found in the Book of Truth itself. Like in all things, the Book of Truth tells the truth about this as well.
The Book of Truth tells a different story about Hebrew that what many people tell. The Book of Truth says that Hebrew was originally the language of the Canaanites (Isaiah 19:17-18).
This may have caught you off guard and you may be wondering why it is called Hebrew. The Book of Truth explains that as well.
It starts with Abraham (Abram). Abraham was called the Hebrew by the Canaanites because he had crossed over the Euphrates River and he was a descendant of Eber (Genesis 14:13). ("Hebrew" comes from "Eber" and means "one who crossed over". In this case, Abraham crossed over the Euphrates River. "Hebrew" could be thought of as a somewhat derogatory term like calling a Mexican a "wetback" because they crossed over the Rio Grande into Texas. Abraham was a descendant of Shem through Arphaxad and his descendant Eber (1 Chronicles 1:24-27). )
By the time of Joseph, the great grandson of Abraham, the part of Canaan where the descendents of Abraham lived was known as the land of the Hebrews just like an area in the America where a lot of Mexicans live might be known as "little Mexico" (Genesis 40:15). The dialect of Canaanite that they spoke became known as Hebrew and survived up to the time of the Man of Truth long after the other languages of Canaan had died out (John 5:2).
In similar fashion the book of Truth tells the story of Aramaic as well. Aram was the brother of Arphaxad who Abraham came from and started the nation of the Arameans (Genesis 10:22). The Arameans are also called Syrians in most English translations of the Original Covenant (Genesis 25:20). [The Hebrew word translated as "Syrian" is "Arami" (literally "belonging to Aram"). It is translated "Syrian" because that is the word for Arameans in the Greek translation of the Original Covenant called the Septuagint. "Syria" is the Greek word for "Aram".]
The language of the people of Aram is called Aramaic and is not the same as the language of the Jews called Hebrew (Isaiah 36:11). It also is called Syriac (as in Syriac Peshitta) for the same reasons that Aram is also called Syria (Daniel 2:4).
It is closely related to Hebrew because of the association between Abraham and the land of Aram (Syria). Abraham (Abram) first moved to Haran in the mountains of Aram (Syria) after he left Ur of the Chaldeans and lived there until his father died (Genesis 11:31-32). Jacob (Ya'akob aka Israel) then went and lived in Haran in Aram (Syria), where his mother had been raised, for 20 years (Genesis 28:5). Therefore Jacob was known as a Syrian (Aramean) among the Canaanites and Egyptians because his grandfather had moved to Canaan from Syria, his mother had done the same and he had moved back to Canaan from Syria (Aram) similar to how someone of Mexican descent moving from America to Europe would be called an American by Europeans (Deuteronomy 26:5). All of these years spent in Syria (Aram) by Abraham, Rebekah, and Jacob (Israel) had considerable influence on the formation of Hebrew from a Canaanite language including the use of the same alphabet for both Hebrew and Aramaic (Syriac).
The Book of Truth also tells the story of Greek. The Greeks colonized the entire coast of the Black Sea and most the coasts and isles of the Mediterranean Sea except for the coasts of modern Egypt, Israel and the southern half of Lebanon (Genesis 10:3-5). ["Javan" is the "Yavan" in Hebrew and is the progenitor of the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards and Cretans. It is usually used of the Greeks since they came from the oldest son and were the most influential of the descendants of Javan.] The Greeks were among those who the Jews were dispersed to live among for their rebellion against the Father of Truth just as they will be sent again to the Greeks to declare the rule of the Man of Truth (Isaiah 66:19). This happened when the Greeks overthrew the Persian Empire and then split the Macedonian empire into four smaller empires (Daniel 11:2-4). These four empires then forced everyone to learn to speak Greek so that Greek was still one of the official languages of the Roman, Parthian and Kushan empires at the time of the writing of the Renewed Covenant. Greek was spoken from Spain to the western edge of China to the northern third of India and along the entire Mediterranean coast. It was also spoken by the most educated and elite in every courtyard from China to Ethiopia. Greek had the widest geographical distribution in history from the period of about 300 BC to 200 AD until it was overtaken by English in the last 100 years. There was simply no better language to get a message out to as many people as possible across as wide of an area as possible and as quickly as possible when the Renewed Covenant was written than Koine Greek.
Now that the formation and distribution of these languages have been established it is time to see how they played out in writing of the Renewed Covenant.
As the descendants of Abraham, Isaac (Yitzhak) and Jacob formed the nation of Israel they became known as Israelites (Exodus 9:7). The Israelites of the southern kingdom of Judah then became known as Jews after the nation of Israel split into two kingdoms (2 Kings 16:5-7). Still their language continued to be called Hebrew (John 19:13).
Moses (Moishe) had warned that the Father of Truth was going to use those who were not even a people at that time to provoke Israel (Deuteronomy 32:21). There was no such people group as the Christians until after Gentiles came to faith at Antioch (Acts 11:26). The majority of the Gentiles who first became part of the Children of Truth were culturally Greeks (Romans 1:16). So it was Greeks that the Father of Truth specifically used to provoke the Jews who did not believe (Romans 10:19).
Then the Prophets of Truth told of two astounding things that were going to happen concerning the Jews and the Hebrew language.
First Isaiah (Yeshayahu) said that because the Jews had angered the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD) with their rebellious idolatry that he would speak to them through a people who spoke another language that was hard for them to speak and who would not be able to speak their language (Isaiah 28:10-12). This is true of the Children of Truth who the Spirit of Truth (Ruach HaQodesh aka The Holy Spirit aka The Holy Ghost) speaks through in unknown tongues (1 Corinthians 14:21-22).
Yet it is also true of the Greek Children of Truth. Koine Greek has no letters to represent a number of Hebrew sounds like the "h", "v", "sh", "y" sounds and splits other sounds like the "pf" sound into two sounds "f" and "p". They also have no representation of breath marks. On top of that the Greeks have different rules for things like making a name masculine (must end with a consonant usually "n" or "s") or feminine (must end with a vowel). So a Hebrew name like "Yah'shua" is transliterated into Greek as "Iesus" (The "I" made a short I sound in Koine Greek.) This is stammering lips indeed to the Hebrew listener!
On top of that the Greek alphabet also has a sounds that have no Hebrew equivalents like the "ps" and "ks" sound that are pronounced as transliterated here. The Greeks also have a number of lettter combination that are pronounced exactly as they are spelled like "mn", "kt", "tk", "mp", "pt" and the like that most Hebrew speakers simply cannot pronounce. This is indeed another tongue to the Hebrew listener.
