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HEBREW
NEW TESTAMENT
 While
it can easily shown that Hebrew was a spoken language in Israel during the time
of Y'shua, there are no
Hebrew New
Testament manuscripts available today that indicate an original Hebrew
autograph. All Hebrew New Testament Bibles have either been translated
from Greek or Aramaic texts. The oldest Hebrew manuscripts, translated
into Hebrew from Greek, are dated to the 15th Century.1
Alister McGrath,
former Professor of Historical Theology at the University of Oxford, asserts
that the 1st century Jewish followers of Y'shua were faithful religious Jews
therefore also fluent in Hebrew. They only differed from contemporaries in
Judaism because of their acceptance of Y'shua as Messiah. As Christianity
grew throughout the Gentile world, Christians were completely severed from their
Jewish roots.
The original
Netzari (Nazarene) Jewish based faith fell into rapid decline due to the
Jewish-Roman wars (66-135) and the growing anti-Judaism that is best personified
by Marcion in the 2nd century. And with help from the Roman Emperor
Constantine in the 4th century the Netzarim (original followers of Y'shua) faded
quietly into an underground movement in the fifth century. Gentile based
Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, however, while
the Gospel was travelling West in Greek it was also advancing East in Aramaic.
Although Hebrew
is known as the kadosh lashon
(holy tongue), the language of most of the Tanakh (Old Testament), Aramaic is
also used in the Tanakh and was employed for Jewish commentaries and, the Talmud
(Oral law) and, numerous Jewish writings, simply because Aramaic was used widely
within the Jewish world.
Modern Hebrew
script is based on the "square" letter form, known as Ashurit (Assyrian),
developed from Aramaic script. There is little doubt that at a certain
point in history, Hebrew was displaced as the everyday spoken language of most
Jews, and that its chief successor in the Middle East was the closely related
Aramaic.
Scholars are
divided on the exact dating of that transition, a majority of scholars follow
Geiger and Dalman, that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel
as early as by the start of Israel's Hellenistic Period in the 4th century BCE.
And, from that period Hebrew began to function less as a spoken language and
more as the holy tongue. Segal, Klausner, and Ben Yehuda are notable exceptions
to this viewpoint. During the latter half of the 20th century,
accumulating archaeological evidence and linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea
Scrolls that view has been challenged. The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in
1946-1948 near Qumran, revealed a proliferation of ancient Jewish texts in
Hebrew, and far less texts in Aramaic. The Qumran scrolls may indicate that
Hebrew texts were readily understandable to the average Israeli and that the
language had evolved since Biblical times as spoken languages do.
Recent
scholarship suggests that archeology which indicates Jews were speaking Aramaic
is simply evidence of their multi-lingual society, not necessarily that Aramaic
was the primary language spoken in Israel. Clearly Hebrew and Aramaic co-existed
within Israel as spoken languages, however most scholars now date the demise of
Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman Period, or about 200 CE.
They suggest that it continued as a literary language down through Byzantine
Period from the 4th century CE. Some Hebrew linguists postulate the
survival of Hebrew as a spoken language until the Byzantine Period.
Although the
exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated, there is also plenty
evidence of a trilingual scenario within the land of Israel. Hebrew
functioned as the local mother tongue with powerful ties to Israel's history,
origins, and golden age and as the language of Israel's religion. Aramaic
functioned as the international language with the rest of the Mideast
predominately spoken in Northern Israel; and eventually Greek functioned as
another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire.
Communities of Jews (and non-Jews) immigrated to Judea from other lands and
continued to speak both Aramaic and Greek.
Judeo-Aramaic is
believed to be used in the Galilee (northern Israel), Greek is believed to have
been concentrated within the former colonies and governmental centers, and
Hebrew monolingualism continued in the southern villages of Judea.
Clearly the
Greek New Testament contains Aramaic place names and quotations, and although
the language of such Semitic glosses (and in general the language spoken by Jews
in scenes from the New Testament) is usually referred to as "Hebrew"/"Jewish" in
the text, this term often applies to Aramaic instead.
Thankfully,
since Aramaic and Hebrew are such closely related languages, Hebrew readers are
able to read the Aramaic in the Aramaic English New Testament and recognize it
according to the strength of their Hebrew vocabulary.
1 One of the
most vocal advocates for Hebrew New Testament primacy is a Karaite lecturer who
rejects Y'shua as Mashiyach but sadly asserts that a 15th century Medieval Shem
Tob manuscript is based on a Hebrew original.
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“I am Alap,
also Taw,” says the Master YHWH, Elohim; who is, and was, and is to
come, the omnipotent."
Revelation
1:8
ADDITIONAL LINKS
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