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"The Hebrew language is the best language of all, with the richest vocabulary... If I were younger I would want to learn this language, because no one can really understand the Scriptures without it. For although the New Testament is written in Greek, it is full of Hebraisms and Hebrew expressions. It has therefore been aptly said that the Hebrews drink from the spring, the Greeks from the stream that flows from it, and the Latins from a downstream puddle." - Martin Luther
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Dr. Professor Fitzmyer responds, "So the answer to the question, “Did Jesus speak Greek?” is yes, on some occasions, but we have no real record of it. Did Jesus teach and preach in Greek? That is unlikely; . . . What languages did Jesus speak during His ministry on Earth? Of course He spoke Aramaic, since that was the common language of the people He taught. When He read from Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth, He would have read it in Hebrew."
Discovering the Language of Jesus: Hebrew or Aramaic? For the last 150 years, both popular and academic views have asserted that Jesus spoke Aramaic as his primary language of communication since supposedly Hebrew died out after the children of Israel were taken into Babylonian captivity. This view, however, is not based on the testimony of the Old Testament, the New Testament, historical sources, or Jesus’ actual words. Just which language did Jesus and his disciples speak?
In an effort to deny the importance of Yahweh's great Name, there are those who mistakenly contend that the New Testament was originally written in Greek. They assume that because the sources from which our New Testament is translated are Greek, that the names Yahweh and Yahshua as revealed in the Hebrew are missing in the New Testament and therefore unnecessary. Is this true? Here are some facts revealing why the Hebrew manuscripts of the New Testament are not extant, though clearly evident, and why worship today has strayed from the “faith once delivered.
Many scholars have come to believe that the so called, "New Testament" was originally penned in the Hebrew or Aramaic Language.
Many base an assertion that Yahweh and Yahshua are false on the assumption that Messiah and his disciples spoke Greek rather than Aramaic. If you are having problems with this, you may find the following informative:
(1) If you will go to Josephus' Antiquities 20:11:2, you will find that he confesses he had problems pronouncing the Greek language. It should be obvious that in that area Aramaic was still a prominent language during that time period, and it was spoken by Yahshua and His followers.
(2) In the earlier translations of the Bible at Acts 7:45 and Hebrews 4:8, the translators substituted the word “Jesus” rather than Joshua, showing they recognized the name to be the same. Some of the newer translations have corrected this obvious error. It should be noted that in many languages the “J” is pronounced as “Y,” making Joshua = Yahshua.
(3) In addition to these three witnesses, the Papyrus from Elephantine in Egypt written to Bagohi, governor of Judah near the time of Nehemiah, spoke of the “temple of Yahu” (abbreviated form of Yahweh) at Elephantine (The 1916 Archaeology And The Bible, by George A. Barton, p. 388)
"Did Christ use the Divine Name and titles? We are confident that he did. Christ spake in Hebrew (Acts 26:14), and there is strong evidence to suggest that the original gospels were written in that tongue. The fact that Christ spoke in Hebrew is evidenced by the words that are still retained in the text." (see Mark 5:41; 7:34, etc.). [Basically from Unger's Bible Dictionary]
As documented by historians and attested to in films such as “The Passion of the Christ”, a variant of Hebrew called Eastern Aramaic was the commonly spoken language in Galilee at the time of Yahshua. The late native Aramaic speaker, Dr. George M. Lamsa, writes:
Josephus' book on the Jewish Wars was written in Aramaic. Josephus states that even though a number of Jews had tried to learn the language of the Greeks, hardly any of them succeeded. Indeed, the teaching of Greek was forbidden by Jewish rabbis.” – Holy Bible From The Ancient Easter Text, Introduction
Over nineteen independent witnesses, including church fathers and historians such as Epiphanius, Eusebius, Origen, Clement, and Jerome, furthermore testify that it was in this common language of the day that the Apostolic Scriptures were originally written in Hebrew letters.
Aramaic manuscripts of all but several books of the Apostolic Scriptures have been preserved by the Church of the East in what is known as the "Aramaic Peshitta"; and ongoing linguistic research by leading Messianic Aramaic scholars such as Andrew Gabriel Roth [AramaicNTTruth.org], Paul Younan [Peshitta.org], Christopher Lancaster [AramaicPeshitta.com], and others, attests to the fact that these Aramaic manuscripts comprise “ the original New Testament as it would have been set down by the apostles themselves or, at a minimum, the closest to those original sources that has survived into modern times."
In the Greek translation of the Apostolic Scriptures, KYRIOS or "Lord" was substituted for both the Hebrew word, ADONAI/Master/Lord, and the Divine Name, YAHWEH. Therefore, when Yahshua is called "KYRIOS" or "Lord" in the Greek New Testament, it does not necessarily prove His deity, as the word "KYRIOS" may simply be referring to a human master. SOURCE
In what language did Yahshua speak and reveal His Name To Shaul? (Acts 26:14,15)
What was the language of the Apostles and what language did Shaul speak? (Acts 21:37; Acts 21:40; 22:2; 1:19)
Note: Aceldama is a Hebrew word, identifying "Hebrew" as the language of the apostles. The characters (letters) used to spell the full form of the Messiah's Name would not be Jesus in English, but Joshua (Yahweh-shua). Therefore the Messiah did not say, "I am Jesus.", but "I am Yahshua." (Acts 22:8, 26:14)