The second astounding thing was the Father of Truth was going return the language of Hebrew to the Jewish people (Zephaniah 3:9). There is several interesting things in this passage. First of all it was written in Hebrew so by saying that He was going to return Hebrew to the Jewish people He was also saying that He was going to take it away from them. The last known native Hebrew speaker died in 220 AD in Babylon and Hebrew was not revived as a spoken language until Itamar Ben-Avi, the son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, became the first native speaker of the revived Hebrew language in about 1885. The second interesting thing is that the Hebrew word translated as "return" is literally "flip". Koine Greek is written left to right and the characters lean to the right. Hebrew is written right to left and the characters lean to the left. So as a written language Greek is literally flipped from Hebrew and when Jews returned to using Hebrew in place of languages whose alphabet were based on the Greek alphabet like those of Europe (including Russia) then the written language was again literally flipped. Third, the Father of Truth would have to use another language to speak to the Jewish people in as He had previously stated until they returned to using Hebrew. Greek has been in continuous use the entire time from when Hebrew was taken away as spoke language until it was restored as a spoken language. (I learned from watching a man who was working on creating a modern Greek version of the New Testament on Zontos (a Greek language Evangelical television program) that the differences between Koine Greek and modern Greek were less than the differences between Elizabethan English and modern English.) There has simply been no language that was better suited to preserve the original contents of the Renewed Covenant than Greek.
By comparison, none of these things that are true about Greek are true about Aramaic. Aramaic uses the exact same alphabet as Hebrew that is written right to left and leans to the left. The sounds of biblical Hebrew and the sounds of Aramaic are exactly the same. It is like the similarities in alphabets and sounds used by Portuguese and Spanish. Syriac Aramaic died out as a commonly spoken language by 1400 AD. Aramaic has less than 500,000 speakers currently and is considered to be in danger of becoming an extinct language.
Another thing about Aramaic is that it was not the language spoken primarily by the common people among the Jews in Judea at the time when the Renewed Covenant was spoken as commonly reported. The coins found in Israel from the first century AD are all written in Hebrew and there has never been one found written in Aramaic showing that Hebrew was the official language of Judea.
The Renewed Covenant shows the same thing. Pilate had the sign condemning the Man of Truth written in Latin, Greek and Hebrew which were the two official languages of the Roman Empire plus the official language of the providence of Judaea (Luke 23:38). Before the Gentiles began to come into the House of Truth the Jews were divided between those who lived outside of Israel speaking Greek and those who lived inside of Israel speaking Hebrew (Acts 6:1). When Paul the Jew addressed the crowd of Jews in Jerusalem he spoke in Hebrew (Acts 21:40). When the crowd of Jews heard that Paul the Jew was speaking Hebrew they listened to what he was saying (Acts 22:2). It had been Hebrew that the Man of Truth had spoken in when he arrested Paul the Jew on the road to Damascus (Acts 26:14). Hebrew was still in use among the Jews when John the Jew was given the contents of the Book of Revelation in 95 AD (Revelation 16:16).
In all of these places the Greek word translated "Hebrew" is "Ebrais" or one of its variations. The word "Ebrais" is only used in ancient Greek literature for the Hebrew language spoken by the Jews. It is never used to mean the Aramaic language. As noted before there is a separate word for "Aramaic" and that is "Syriac" as in Syriac Peshitta. The Jews in the former kingdom of Herod that Great, which included the territory of most of the kingdom of Israel ruled by Solomon, and especially around Jerusalem, spoke Hebrew as stated in plain Greek.
Also as noted before Hebrew was not generally spoken outside of the kingdom of Herod the Great by Jews. The Jews who lived among the Greeks spoke Koine Greek and a language called Yavanic. (Yavan is the Hebrew name for Greece). Yavanic used Hebrew letters to transliterate Greek words as close as possible. (Often with radically different sounding words as noted above about transliterating Hebrew words into Greek.) Yavanic was to Koine Greek what Yiddish is to German. Yavanic remained in continuous use until shortly after Israel became a nation again in 1948.
So while there were surely regional languages like Syriac Aramaic, Jewish Aramaic and Yavanic in use in various areas where the Good News was preached none of them were spoken in all of those areas. The fact is that Greeks in Greek cities spoke Greek and that Syriac Aramaic was not even spoken in Greece. Not even the Jews in Greece spoke Hebrew but rather spoke Greek and Yavanic. Asking most Jews in ancient Corinth "Atah medaber 'ivrit?" would get about the same befuddled reaction as you would get asking most Jews in New York City the same question today. In fact, archaeology has shown that even in Rome about seventy percent of the people spoke Greek at the time that the Renewed Covenant was written. Koine Greek was the only language commonly spoken in all the places where the books of the Renewed Covenant were written to and from.
So here is the sum of what the Book of Truth has revealed so far. Hebrew and Aramaic are not the same language. Hebrew continued to be spoken by the Jews in the former area of Israel during the time that the Renewed Covenant was written. The Father of Truth had said that He was going to take Hebrew away from the Jewish people and speak to them in another language that could not be pronounced using Hebrew rules. This other language would be backwards from Hebrew until the Father of Truth flipped Hebrew back to the Jewish people. The Jewish people who lived outside of the former area of Israel in the Greek speaking part of the Roman Empire spoke Greek. Greek fits the description of the language that the Father of Truth would speak to them in until they returned to speaking Hebrew. Greek was the language at the time when the Renewed Covenant was written with the widest geographic distribution and with the largest number of speakers. Greek has continued as spoken language with relatively few changes across the ages from the time when the Renewed Covenant was written until now.
Not only that but the Renewed Covenant text makes it obvious that most of it was originally written in Greek as well. The Greek text of all of the books of the Renewed Covenant are full of word puns in Koine Greek that are missing in the versions written in other languages except for the Gospel of Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew is full of word puns in the Hebrew text that are missing in the Koine Greek text.
Then there is all of the internal evidence in the contents of the Renewed Covenant itself.
It was Greek that was used to preach the Good News to the Greek speaking Jews of Antioch (Acts 11:19-21). It was Greek that was used to preach to the Jews and Greeks of Iconium (Acts 14:1). It was Greek that was used to preach to the Jews and Greeks at the synagogue in Thessaloniki (Acts 17:1-4). It was Greek that was used to preach to the Jews and Greeks at the synagogue in Berea (Acts 17:10-12). It was Greek that was used to preach to the Jews and Greeks at the synagogue in Corinth (Acts 18:1-4). It was Greek that was used to preach to the Jews and Greeks at the synagogue and yeshiva in Ephesus (Acts 19:8-10).
