[b-hebrew] Aramaic and Hebrew in the prayer book
Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk at ntlworld.com
Thu Jun 26 12:08:42 EDT 2003
Yigal Levin wrote:
>... Interesting to note that despite the fact that many
>Jews knew Greek and that many synagogue inscriptions are in Greek, it was
>Aramaic that became the common Jewish language. ... Maybe because Greek
>was identified... with Christianity...
>
<snip>
This one seems unlikely. Christians in the eastern parts of the Roman
empire and further east spoke Aramaic/Syriac, not Greek. In fact they
still do today, in Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran. There were Greek
speaking Christians in Antioch from quite early, see Acts 11:19-21, but
the Syriac speaking church seems to have been dominant in the region in
the early centuries CE.
--
Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk at ntlworld.com
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/
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