Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <Yigal-Levin AT utc.edu>]

I'd have to disagree with you, Peter. The very fact that ALL of our known
early Christian writings are in Greek would show that Greek was the common
language used. My guess would be that the Semitic (i.e. Aramaic, Syriac,
Nabatean, Palmyran etc.) speaking population adopted Christianity en masse
only after it became the official religion of the Empire in the days of
Constantine, soon after which it began persecuting non-Christians. By then
(that is, 4th century), certainly for Jews, Greek represented Christianity.

Yigal


At 09:08 AM 6/26/2003 -0700, Peter Kirk wrote:
>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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Dr. Yigal Levin
Dept. of Philosophy and Religion
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
615 McCallie Avenue
Chattanooga TN 37403-2598
U.S.A.