Paul the Jew preached to people who spoke Greek because he spoke Greek (Acts 21:37). Greek was the only language that was spoken in all the places where Paul the Jew preached.
In fact, there were so few Jews living in Philippi that they had to meet for prayer at the river on the Sabbath because they did not have ten Jewish men necessary to form a synagogue (Acts 16:12-13). So it unreasonable that Paul the Jew wrote his epistle to the Philippians in anything other than Greek (Philippians 1:1).
In like manner, Titus was also a Greek who had not became a Jew through circumcision (Galatians 2:3). So when Paul the Jew wrote to Titus the Greek about the issues that the Greek speaking congregations at Crete were having it is only reasonable that he wrote to Titus the Greek in Greek (Titus 1:4-5).
Paul the Jew wrote to the Greeks and Greek speaking Jews of Rome in Greek (Romans 10:12). Paul the Jew wrote to the Greeks and Greek speaking Jews of Corinth in Greek (1 Corinthians 1:24). Paul the Jew wrote to the Greeks and Greek speaking Jews of Galatia in Greek (Galatians 3:28). Paul the Jew wrote to the Greeks and Greek speaking Jews of Colosse in Greek (Colossians 3:11).
In like manner John the Jew wrote to the seven churches of Asia (Revelation 1:4). This included the congregation of Greeks and Greek speaking Jews at Ephesus (Revelation 1:11). For this reason, the Greek name was given for each Hebrew name that was in the revelation that John the Jew received from the Man of Truth (Revelation 9:11).
The same is true for the writings of Luke the Jew (Ohr aka The Apostle Luke). Luke wrote his Gospel for a Greek nobleman named "Theophilus" (Luke 1:1-4). ["Most excellent" is a title denoting nobility and "Theophilus" is a Greek name meaning "Friend of God".] He wrote the book of Acts for the same Greek nobleman (Acts 1:1-3). Luke the Jew accompanied Paul the Jew to Philippi when he first arrived there (Acts 16:12). Luke the Jew does not mention himself as being with Paul the Jew in the Book of Acts until Paul the Jew leaves Philippi to return to Jerusalem some eight years later (Acts 20:6-7). So Luke the Jew most likely met the Greek nobleman named "Theophilus" during the eight years he served as pastor to the Greek speaking congregation in Philippi. There can be little doubt that Luke the Jew wrote his books in Greek.
Peter the Jew (Cephas aka Simon Peter aka The Apostle Peter) also wrote to congregations in a large area where Greek was the only commonly spoken language in all of the areas (1 Peter 1:1). James also wrote to Jews scattered everywhere, which undoubtedly included those who had already came to faith in Greece, so Greek was again the only commonly spoken language he could have used to write his epistle where it could be be read by Jews across an area that stretched from India to Spain (James 1:1).
So the evidence of the Book of Truth, and especially the evidence in the Renewed Covenant itself, shows that the Renewed Covenant was originally written in Koine Greek except for the Gospel of Matthew that was originally written in Hebrew. The three witnesses of history, archeology and the Book of Truth have presented more than enough evidence to remove every reasonable doubt about what language the Renewed Covenant was written in.
So with all of this evidence that the Renewed Covenant was originally written in Koine Greek, except for the Gospel of Matthew that was originally written in Hebrew, you might be wondering why there is any debate at all about this subject. Those who insist that the Renewed Covenant was written in another language originally, especially Aramaic, at best have come to such a conclusion without really examining all of the evidence.
Many people are simply sheep who follow other people without examining things themselves. Remember, the Bereans were called more noble than others because they neither accepted nor rejected the word of Paul the Jew until they investigated what he said for themselves to see if it was true (Acts 17:11). I encourage you to look at every reference and every verse that I have included so you can know for certain the truth of what I have written.
At worst, they are purposely perpetuating a lie for reasons similar to those of the Church of the East. The Church of the East (Syriac Orthodox) has insisted that the Renewed Covenant was originally written in Syriac Aramaic because the Syriac Peshitta that they use is written in Syriac Aramaic. The Church of the East has no evidence that this is true other than the fact that they say it is true. They do this because they want people to have to come to them to supposedly gain deeper understanding of the Renewed Covenant that can only be gained by those who speak Syriac Aramaic. (As noted before there have not been any actual native speakers of Syriac Aramaic since 1400 AD.) They do this to justify doctrines that cannot be shown to exist in any other version of the Renewed Covenant. They do this because they want to assert supremacy of Syrian culture over other cultures. In short, they are saying things that they know are not true because they seek to draw disciples after themselves (Acts 20:30).
Remember that the Father of Lies (HaShatan aka Satan Aka The Devil) is the source of all lies (John 8:44). So it is no wonder that the Church of the East joined the False Church of Rome in unholy communion after Islam devastated it. Those who insist on perpetrating these lies are no better than the religious professionals of the False Church of Rome.
The truth is that it does not matter which language the Renewed Covenant was written in unless you believe what it says. The truth is that you can hear the Good News in any language and come into the House of Truth.
You come into the House of Truth when you surrender control of your life to the Man of Truth because you believe that the Father of Truth raised him from the dead (Romans 10:8-10). You come into the House of Truth when you hear the Word of Truth and believe it (Romans 10:17). You come into the House of Truth when you hear the Word of Truth in a language you understand (1 Corinthians 14:19). You do not need to learn to speak another language to come into the House of Truth because every language is spoken in the House of Truth (Revelation 5:9).
Come into the House of Truth.
There has been much debate about this in recent years. Many say Koine Greek but others argue that it was written in a Semitic language like Aramaic or Hebrew instead.
The first way to resolve this discrepancy is to simply look at the historical and archaeological evidence. As is often the case with competing theories the way to get to the truth is follow the evidence.
First, we shall look at what the evidence says for the Renewed Covenant being written in Hebrew. The first known translation of the New Testament did not occur until 1560 AD. The fact is that there is not a single Hebrew language manuscript of the complete Renewed Covenant in existence today, that is older than the one translated into Hebrew by Isaac Edward Salkinson. The last mention of this undertaking being funded by the British Bible Society was 1877 and it was completed some time before his death in 1883. It was published in 1886.
