[B-Greek] "The Passion" and Koine Greek and Multilingualism of Jesus

Larry Baker lbaker at accs.edu
Thu Sep 18 17:23:14 EDT 2003


At 4:11 PM -0400 9/17/03, James Jackson wrote:
>
>So I guess my question is, was Koine Greek a prevalent language spoken
in
>Israel during the first century? I realize that there were many
>Hellenistic Jews living in Israel at that time and would have spoken
Greek
>to each other. However I am not sure what language would have been
spoken
>between those of different nationalities during that time.

There's a good deal of speculation here. It is certain that Koine Greek
WAS
spoken "between those of different nationalities" in first-century
Palestine, and it was surely the dominant language in some Palestinian
communities, especially in the so-called "Decapolis" to the east of the
Sea
of Galilee, and merchants and military people must have used Greek; I
personally think that a lot of Greek was spoken in Galilee. It is a
question open to dispute whether Jesus spoke or understood Greek at all:
some list-members seem to deem it extremely unlikely while others
(myself
included) think it not at all unlikely that he did. In fact, however,
this
is a question that really lies beyond the proper scope of B-Greek, where
we
need to keep the focus on matters pertaining to the language itself and
to
Greek biblical texts.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/

The multilingualism of Jesus and the Apostles (incl. Paul) may seem on
the one hand a bit afield but on the other hand is an important reason
for the interesting linguistic deals discussed in B-Greek items!  Our
detailed interest in Biblical Koine Greek with its linguistics and
grammar is with a belief in the earliest, extant texts of the NT being
in this form of Greek, even with some issues of language of inspiration.
Then comes the query of this text, as to its being a direct record of
Jesus' words, as say with Paul, or a translation of these words of Jesus
(cf. LXX).

The GNT, as it appears, seems to quote Jesus in Greek with very
appropriate excursions into Aramaic, especially in Mark, as he went into
that language.  Many people may find tri-lingualism odd or unusually in
some cultures, even of first century AD Israel, but it is interesting to
see how a good case can be built for Greek (along with Aramiac) being
the language(s) of Jesus' home, ministry, and original record of his
words, be they Greek or Aramaic (with some understanding of the Hebrew
Tanach).  BAR has an interesting article about this in their July/Aug.,
2003, issue.

Larry N. Baker, prof. of biblical languages
American Christian College and Seminary
OKC, OK
lbaker at accs.edu    www.accs.edu 




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