What Language(s) Did Jesus Speak?

J. Neil Daniels

Nota Bene: A "Deep Dive" audio overview is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1y6zNepPvcKgsPeWlpM0BB-6YAFXTfeca/view?usp=drivesdk

Introduction 

If you had wandered the streets of first-century Galilee, your ears would have caught a swirling medley of voices—fishermen haggling over the morning’s catch, children yelling across dusty alleys, traders calling prices in the marketplace, scribes disputing fine points of the Law in the shaded colonnades. Beneath the noise lay a weave of languages: Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, with the occasional Latin phrase drifting from a soldier’s lips. This was no monolingual backwater. Jesus of Nazareth grew up in that tapestry, and His speech reflected it. He was not a man of just one tongue, but of several, living at the fault line of cultures.

Aramaic: The Mother Tongue

By the time of Jesus’ birth, Aramaic had been the dominant spoken language in Palestine for centuries. Its roots there stretch back to the late Assyrian period, around 720 BC, when the Assyrians forcibly relocated Aramaic-speaking populations into the Levant. The linguistic shift deepened under the Persian Empire (539–332 BC), which adopted Imperial Aramaic as its official administrative and diplomatic language from Egypt to Mesopotamia. Jews returning from Babylonian exile brought that speech home with them, and it quickly became the vernacular of Judea and Galilee.¹ The Hebrew of their ancestors increasingly retreated into liturgical and literary niches.

The Old Testament itself hints at this transition. Nehemiah 8:8 records that Ezra read from the Torah “clearly” and “gave the sense, so that they understood the reading.” Ancient Jewish tradition understood this as Ezra translating Hebrew Scripture into the language the people now understood—Aramaic.² By the intertestamental period, the everyday tongue of the Jewish people was no longer biblical Hebrew but a local form of Aramaic.

In Jesus’ day, Aramaic was so embedded in daily life that several of His utterances have been preserved in the Gospels in their original form: talitha koum (“Little girl, arise!,” Mark 5:41), abba (“Father,” Mark 14:36), ephphatha (“Be opened!,” Mark 7:34), and His cry from the cross, Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?,” Mark 15:34).³ These phrases are not Greek renderings of Hebrew but direct transliterations of Galilean Aramaic. The fact that the Evangelists often translate them into Greek for their readers tells us something important, namely that they knew their audience would not necessarily recognize the original.

Aramaic was not only the language of rural Galilee but of Jerusalem’s streets, Judea’s markets, and Israel’s homes. It was the medium of jokes, lullabies, business deals, and grief. It is no stretch to call it Jesus’ first language, the one in which He thought, prayed, and told His parables. Even in formal teaching settings, like the Sermon on the Mount, His audience would have been Aramaic-speaking locals, not Greek-speaking cosmopolitans. His idioms, metaphors, and even puns were rooted in that mother tongue.

Dialect Matters

Not all Aramaic was the same. Jesus’ speech would have been Galilean Aramaic, a dialect distinct from the Judean variety. Later rabbinic sources mock Galileans for swallowing certain consonants and confusing gutturals, which could lead to humorous misunderstandings.⁴ This may explain why bystanders at the high priest’s courtyard could identify Peter as a Galilean “by his accent” (Matt 26:73). That same distinctive sound would have marked Jesus’ voice.

Aramaic in Scripture and Worship

The dominance of Aramaic also explains the rise of the targumim—oral paraphrases of the Hebrew Scriptures into Aramaic, used in synagogues to make the readings intelligible to the congregation. These paraphrases were more than word-for-word translations; they often included explanatory expansions. Jesus would have grown up hearing such targumic renderings, and some of His own interpretive habits may reflect this tradition.

Hebrew: The Language of Scripture and Debate

If Aramaic was the language of the street, Hebrew was the language of the scroll. It had not died, it simply lived differently. Hebrew remained the medium of Scripture, law, liturgy, and, in some circles, high culture. Evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls demonstrates that Hebrew was not merely a fossilized ritual tongue but a living written language, used for theological treatises, community rules, hymns, and even sectarian polemic.⁵ At Qumran, approximately three-quarters of the manuscripts are in Hebrew rather than Aramaic.