In fact, there has never been found a single Hebrew manuscript for any book of the Renewed Covenant that is older than 1883, except for the Gospel of Matthew. The oldest Hebrew manuscript found for the Gospel of Matthew is from the 1300s.
However, there is plenty of historical evidence that the Gospel of Matthew (Mattiyahu) was written in Hebrew originally. Papias, who was a companion of Polycarp, wrote in 100 AD that the Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew and that the members of the mostly Greek speaking church had to interpret it as best as they could. (Polycarp was the disciple of John the Jew (Yochanon ben Zebedee aka The Apostle John) according to Irenaeus so it is likely that Papias was also a disciple of John the Jew.) Pantaenus, who died in 200 AD, went to India and found the church there that had been started by Bartholomew the Jew (The Apostle Bartholomew) still had in its possession a copy of the Gospel of Matthew that was written in Hebrew. He then brought back this copy of the Gospel of Matthew written in Hebrew back with him to Alexandria, Egypt. In fact, every church historian and writer up to the time of Jerome, who died in 420 AD, said that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew.
The first mention of a successful Koine Greek translation of the entire Gospel of Matthew was by Tertullian at about 200 AD. About 80% of the Gospel of Matthew also occurs in the Gospels of Mark and Luke and they were used to help translate those portions into Greek. By this time, the Gospel of Matthew had already been translated in Syriac Aramaic for more than 100 years according to some of the above mentioned church historians. (Syriac Aramaic was much more similar to Hebrew than Koine Greek and the translation would have been much easier.) It is certain that it had been translated into Syriac Aramaic by the time of Syriac Peshitta was completed (except for five books) in 190 AD. Accordingly, the Syriac Aramaic translation of the Gospel of Matthew was used to help translate the remaining 20% into Koine Greek since Syriac Aramaic was a much more widespread spoken language than Hebrew. This accounts for some cases of transliterated Aramaic words appearing in the Koine Greek text.
Not only that, but there has been continuous quotes of the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew by Rabbis since shortly before 700 AD when it is quoted in "The Book of Nestor the Priest". The Rabbis have used it extensively to show that keeping the Law of Truth (Torah aka The Law) was in line with the teaching of the Man of Truth (Yeshua HaMashiach aka Jesus Christ) during various trials that they were put on by the False Church of Rome in Europe. The most famous of these were those used by Shem Tov in 1385 who successfully used the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew to keep the Jews of Aragon (modern Spain) from being killed for doing what was commanded in the Law of Truth. There were numerous Hebrew copies of the Gospel of Matthew used throughout the Middle Ages, although some were obvious translations from Greek or Latin translations. Still about ten years ago a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew was found in Saint Petersburg, Russia from that period that was a jot and tittle copy (meaning that even the font of them was the same) of the Bresslau (modern Wroclaw, Poland) #9 Hebrew Gospel of Matthew from the same period. These two Hebrew versions of the Gospel of Matthew show no evidence of being translations from Greek or Latin documents. This gives two actual witnesses that there existed an older Hebrew source text in the Middle Ages. In fact, the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew continued to be used by Rabbis to defend the practice of keeping the Law of Truth until 1869, about the time that the entire Renewed Covenant was translated into Hebrew.
Now that it has been established that the Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew originally, the question remains about the language that the other 26 books of the Renewed Covenant were written in. Many have espoused Aramaic since it has already been shown that the Gospel of Matthew was definitely translated into Syriac Aramaic years before it was translated into Koine Greek.
The first thing to know about Aramaic is that it is not Hebrew but rather a related language in the same language family (Central Semitic) as Hebrew. It is one of five languages in the same family with only modern Hebrew, Arabic and the Assyrian dialect of Aramaic still in use. (Aramaic is similar to Hebrew in the same way that Portuguese is similar to Spanish. These two languages are also part of a five member language family that includes French, Italian and Romanian. These are called the Romantic languages since they came from Latin that was spoken by the Romans.)
The second thing to know about Aramaic is who spoke it and why during the first few centuries AD.
Aramaic was the language of the Assyrians and the Assyrian dialect is still spoken today in Mosul which is on the opposite bank of the Tigris River from the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh. When the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, Aramaic began to be spoken there by the people that the Assyrians forced to live there instead of the Jews who they had exiled. The Assyrians also conquered Babylon and the people there in like manner adopted Aramaic as the official language. Centuries later when the Babylonians rebelled and overthrew the Assyrians, Aramaic had became the de facto language of the Babylonians as well. So when the Babylonians conquered the southern kingdom of Judah and the Jews there were exiled to Babylon then they too had to learn to speak Aramaic. The Persians conquered the Babylonian Empire but they did not force people to learn Persian, although many did as a second language. Eventually they made Aramaic the official language of the Persian Empire. Then the Greeks came and conquered the Persian Empire. After the death of Alexander the Great, the Greek Empire was split into four smaller empires. The Greeks then carried out a Hellenization campaign to make everyone throughout these four empires adopt Greek customs, clothing and speak only Greek.
The people in the kingdom of Osroene resisted and won independence from the Greeks in 120 BC. There was an immediate reaction to start getting rid of everything Greek by many people there and to return to speaking Aramaic. (They had continued to speak Aramaic privately similar to what the Maccabees did with Hebrew in the land of Israel.) This dialect of Aramaic is called Syriac Aramaic.
When the Romans conquered the western half of the Greek empires they allowed Greek to remain the official language although they made no effort to force people to speak it. Many other people throughout Syria and even into Samaria also resumed speaking Syriac Aramaic as well as many people throughout the Parthian Empire that replaced the part of the eastern most Greek Empire that was closest to the Roman Empire. So Syriac Aramaic had a large geographic distribution by 34 AD.
Also many Aramaic words had found their way into the common vernacular of people who spoke other languages like Hebrew and Greek in the areas where Aramaic was also spoken. This is not much different that Spanish words like "rodeo" and "adios" being used in the English spoken in the American southwest.
It was Jewish Aramaic that was commonly spoken by people in Israel during the time when the Renewed Covenant was being written. It used letters similar to modern block Hebrew letters while Syriac Aramaic used cursive letters similar to Arabic. It was becoming mutually unintelligible with Syriac Aramaic by the time that the Renewed Covenant was written. Jewish Aramaic was to Syriac Aramaic what Yiddish is to German.
Now the background has been explained we are ready to examine when the Renewed Covenant was written in Aramaic.
It is worth noting that there has never been any manuscripts found containing any part of the Renewed Covenant in Jewish Aramaic. All of the Aramaic manuscripts that have been found are written in Syriac Aramaic.
