Harold,
I am not interested in lists of scholar names, I thought I already mentioned
that.
HH: Here is an article that gives lots of varied
evidence in favor on a widespread, ongoing spoken
use of Hebrew in the first century. I cut out a
bit of argumentation based on the NT that I
thought was flawed. I start with the concluding
words about Aramaic:
http://articles.jerusalemperspective.com/articles/DisplayArticle.aspx?ArticleID=1604
Spoken Languages in the Time of Jesus
by
Shmuel Safrai
However, the role of Aramaic in everyday life
should not be exaggerated. Many scholars who
admit the widespread use of Hebrew in the last
few generations of the Second Temple period claim
that Temple services were conducted in Aramaic.
While there were a number of Aramaic words and
phrases associated with the administration of the
Temple and Temple area, the vast majority of
references relating to Temple life reflect the
use of Hebrew there. The Mishnah preserves many
descriptions of various aspects of everyday life
in the Temple, including statements of Temple
officials which almost always are in Hebrew.
Moreover, to date all of the inscriptions found
in the Temple area are written in Hebrew, except
for two Greek inscriptions, originally part of a
balustrade surrounding the inner Temple, which
warned Gentiles not to go beyond that point.
Tannaic and amoraic sources state that it was
customary in the synagogue to translate the
readings from the Torah and the Prophets into
Aramaic. Rendering the Scriptures into Aramaic
offered an opportunity to introduce into the
readings elements of the Oral Torah in popular
form. This was done for the benefit of
religiously uneducated people who may not have
completely understood Biblical Hebrew. One
rabbinic source explicitly states: "and he
translates [into Aramaic] so that the rest of the
people, and the women and children, will
understand it" (Tractate Soferim 18:4).
However, the custom of translating the readings
of the Torah and Prophets into Aramaic is not
mentioned in any source before approximately 140
C.E. Sources from the second Temple period and
the era immediately following the destruction of
the Temple do not reflect this custom. The
phenomenon of sages understanding Biblical Hebrew
while the rest of the population required a
translation is the reality of a later period and
was not the situation during the first century
C.E.
Mishnaic Hebrew
Either Hebrew or Aramaic was used in the
synagogue or at other communal gatherings, but
there are a number of questions concerning the
relationship of these two languages in the land
of Israel. The Torah and Prophets were
undoubtedly read in Hebrew, as were prayers, but
what was the language of Torah instruction in the
synagogue? In what language did people speak in
the marketplace and within the family circle? In
which tongue did the sages address their
students? Was there a difference between Judea
and Galilee?
Most scholars since the beginning of the
nineteenth century have concluded that Aramaic
was the spoken language of the land of Israel
during the Second Temple period. Even when
scribes of that period or later attest that they
wrote or transmitted traditions in Hebrew,
scholars have persisted in claiming that this
"Hebrew" was actually some type of Aramaic
dialect then prevalent among the Jews of the
land. It has even been claimed that the Hebrew in
which the Mishnah was written was an artificial
language of the bet midrash, house of study,
which was a translation from Aramaic, or at the
very least heavily influenced by Aramaic.
However, some seventy years ago a number of
Jewish scholars in Palestine (later the State of
Israel) began to see that the Hebrew of the
Mishnah had been a living and vibrant language,
spoken in the house of study, synagogue, on the
street and at home. Mishnaic Hebrew does not deal
only with matters of religion, but mentions, for
instance, the names of dozens of implements used
at the time, and records thousands of events and
sayings about mundane, secular aspects of life.
Other studies have shown that Mishnaic Hebrew is
significantly different from Biblical Hebrew in
vocabulary, grammar and syntax. As the
mid-third-century B.C.E. sage Rabbi Yochanan put
it: "The language of the Torah unto itself, the
language of the sages unto itself" (Babylonian
Talmud, Avodah Zarah 58b). Mishnaic Hebrew was an
independent dialect and existed together with
Biblical Hebrew, the latter being the language in
which the Torah was read, the former the language
of conversation, prayer and the Oral Torah.
Mishnaic Hebrew differs from Biblical Hebrew, but
not because it was translated from Aramaic as
some scholars have thought. Rather it is the
result of independent linguistic and historical
developments related to the Hebrew language
itself in the Second Temple period.