Hebrew also had a political dimension. During the Jewish revolts against Rome, insurgents minted coins bearing Hebrew inscriptions. At Masada (AD 66–73) and during the Bar Kokhba revolt (AD 132–135), rebels used Hebrew as a symbolic reclamation of national and religious identity.⁶ The language of David and the prophets could serve as a banner of resistance.

The New Testament gives subtle but significant evidence that Jesus could speak Hebrew. Luke 4:16–22 depicts Him reading from the Isaiah scroll in a synagogue, a task that presupposes fluency in biblical Hebrew. His debates with Pharisees and scribes, many of whom (like Paul) were trained in Hebrew, would have been difficult to sustain without competence in the language.⁷ Certain terms attributed to Him—Gehenna, rabbí—bear the unmistakable stamp of Hebrew origin.

Varieties of Hebrew

Scholars now distinguish between classical biblical Hebrew and the later form known as Mishnaic or Late Hebrew. The latter, with simplified grammar and a number of Aramaic loanwords, appears in the Mishnah (compiled c. AD 200) and may well have been in spoken use in the first century. Upper-class Judeans might have preferred the more formal, classical style in public readings, while ordinary folk and some rabbis used a more colloquial register. Jesus likely could navigate both, shifting according to audience and setting.

Greek: The Lingua Franca of Empire

The third major tongue in Jesus’ Palestine was Greek the common Koine Greek that had spread across the eastern Mediterranean after Alexander the Great’s conquests in 332 BC. Under the Ptolemies and Seleucids, Greek became the language of government, trade, and culture.⁸ By the first century AD, Rome may have ruled, but Greek remained the lingua franca from Egypt to Syria.

In urban Palestine, Greek was everywhere. Archaeologists have found Greek inscriptions in synagogues, tombs, and public buildings. In Jerusalem, perhaps 10–15% of the population spoke it as their first language.⁹ Galilee, bordering the Hellenistic Decapolis, saw regular movement of Greek-speaking traders and craftsmen. Even coins from the Hasmonean period testify to the bilingual reality: Hebrew on one side, Greek on the other, a small metallic witness to cultural fusion.

Could Jesus Speak Greek?

The evidence suggests he could. Stanley Porter has identified at least seven Gospel episodes in which Jesus likely spoke Greek: conversations with a Roman centurion, the Syrophoenician woman, and Pontius Pilate among them.¹⁰ These encounters were not with bilingual Jews but with Gentiles whose working language was almost certainly Greek. In such cases, translators were possible but far from certain; direct communication is the simpler explanation.

Jesus’ trade may have reinforced this skill. As a tekton (Mark 6:3)—a craftsman or builder—he may have dealt with Greek-speaking clients, especially in nearby Sepphoris, a largely Hellenistic city just a few miles from Nazareth.¹¹ Even a modest level of Greek would have served Him well in such interactions.

The Greek of the Gospels

We should remember that the Gospels themselves were written in Greek. While this does not mean Jesus primarily taught in Greek, it does mean that all of His sayings reached us through the filter of Greek translation. In some cases, the Greek rendering preserves the structure of an underlying Semitic expression, hinting at the original Aramaic or Hebrew wording.

Latin: The Language of the Rulers

One language remains to be considered: Latin. The Romans brought it as the language of military command and imperial administration. Yet its use in Palestine was narrow, confined mostly to soldiers, governors, and a few officials. Even the inscription on the cross above Jesus’ head was written “in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek” (John 19:20), acknowledging the multilingual reality but also suggesting Latin’s limited audience. There is no evidence that Jesus Himself spoke it with any fluency. At most, He may have recognized a few military or political terms.