The earliest that the Syriac Peshitta (a version of the Book of Truth (The Bible) written in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic) can be shown with certainty to have been completed is about 190 AD except for the books of 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation. These five books were not added until after 500 AD. The Nestorian tablet of Sing-an-fu witnesses that the Book of Truth in the Syriac dialect of Aramaic (most likely the Syriac Peshitta) was being used in the heart of China before 700 AD. However, there is much evidence that most of the Syriac Peshitta had been completed long before 190 AD.
For example, there is strong evidence that the Gospel of Matthew may have been translated into Syriac Aramaic shortly after the Children of Truth (those who obey The Father of Truth because they love Him) were first called "Christians" (literally "like Messiah") at Antioch in 43 AD. Syriac Aramaic was very commonly spoken in Syria, where Antioch was located, at this time.
The king of Osroene became one of the Children of Truth no later than 70 AD and commissioned the translation of the Original Covenant (Tanach aka The Old Testament) into Syriac Aramaic.
(Osroene was a buffer kingdom between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire where the Syriac dialect of Aramaic (Syriac Aramaic) was the official language. It belonged to neither empire but did have nominal Parthian or Roman oversight at times. Until the time of Trajan in 114 AD the Romans left it alone so it could continue as a buffer state. So the universal persecution of Domitian in 95 AD did not extend to Osroene. The Syriac Peshitta was translated and compiled at its capital of Edessa.)
The Original Covenant portion of the Syriac Peshitta had been completed with certainty by 100 AD although it is likely that parts of the Original Covenant had been translated into some form of Aramaic as early as the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles. The earliest definite historical proof that parts of the Renewed Covenant had been translated into Syriac Aramaic was by Hegesippus at about 170 AD. It appears from archaeological evidence that the translation of most of the Renewed Covenant (excluding 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation) could have been completed by 190 AD at the earliest into the Syriac Aramaic. However it is not known for certain if this was the Syriac Peshitta or a predecessor. What is known for certain is that there is absolutely no evidence that the any type of Aramaic was the original language of the Renewed Covenant as those who first mentioned the Syriac Aramaic versions of books of the Renewed Covenant all testified that they were translations from Koine Greek or Hebrew (in the case of the Gospel of Matthew).
So in summary, Aramaic is not the same as Hebrew, Aramaic is just as much a pagan language used by Gentile nations that oppressed the Jews as Greek or Latin, there are no Jewish Aramaic manuscripts for the Renewed Covenant, the Syriac Aramaic version was a translation from Greek text (Hebrew text in the case of the Gospel of Matthew) according to those who first mentioned it, the translation of most of the books of the Renewed Covenant (other than the Gospel of Matthew) into Syriac Aramaic did not begin until about 75 years after the last book of the Renewed Covenant had been written and that the only known complete ancient translation of the Renewed Covenant into any form of Aramaic, the Syriac Peshitta, was not completed until sometime after 500 AD. It is safe to say that no part of the Renewed Covenant was originally written in any form of Aramaic based on the historical and archaeological evidence.
This takes us to examining the historical and archaeological evidence for the Renewed Covenant being originally written in Greek.
Every single historian from 100 AD onwards records that all of the books of the Renewed Covenant, except for the Gospel of Matthew, were written in Koine Greek. There is not one single reference by any historian within a thousand years of the writing of the Renewed Covenant of any book, except the Gospel of Matthew, being translated into Koine Greek from another language.
Clement of Rome quotes passages from ten of the books of the Renewed Covenant books in his epistle he wrote to the Corinthian church in 95 AD. This was the same year as the last book of the Renewed Covenant was written showing that these books were already in common circulation. This epistle is in Koine Greek and contains word for word quotes from these ten Renewed Covenant books showing that these books were written already in Koine Greek. Some of these Renewed Covenant books had been around for less than thirty years at this time.
Ignatius of Antioch quotes from an incredible seventeen books of the Renewed Covenant in the epistles that he wrote before his death in 107 AD. In fact, he quotes from the book of Revelation only about ten years after it was written. Again, these quotes were word for word from the books of the Renewed Covenant and in Koine Greek. This is a second witness that these books of the Renewed Covenant had been written and widely distributed in Koine Greek.
These two authors quote passages word for word from all but 7 books of the Renewed Covenant (Mark, 1 Thessalonians, Colossians, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John and Jude) in Koine Greek.
However, Polycarp in his short epistle to the Philippians that he wrote in 120 AD quotes word for word from 16 books of the Renewed Covenant and paraphrases passages in the other 11 books of the Renewed Covenant in Koine Greek. (The parts of the Gospel of Matthew that were quoted had plainly been translated in Koine Greek by that time.) So by 120 AD there is definite proof that all 27 books of the Renewed Covenant were already in Koine Greek except perhaps part of the Gospel of Matthew. (The Gospel of Matthew does not appear to have been completely translated from Hebrew into Koine Greek until about 200 AD.)
The archaeological evidence of the books of the Renewed Covenant being written originally in Koine Greek (excluding the Gospel of Matthew) mirrors the historical evidence.
The earliest fragment of the Renewed Covenant found so far is a 3.5 inch by 2.5 inch piece of the Gospel of John called the Rylands Library Papyrus P52. This fragment contains part of the John 18 written in Koine Greek. It is dated at 125 AD and is one of many fragments of the books of the Renewed Covenant that are dated no later than 200 AD in the Rylands Library. All are written in Koine Greek.
Another collection of manuscripts of books of the Renewed Covenant that have been dated no later than 200 AD is the Chester Beatty Papyri P46. This is a collection of 104 pages from an early codex (bound book) that contains almost all of the writings of Paul the Jew (Shaul aka Saul aka The Apostle Paul). Most of the papyri in this set are almost complete pages with only a few lines missing at the bottom from deterioration. The Chester Beatty Papyri P45 is similar in composition and contains portions of all four Gospels and the book of Acts. It is dated at about 250 AD. The Chester Beatty Papyri P47 contains part of the book of Revelation and is also dated near 250 AD. All of these manuscripts were written in Koine Greek.
In fact, there are 10 more collections of papyri containing various portions of the Renewed Covenant that are dated no later than 200 AD. There are many more that are dated no later than 250 AD. These collections collectively contain the entire Renewed Covenant and all of them are written in Koine Greek. In fact, there are 5800 Koine Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. By contrast the earliest Aramaic manuscript is dated to be about 400 AD.