Samaritan commentaries and translations of the
Scriptures have preserved traces of Mishnaic
Hebrew. The language of Christians in the land of
Israel, particularly those living in the southern
part of the land, also shows the impact of
Mishnaic Hebrew. These Christians continued to
write in Aramaic until at least the sixth
century, and their Aramaic was greatly influenced
by Mishnaic Hebrew, but not at all by Biblical
Hebrew.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the
documents from the period of the Bar-Kochba
revolt (132-135 C.E.) conclusively settled the
question of whether Mishnaic Hebrew had been an
artificial or a living language. Hymns, prayers
and biblical works written in Hebrew were
discovered, as well as documents composed in the
Mishnaic Hebrew dialect. Among them were letters
containing Hebrew slang and abbreviated Hebrew
forms characteristic of everyday speech. These
discoveries prompted the biblical scholar J.T.
Milik to conclude:
"The thesis of such scholars as Segal, Ben-Yehuda
and Klausner that Mishnaic Hebrew was a language
spoken by the population of Judea in the Persian
and Græco-Roman periods can no longer be
considered an assumption, but rather an
established fact" (Discoveries in the Judaean
Desert [Oxford University Press, 1961], 2:70).
Rabbinic Literature
When the Jewish writers of the Second Temple
period referred to Hebrew, they meant Hebrew and
not Aramaic. They did not confuse the two
languages, but distinguished quite clearly
between Hebrew and Aramaic, referring to the
latter either as "Aramaic," "targum" or "Syriac"
(sursit).
The sages also clearly differentiated between the
Hebrew and Aramaic sections of the Bible. The
Mishnah states:
The Aramaic passages in Ezra and Daniel render
the hands unclean. If any of these passages were
written in Hebrew, or if passages from the Hebrew
Scriptures were written in Aramaic they do not
render the hands unclean. (Mishnah, Yadayim 4:5)
Rabbi Yochanan of Beth Guvrin is likewise quite
clear in distinguishing among different languages:
There are four languages which are fitting to be
used by all. And they are: Greek for song, Latin
for combat, Aramaic for dirges and Hebrew for
conversation. (Jerusalem Talmud, Megillah 71b)
The Tosefta gives a further rabbinic ruling:
One cannot fulfill the obligation of reading from
the Torah scroll unless the text is written in
square script in Hebrew and in a book [some
manuscripts read "on parchment"] and in ink.
(Tosefta, Megillah 2:6)
In other words, the Torah scroll must be written
in square Hebrew script and not in the old
archaic Hebrew script, nor in Aramaic.
In Midrash Tanhuma we again find an example of
the distinction the sages made between Hebrew and
Aramaic:
Rabbi Yehudah ha-Levi son of Shalom [said]: "In
Hebrew it is called yayin, wine and in Aramaic
hamar, wine." (Shemini 5 [ed. Buber, p. 13b])
The Writings of Josephus
Josephus' references to the "language of the
Hebrews" also indicates the Hebrew language. In
his introduction to The Jewish Antiquities he
states: "For it [his book] will embrace our
entire ancient history and political
constitution, translated from the Hebrew records"
(Antiquities 1:5). The Hebrew records he refers
to are the Bible.
In his discussion of creation and the Sabbath he
states: "For which reason we also pass this day
in repose from toil and call it Sabbath, a word
which in the Hebrew language means 'rest'"
(Antiquities 1:33). This makes sense only if
Hebrew and not Aramaic is intended because in
Aramaic the root n-u-h, rather than sh-b-t, is
used for "to rest."
II Kings 18 tells of the Assyrian general
Rabshakeh's advance on Jerusalem and his attempt
to persuade the beleaguered inhabitants of the
city to surrender. The leaders of Jerusalem
requested that he speak Aramaic and "not the
language of Judea" so that the rest of the city's
inhabitants would not understand (v. 26).
Josephus relates the story in the following
manner:
As Rabshakeh spoke these words in Hebrew, with
which language he was familiar, Eliakim was
afraid that the people might overhear them and be
thrown into consternation, and he asked him to
speak in suristi, [Syriac, i.e., Aramaic].
(Antiquities 10:8)
The language of the Jews and of the Bible is
clearly Hebrew according to Josephus, while
Aramaic is called Syriac, as is often the case in
rabbinic literature.
In his The Jewish War, Josephus states that in
order to deliver Titus' message and persuade the
inhabitants of Jerusalem to surrender, he
approached the walls of Jerusalem. Since Josephus
wanted not only John of Gischala to understand,
but also the entire population, he delivered the
message in Hebrew (War 6:96). It would seem,
therefore, that Hebrew was commonly spoken and
understood in Jerusalem in 70 C.E.
