Question
What language was the Bible written in?
Analysis
At a glance
| Language | Where | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Hebrew | Nearly all of the Old Testament | Written right to left, originally with consonants only; vowel markings were added much later by the Masoretes. |
| Aramaic | Daniel 2:4–Daniel 7:28; Ezra 4:8–Ezra 6:18; Ezra 7:12–Ezra 7:26; Jeremiah 10:11; two words at Genesis 31:47 | The common language of the Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian empires, and later of Judea. |
| Greek | The whole New Testament | koine, the common Greek of the eastern Mediterranean. |
Why Aramaic appears where it does
The Aramaic sections are not scattered at random. They cluster exactly where the subject matter is imperial:
- The Aramaic in Daniel begins at the point where Babylonian court officials address the king (Daniel 2:4) and runs through the chapters most concerned with the empires.
- The Aramaic in Ezra is largely official correspondence with the Persian administration, which would naturally have been conducted and quoted in the imperial language.
- Jeremiah 10:11 is a single line addressed to the nations, in the language the nations spoke.
- Genesis 31:47 records Laban naming a heap of stones in Aramaic while Jacob names it in Hebrew, which is the point of the verse.
Greek in the New Testament
koine means "common". It was the working language of trade, administration and travel across the eastern Roman empire, which meant a letter written in Corinth could be read in Rome, Ephesus or Alexandria without translation. The New Testament writers use it at different levels: Luke and Hebrews are polished, Mark is plain and rapid, Revelation has a distinctive style that has drawn comment since antiquity.
The Old Testament was already circulating in Greek. The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures made from roughly the 3rd century BC onward, was widely used in the first century, and many New Testament quotations of the Old Testament follow its wording rather than the Hebrew. That is one ordinary reason an Old Testament quotation in the New Testament can differ slightly from the same verse in an English Old Testament translated from Hebrew.
What Jesus spoke
The evidence points to a multilingual setting, and most scholars describe it that way rather than picking a single language:
- Aramaic for everyday speech in Galilee and Judea. The Gospels preserve his actual words at several points (Mark 5:41; Mark 7:34; Mark 14:36; Mark 15:34), and they are Aramaic.
- Hebrew in the synagogue and for the scriptures; he reads from Isaiah in Luke 4:16; Luke 4:17.
- Greek at least to some degree, in a region with Greek-speaking cities and administration; his exchanges with Pilate (John 18:33–John 18:38) and with a Greek-speaking woman (Mark 7:26) are often cited here, though the texts do not name the language.
The inscription placed on the cross was written in three languages, commonly given as Hebrew (or Aramaic), Latin and Greek (John 19:20), which is itself a snapshot of the linguistic world Jesus lived in. Latin was the language of Roman administration and appears in the New Testament only as loanwords and in that inscription; no book of the Bible was written in it. The famous Latin Bible, Jerome's Vulgate, is a translation made in the late 4th century, not an original.
Why this matters for reading
Because the originals are in these languages, translation involves real choices, and the same Hebrew or Greek word can be rendered differently by different versions. That is not a flaw to hide; it is why an English reader benefits from being able to see the word behind the word, and why comparing translations is useful rather than unsettling.