So in summary, all of the writings about the Renewed Covenant from within as early as the year that the Renewed Covenant was completed that have been found are written in Koine Greek and the all of the manuscripts of the Renewed Covenant dated before 400 AD that have been discovered are written in Koine Greek.
The evidence for the original language of the Renewed Covenant from history and archaeology have been followed. The preponderance of evidence makes it clear that the Gospel of Matthew was originally written in Hebrew while the remaining twenty six books of the Renewed Covenant were originally written in Koine Greek.
However, there is one more source of evidence that should be examined to remove any shadow of a reasonable doubt. That is the evidence found in the Book of Truth itself. Like in all things, the Book of Truth tells the truth about this as well.
The Book of Truth tells a different story about Hebrew that what many people tell. The Book of Truth says that Hebrew was originally the language of the Canaanites (Isaiah 19:17-18).
This may have caught you off guard and you may be wondering why it is called Hebrew. The Book of Truth explains that as well.
It starts with Abraham (Abram). Abraham was called the Hebrew by the Canaanites because he had crossed over the Euphrates River and he was a descendant of Eber (Genesis 14:13). ("Hebrew" comes from "Eber" and means "one who crossed over". In this case, Abraham crossed over the Euphrates River. "Hebrew" could be thought of as a somewhat derogatory term like calling a Mexican a "wetback" because they crossed over the Rio Grande into Texas. Abraham was a descendant of Shem through Arphaxad and his descendant Eber (1 Chronicles 1:24-27). )
By the time of Joseph, the great grandson of Abraham, the part of Canaan where the descendents of Abraham lived was known as the land of the Hebrews just like an area in the America where a lot of Mexicans live might be known as "little Mexico" (Genesis 40:15). The dialect of Canaanite that they spoke became known as Hebrew and survived up to the time of the Man of Truth long after the other languages of Canaan had died out (John 5:2).
In similar fashion the book of Truth tells the story of Aramaic as well. Aram was the brother of Arphaxad who Abraham came from and started the nation of the Arameans (Genesis 10:22). The Arameans are also called Syrians in most English translations of the Original Covenant (Genesis 25:20). [The Hebrew word translated as "Syrian" is "Arami" (literally "belonging to Aram"). It is translated "Syrian" because that is the word for Arameans in the Greek translation of the Original Covenant called the Septuagint. "Syria" is the Greek word for "Aram".]
The language of the people of Aram is called Aramaic and is not the same as the language of the Jews called Hebrew (Isaiah 36:11). It also is called Syriac (as in Syriac Peshitta) for the same reasons that Aram is also called Syria (Daniel 2:4).
It is closely related to Hebrew because of the association between Abraham and the land of Aram (Syria). Abraham (Abram) first moved to Haran in the mountains of Aram (Syria) after he left Ur of the Chaldeans and lived there until his father died (Genesis 11:31-32). Jacob (Ya'akob aka Israel) then went and lived in Haran in Aram (Syria), where his mother had been raised, for 20 years (Genesis 28:5). Therefore Jacob was known as a Syrian (Aramean) among the Canaanites and Egyptians because his grandfather had moved to Canaan from Syria, his mother had done the same and he had moved back to Canaan from Syria (Aram) similar to how someone of Mexican descent moving from America to Europe would be called an American by Europeans (Deuteronomy 26:5). All of these years spent in Syria (Aram) by Abraham, Rebekah, and Jacob (Israel) had considerable influence on the formation of Hebrew from a Canaanite language including the use of the same alphabet for both Hebrew and Aramaic (Syriac).
The Book of Truth also tells the story of Greek. The Greeks colonized the entire coast of the Black Sea and most the coasts and isles of the Mediterranean Sea except for the coasts of modern Egypt, Israel and the southern half of Lebanon (Genesis 10:3-5). ["Javan" is the "Yavan" in Hebrew and is the progenitor of the Greeks, Italians, Spaniards and Cretans. It is usually used of the Greeks since they came from the oldest son and were the most influential of the descendants of Javan.] The Greeks were among those who the Jews were dispersed to live among for their rebellion against the Father of Truth just as they will be sent again to the Greeks to declare the rule of the Man of Truth (Isaiah 66:19). This happened when the Greeks overthrew the Persian Empire and then split the Macedonian empire into four smaller empires (Daniel 11:2-4). These four empires then forced everyone to learn to speak Greek so that Greek was still one of the official languages of the Roman, Parthian and Kushan empires at the time of the writing of the Renewed Covenant. Greek was spoken from Spain to the western edge of China to the northern third of India and along the entire Mediterranean coast. It was also spoken by the most educated and elite in every courtyard from China to Ethiopia. Greek had the widest geographical distribution in history from the period of about 300 BC to 200 AD until it was overtaken by English in the last 100 years. There was simply no better language to get a message out to as many people as possible across as wide of an area as possible and as quickly as possible when the Renewed Covenant was written than Koine Greek.
Now that the formation and distribution of these languages have been established it is time to see how they played out in writing of the Renewed Covenant.
As the descendants of Abraham, Isaac (Yitzhak) and Jacob formed the nation of Israel they became known as Israelites (Exodus 9:7). The Israelites of the southern kingdom of Judah then became known as Jews after the nation of Israel split into two kingdoms (2 Kings 16:5-7). Still their language continued to be called Hebrew (John 19:13).
Moses (Moishe) had warned that the Father of Truth was going to use those who were not even a people at that time to provoke Israel (Deuteronomy 32:21). There was no such people group as the Christians until after Gentiles came to faith at Antioch (Acts 11:26). The majority of the Gentiles who first became part of the Children of Truth were culturally Greeks (Romans 1:16). So it was Greeks that the Father of Truth specifically used to provoke the Jews who did not believe (Romans 10:19).
Then the Prophets of Truth told of two astounding things that were going to happen concerning the Jews and the Hebrew language.
First Isaiah (Yeshayahu) said that because the Jews had angered the Father of Truth (YHVH aka God aka THE LORD) with their rebellious idolatry that he would speak to them through a people who spoke another language that was hard for them to speak and who would not be able to speak their language (Isaiah 28:10-12). This is true of the Children of Truth who the Spirit of Truth (Ruach HaQodesh aka The Holy Spirit aka The Holy Ghost) speaks through in unknown tongues (1 Corinthians 14:21-22).