Josephus sometimes discusses the etymology of an
Aramaic word without explicitly saying that it is
Aramaic. For instance, he remarks about one
Aramaic word that "we learned it from the
Babylonians" (Antiquities 3:156). He never once
states that an Aramaic word was Hebrew. On the
other hand, when speaking of the year of Jubilee,
Josephus mentions that "the fiftieth year is
called by the Hebrews iobelos" (Antiquities
3:282). Iobelos is a Greek transliteration of the
Hebrew word yovel.
Galilee and Judea
There is an oft-repeated claim in scholarly
literature that a high percentage of the Galilean
population was religiously uneducated, and that
the people consequently knew and used less
Hebrew. Literary sources, however, provide no
indication that this claim is correct.
There are a number of "anti-Galilee" statements
in rabbinic literature, but one can find similar
barbs directed against residents of other regions
of the land. What the sources do indicate is that
Galilee belonged to the accepted cultural milieu
of Judaism at that time, including the world of
Torah study, and that culturally and spiritually
Galilee may have been closer to Jerusalem than
Judea.
There is a statement in rabbinic literature that
the Judeans retained the teachings of their Torah
scholars because they were careful in the use of
their language, while the Galileans, who were not
so careful with their speech, did not retain
their learning (Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 53a-b;
Jerusalem Talmud, Berachot 4d, et al.). While
this saying is sometimes considered to be
evidence for the dominance of Aramaic over Hebrew
in the Galilee because some of the examples
discussed are in Aramaic, it actually only refers
to the Judeans' feeling that Galileans
mispronounced the guttural letters het and 'ayin
and dropped the weak letters 'alef and hey. This
in no way reflects on the cultural status of
Galilee, nor does it show that the use of Hebrew
was less common there than in Judea or Jerusalem.
The New Testament
When Paul spoke to the Roman commander, he used
Greek (Acts 21:37). When he addressed the people,
however, he spoke to them "in the Hebrew
language" (Acts 21:40).
Hebrew-speakers commonly referred to Jews as
yisrael, Israel, in contrast to Ioudaioi, Jews
used by Greek speakers and yehuda'in, Jews used
by Aramaic-speakers. In literary works written in
Hebrew, Jews refer to themselves as yisrael,
Israel or bene yisrael, sons of Israel, while
non-Jews refer to Jews using the Aramaicized
yehuda'in, Jews.
When the author of the Book of Acts refers to
Jews he normally uses the term Ioudaioi, Jews.
However, when he relates the words of Jesus or of
Peter and his companions, he has them refer to
Jews as yisrael, Israel (Acts 1:6; 2:22; 2:36;
3:12; 4:10; 9:15). The author of the Book of Acts
also relates that Rabban Gamaliel addressed the
Sanhedrin as "Men of Israel" (5:35).
Jesus probably spoke Hebrew within the circle of
his disciples, and since the thousands of
parables which have survived in rabbinic
literature are all in Hebrew, no doubt he
likewise told his parables in Hebrew.
The view that Aramaic was the language of
conversation in first-century Israel seems to be
supported by the Aramaic words found in the New
Testament. Many scholars have seen Jesus' words
to Jairus' twelve-year-old daughter, "Talitha
kumi" (Mk. 5:41), as proof that he spoke Aramaic.
Yet, even if Jesus spoke to her in Hebrew, he
could have said "Talitha kumi." One must not
forget that many Aramaic words in various forms
found their way into Hebrew in the Second Temple
period. The command to "get up" kumi is the same
word in Hebrew and Aramaic.
Conclusion
Hebrew was certainly the language of instruction
in schools, as well as the language of prayer and
Torah reading. The language of instruction in the
house of study also most certainly was Hebrew,
and this was likely the case regarding
instruction in the synagogue. It would seem that
Hebrew was spoken in the marketplaces of
Jerusalem (Jerusalem Talmud, Pesahim 37d), but
there is not enough information to determine
whether this also was the case in other cities.
It is not impossible that there were religiously
uneducated people who did not understand Hebrew
and were conversant only in Aramaic. There is
some evidence for this linguistic phenomenon
beginning in the second century C.E., but it is
unlikely that such was the case in the first
century.
Although the Jewish inhabitants of the land of
Israel in the time of Jesus knew Aramaic and used
it in their contacts with the ordinary,
non-Jewish residents, Hebrew was their first or
native language. It is especially clear that in
enlightened circles such as those of Jesus and
his disciples, Hebrew was the dominant spoken
language.