Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com>]

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/