Yet it is also true of the Greek Children of Truth. Koine Greek has no letters to represent a number of Hebrew sounds like the "h", "v", "sh", "y" sounds and splits other sounds like the "pf" sound into two sounds "f" and "p". They also have no representation of breath marks. On top of that the Greeks have different rules for things like making a name masculine (must end with a consonant usually "n" or "s") or feminine (must end with a vowel). So a Hebrew name like "Yah'shua" is transliterated into Greek as "Iesus" (The "I" made a short I sound in Koine Greek.) This is stammering lips indeed to the Hebrew listener!
On top of that the Greek alphabet also has a sounds that have no Hebrew equivalents like the "ps" and "ks" sound that are pronounced as transliterated here. The Greeks also have a number of lettter combination that are pronounced exactly as they are spelled like "mn", "kt", "tk", "mp", "pt" and the like that most Hebrew speakers simply cannot pronounce. This is indeed another tongue to the Hebrew listener.
The second astounding thing was the Father of Truth was going return the language of Hebrew to the Jewish people (Zephaniah 3:9). There is several interesting things in this passage. First of all it was written in Hebrew so by saying that He was going to return Hebrew to the Jewish people He was also saying that He was going to take it away from them. The last known native Hebrew speaker died in 220 AD in Babylon and Hebrew was not revived as a spoken language until Itamar Ben-Avi, the son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, became the first native speaker of the revived Hebrew language in about 1885. The second interesting thing is that the Hebrew word translated as "return" is literally "flip". Koine Greek is written left to right and the characters lean to the right. Hebrew is written right to left and the characters lean to the left. So as a written language Greek is literally flipped from Hebrew and when Jews returned to using Hebrew in place of languages whose alphabet were based on the Greek alphabet like those of Europe (including Russia) then the written language was again literally flipped. Third, the Father of Truth would have to use another language to speak to the Jewish people in as He had previously stated until they returned to using Hebrew. Greek has been in continuous use the entire time from when Hebrew was taken away as spoke language until it was restored as a spoken language. (I learned from watching a man who was working on creating a modern Greek version of the New Testament on Zontos (a Greek language Evangelical television program) that the differences between Koine Greek and modern Greek were less than the differences between Elizabethan English and modern English.) There has simply been no language that was better suited to preserve the original contents of the Renewed Covenant than Greek.
By comparison, none of these things that are true about Greek are true about Aramaic. Aramaic uses the exact same alphabet as Hebrew that is written right to left and leans to the left. The sounds of biblical Hebrew and the sounds of Aramaic are exactly the same. It is like the similarities in alphabets and sounds used by Portuguese and Spanish. Syriac Aramaic died out as a commonly spoken language by 1400 AD. Aramaic has less than 500,000 speakers currently and is considered to be in danger of becoming an extinct language.
Another thing about Aramaic is that it was not the language spoken primarily by the common people among the Jews in Judea at the time when the Renewed Covenant was spoken as commonly reported. The coins found in Israel from the first century AD are all written in Hebrew and there has never been one found written in Aramaic showing that Hebrew was the official language of Judea.
The Renewed Covenant shows the same thing. Pilate had the sign condemning the Man of Truth written in Latin, Greek and Hebrew which were the two official languages of the Roman Empire plus the official language of the providence of Judaea (Luke 23:38). Before the Gentiles began to come into the House of Truth the Jews were divided between those who lived outside of Israel speaking Greek and those who lived inside of Israel speaking Hebrew (Acts 6:1). When Paul the Jew addressed the crowd of Jews in Jerusalem he spoke in Hebrew (Acts 21:40). When the crowd of Jews heard that Paul the Jew was speaking Hebrew they listened to what he was saying (Acts 22:2). It had been Hebrew that the Man of Truth had spoken in when he arrested Paul the Jew on the road to Damascus (Acts 26:14). Hebrew was still in use among the Jews when John the Jew was given the contents of the Book of Revelation in 95 AD (Revelation 16:16).
In all of these places the Greek word translated "Hebrew" is "Ebrais" or one of its variations. The word "Ebrais" is only used in ancient Greek literature for the Hebrew language spoken by the Jews. It is never used to mean the Aramaic language. As noted before there is a separate word for "Aramaic" and that is "Syriac" as in Syriac Peshitta. The Jews in the former kingdom of Herod that Great, which included the territory of most of the kingdom of Israel ruled by Solomon, and especially around Jerusalem, spoke Hebrew as stated in plain Greek.
Also as noted before Hebrew was not generally spoken outside of the kingdom of Herod the Great by Jews. The Jews who lived among the Greeks spoke Koine Greek and a language called Yavanic. (Yavan is the Hebrew name for Greece). Yavanic used Hebrew letters to transliterate Greek words as close as possible. (Often with radically different sounding words as noted above about transliterating Hebrew words into Greek.) Yavanic was to Koine Greek what Yiddish is to German. Yavanic remained in continuous use until shortly after Israel became a nation again in 1948.
So while there were surely regional languages like Syriac Aramaic, Jewish Aramaic and Yavanic in use in various areas where the Good News was preached none of them were spoken in all of those areas. The fact is that Greeks in Greek cities spoke Greek and that Syriac Aramaic was not even spoken in Greece. Not even the Jews in Greece spoke Hebrew but rather spoke Greek and Yavanic. Asking most Jews in ancient Corinth "Atah medaber 'ivrit?" would get about the same befuddled reaction as you would get asking most Jews in New York City the same question today. In fact, archaeology has shown that even in Rome about seventy percent of the people spoke Greek at the time that the Renewed Covenant was written. Koine Greek was the only language commonly spoken in all the places where the books of the Renewed Covenant were written to and from.
So here is the sum of what the Book of Truth has revealed so far. Hebrew and Aramaic are not the same language. Hebrew continued to be spoken by the Jews in the former area of Israel during the time that the Renewed Covenant was written. The Father of Truth had said that He was going to take Hebrew away from the Jewish people and speak to them in another language that could not be pronounced using Hebrew rules. This other language would be backwards from Hebrew until the Father of Truth flipped Hebrew back to the Jewish people. The Jewish people who lived outside of the former area of Israel in the Greek speaking part of the Roman Empire spoke Greek. Greek fits the description of the language that the Father of Truth would speak to them in until they returned to speaking Hebrew. Greek was the language at the time when the Renewed Covenant was written with the widest geographic distribution and with the largest number of speakers. Greek has continued as spoken language with relatively few changes across the ages from the time when the Renewed Covenant was written until now.