The Trilingual Rabbi

Putting the evidence together, Jesus was almost certainly trilingual. Aramaic was His native speech, the melody of his childhood and the idiom of most of His teaching. Hebrew was the liturgical and scholarly language He could summon for Scripture reading, theological debate, and certain public discourses. Greek was His tool for crossing cultural boundaries, whether to speak with a foreign official or to make Himself understood in the mixed populations of Galilee.

Was His Greek flawless or merely serviceable? Did he speak Hebrew often or mainly in formal settings? We cannot say with precision. Nor do we necessarily need to. But the broad contours are clear: Jesus lived in a world where multilingualism was ordinary. Even today, in modern Israel and Palestine, one may hear conversations weaving between Hebrew, Arabic, and English in a single sitting. Road signs mirror this triad; so did, in its own way, Jesus’ linguistic environment.

And that may be the richest takeaway: the words of Jesus have reached us through multiple languages not because they were diluted, but because they were rooted in a world of layered linguistic currents. To hear them with historical ears is to hear the overlapping cadences of Galilean Aramaic, the solemnity of Hebrew Scripture, and the reach of Greek communication. Each played its part in carrying His his voice “to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Endnotes

¹ Michael O. Wise, “Languages of Palestine,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, and I. Howard Marshall (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992), 433–435.

² Ibid., 437.

³ C. F. Burney, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1922); Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1946); C. C. Torrey, The Four Gospels: A New Translation (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1958); Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology, vol. 1 (London: SCM Press; New York: Scribner’s, 1971).

⁴ Shmuel Safrai, “Spoken and Literary Languages in the Time of Jesus,” in Jesus’ Last Week: Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels, ed. R. Steven Notley, Marc Turnage, and Brian Becker (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 225–240.

⁵ Wise, “Languages of Palestine,” 436–437.

⁶ Ibid.

⁷ Michael O. Wise, “Languages of Palestine,” 433–435.

⁸ Wise, “Languages in Palestine,” 439.

⁹ Martin Hengel with C. Markschies, The ‘Hellenization’ of Judaea in the First Century after Christ, trans. J. Bowden (London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989), 10.

¹⁰ Stanley E. Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 158.

¹¹ Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity, 126–237.

For Further Study

Buth, Randall. “Language Use in the First Century: Spoken Hebrew in a Trilingual Society in the Time of Jesus.” In The Language Environment of First Century Judaea, edited by Randall Buth and R. Steven Notley, 190–210. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

Casey, Maurice. Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1998.

Emerton,  J. A. “Did Jesus Speak Hebrew?,” Journal of Theological Studies 12 (1961) 189–202.

Fitzmyer, Joseph A. A Wandering Aramean: Collected Aramaic Essays. Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series 25. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1979.

Graves, M. “Languages of Palestine,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, 2nd ed., edited Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, and Nicholas Perrin, 484–92. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2013.

Hengel, Martin. The “Hellenization” of Judaea in the First Century after Christ. Translated by John Bowden. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989.

Hughes, Philip Edgcumbe. “The Languages Spoken by Jesus,” New Dimensions in New Testament Study, edited R. N. Longenecker and M. C. Tenney, 127–43. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974.

Porter, Stanley E. “Did Jesus Ever Teach in Greek?” Tyndale Bulletin 44.2 (1993): 199–235.

Rabin, Chaim. “Hebrew and Aramaic in the First Century.” In The Jewish People in the First Century: Historical Geography, Political History, Social, Cultural and Religious Life and Institutions, edited by Shmuel Safrai and Menahem Stern, 1007–39. 2 vols. Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974.

Safrai, Shmuel. “Spoken and Literary Languages in the Time of Jesus.” In Jesus’ Last Week: Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic Gospels, edited by R. Steven Notley, Marc Turnage, and Brian Becker, 225–40. Leiden: Brill, 2006.

Tresham, Aaron. "The Languages Spoken by Jesus." The Master's Seminary Journal 20.1 (Spring 2009): 71–94.

Wise, Michael O. “Languages of Palestine,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, I. Howard Marshall, 433–35. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1992.