Not only that but the Renewed Covenant text makes it obvious that most of it was originally written in Greek as well. The Greek text of all of the books of the Renewed Covenant are full of word puns in Koine Greek that are missing in the versions written in other languages except for the Gospel of Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew is full of word puns in the Hebrew text that are missing in the Koine Greek text.
Then there is all of the internal evidence in the contents of the Renewed Covenant itself.
It was Greek that was used to preach the Good News to the Greek speaking Jews of Antioch (Acts 11:19-21). It was Greek that was used to preach to the Jews and Greeks of Iconium (Acts 14:1). It was Greek that was used to preach to the Jews and Greeks at the synagogue in Thessaloniki (Acts 17:1-4). It was Greek that was used to preach to the Jews and Greeks at the synagogue in Berea (Acts 17:10-12). It was Greek that was used to preach to the Jews and Greeks at the synagogue in Corinth (Acts 18:1-4). It was Greek that was used to preach to the Jews and Greeks at the synagogue and yeshiva in Ephesus (Acts 19:8-10).
Paul the Jew preached to people who spoke Greek because he spoke Greek (Acts 21:37). Greek was the only language that was spoken in all the places where Paul the Jew preached.
In fact, there were so few Jews living in Philippi that they had to meet for prayer at the river on the Sabbath because they did not have ten Jewish men necessary to form a synagogue (Acts 16:12-13). So it unreasonable that Paul the Jew wrote his epistle to the Philippians in anything other than Greek (Philippians 1:1).
In like manner, Titus was also a Greek who had not became a Jew through circumcision (Galatians 2:3). So when Paul the Jew wrote to Titus the Greek about the issues that the Greek speaking congregations at Crete were having it is only reasonable that he wrote to Titus the Greek in Greek (Titus 1:4-5).
Paul the Jew wrote to the Greeks and Greek speaking Jews of Rome in Greek (Romans 10:12). Paul the Jew wrote to the Greeks and Greek speaking Jews of Corinth in Greek (1 Corinthians 1:24). Paul the Jew wrote to the Greeks and Greek speaking Jews of Galatia in Greek (Galatians 3:28). Paul the Jew wrote to the Greeks and Greek speaking Jews of Colosse in Greek (Colossians 3:11).
In like manner John the Jew wrote to the seven churches of Asia (Revelation 1:4). This included the congregation of Greeks and Greek speaking Jews at Ephesus (Revelation 1:11). For this reason, the Greek name was given for each Hebrew name that was in the revelation that John the Jew received from the Man of Truth (Revelation 9:11).
The same is true for the writings of Luke the Jew (Ohr aka The Apostle Luke). Luke wrote his Gospel for a Greek nobleman named "Theophilus" (Luke 1:1-4). ["Most excellent" is a title denoting nobility and "Theophilus" is a Greek name meaning "Friend of God".] He wrote the book of Acts for the same Greek nobleman (Acts 1:1-3). Luke the Jew accompanied Paul the Jew to Philippi when he first arrived there (Acts 16:12). Luke the Jew does not mention himself as being with Paul the Jew in the Book of Acts until Paul the Jew leaves Philippi to return to Jerusalem some eight years later (Acts 20:6-7). So Luke the Jew most likely met the Greek nobleman named "Theophilus" during the eight years he served as pastor to the Greek speaking congregation in Philippi. There can be little doubt that Luke the Jew wrote his books in Greek.
Peter the Jew (Cephas aka Simon Peter aka The Apostle Peter) also wrote to congregations in a large area where Greek was the only commonly spoken language in all of the areas (1 Peter 1:1). James also wrote to Jews scattered everywhere, which undoubtedly included those who had already came to faith in Greece, so Greek was again the only commonly spoken language he could have used to write his epistle where it could be be read by Jews across an area that stretched from India to Spain (James 1:1).
So the evidence of the Book of Truth, and especially the evidence in the Renewed Covenant itself, shows that the Renewed Covenant was originally written in Koine Greek except for the Gospel of Matthew that was originally written in Hebrew. The three witnesses of history, archeology and the Book of Truth have presented more than enough evidence to remove every reasonable doubt about what language the Renewed Covenant was written in.
So with all of this evidence that the Renewed Covenant was originally written in Koine Greek, except for the Gospel of Matthew that was originally written in Hebrew, you might be wondering why there is any debate at all about this subject. Those who insist that the Renewed Covenant was written in another language originally, especially Aramaic, at best have come to such a conclusion without really examining all of the evidence.
Many people are simply sheep who follow other people without examining things themselves. Remember, the Bereans were called more noble than others because they neither accepted nor rejected the word of Paul the Jew until they investigated what he said for themselves to see if it was true (Acts 17:11). I encourage you to look at every reference and every verse that I have included so you can know for certain the truth of what I have written.
At worst, they are purposely perpetuating a lie for reasons similar to those of the Church of the East. The Church of the East (Syriac Orthodox) has insisted that the Renewed Covenant was originally written in Syriac Aramaic because the Syriac Peshitta that they use is written in Syriac Aramaic. The Church of the East has no evidence that this is true other than the fact that they say it is true. They do this because they want people to have to come to them to supposedly gain deeper understanding of the Renewed Covenant that can only be gained by those who speak Syriac Aramaic. (As noted before there have not been any actual native speakers of Syriac Aramaic since 1400 AD.) They do this to justify doctrines that cannot be shown to exist in any other version of the Renewed Covenant. They do this because they want to assert supremacy of Syrian culture over other cultures. In short, they are saying things that they know are not true because they seek to draw disciples after themselves (Acts 20:30).
Remember that the Father of Lies (HaShatan aka Satan Aka The Devil) is the source of all lies (John 8:44). So it is no wonder that the Church of the East joined the False Church of Rome in unholy communion after Islam devastated it. Those who insist on perpetrating these lies are no better than the religious professionals of the False Church of Rome.
The truth is that it does not matter which language the Renewed Covenant was written in unless you believe what it says. The truth is that you can hear the Good News in any language and come into the House of Truth.
You come into the House of Truth when you surrender control of your life to the Man of Truth because you believe that the Father of Truth raised him from the dead (Romans 10:8-10). You come into the House of Truth when you hear the Word of Truth and believe it (Romans 10:17). You come into the House of Truth when you hear the Word of Truth in a language you understand (1 Corinthians 14:19). You do not need to learn to speak another language to come into the House of Truth because every language is spoken in the House of Truth (Revelation 5:9).
Come into the House of Truth.
Labels: Aramaic, Greece, Hebrew, History, Renewed Covenant, The Bible
posted by The House Of Truth @ January 03, 2015
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