THE LANGUAGES OF PALESTINE IN THE

FIRST CENTURY A.D.*

With the deportation of Palestinian Jews to Babylonia in the early sixth
century B.C. there began a gradual but distinctive shift in the language-habits
of the people of Palestine. What had been known as sepat Kenafan, "the language of Canaan" (Is 19,18) or Yehdt, "the language of Judah" (2 Kgs
18,26.28; Is 36,11.13), or what is often called today classical Hebrew of the
pre-exilic period, gave way at first to a more Aramaicized form of the language. 1 Though the two languages, Hebrew and Aramaic, had co-existed for
* Presidential address delivered at the thirty-third general meeting of the Catholic
Biblical Association of America, held at Our Lady of the Angels Seminary, Albany,
New York, 21 August 1970.
In addition to the usual abbreviations used in the CBQ, note the following:
ANL Accademia nazionale dei Lincei
AP . . Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. (Oxford: Clarendon,
1923).
CU J.-B. Frey, Corpus inscriptionum judaicarum
CIL Corpus inscriptionum latinarum
CSEL Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum
DJD Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (of Jordan)
Gabba E. Gabba, Iscrizioni greche e latine per lo studio della Bibbia (Sintesi dell'
oriente e della Bibbia, 3 ; Turin : Marietti, 1958).
GCS Griechische christliche Schriftsteller
JPOS Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society
JRS Journal of Roman Studies
LCL Loeb Classical Library
NovTSup Novum Testamenturn Supplements
NT C. K. Barrett, The New Testament Background: Selected Documents (New
York: Harper, 1961).
O GS W. Dittenberger, Orientis groe ci inscriptiones selectae
OLZ Orientalistische Literaturseitung
PEFQS Palestine Exploration Fund, Quarterly Statement
REJ Revue des tudes juives
RevArch Revue archologique
SEG Supplementum epigraphicum graecum
SPAW Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
TGI . Galling, Textbuch zur Geschichte Israels
1
Evidence of this can be found in the Aramaisms in Biblical Hebrew. Recent dis
cussion of the problem can be found in M. Wagner, Die lexikalischen und gram
matikalischen Aramaismen im alttestamentlichen Hebrisch (BZAIV 96; Berlin:
Tpelmann, 1966). See also A. Hurvitz, "The Chronological Significance of 'Aramaisms' in Biblical Hebrew," IEJ 18 (1968) 234-40. Cf. also the older discussions of
A. Kropat, Die Syntax des Autors der Chronik verglichen mit der seiner Quellen
{BZAW 16; Berlin: Tpelmann, 1906); E. Kautzsch, Die Aramaismen im Alten
501

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several centuries in the Near East before this, Aramaic became the more
important of the two, serving as the lingua franca during the latter part of
the Neo-Assyrian empire and during the Persian period. Hebrew is usually
regarded today as the more important of the two languages, because it is
the tongue of the bulk of the Old Testament. And yet, historically it was
restricted to a small area on the south-eastern coast of the Mediterranean,
whereas Official or Imperial Aramaic was used across a major portion of the
Near Eastern world, from Egypt to Asia Minor to Pakistan. Indeed, it
gradually supplanted Hebrew in most of Palestine itself as the common
tongue.2
With the conquest of the East by Alexander a new linguistic influence
was felt in Palestine. Even prior to the golden age of Greece, its culture
had been influencing the eastern Mediterranean world, and Palestine was
affected. But the extent to which the Greek language was advancing into the
area at an early period is not easy to say. The evidence for the use of Greek
in Palestine prior to the end of the third century B.C. is very sparse indeed,3
the oldest extant Greek inscription dating from only 217 B.C.
Hebrew did not wholly disappear from Palestine, either when Aramaic
had become the more common language or when Palestinian Jews gradually
began to use Greek. The composition of Daniel and of Ben Sira is an indication of the continued use of it.4 Though these compositions may point to a
learned and literary use of the language, it would be oversimplified to regard
it as only that. There were areas or pockets in Palestine, and perhaps even
strata of society, where Hebrew continued as a spoken language too. It is
Testament (Halle : M. Niemeyer, 1902) ; J. Courtenay James, The Language of Palestine and Adjacent Regions (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1920) [to be used with
caution].
2
Neh 8,8 may be hinting at this situation. The interpretation of the participle
meprs is quite disputed. Does it mean "clearly" ( R S V ) ? Or "with interpretation"
( R S V margin)? Cf. Ezra 4,18, where it occurs in a context suggesting translation;
but also Ezra 4,7, which uses mHurgm explicitly for this idea. For a recent discussion
of the verse and its meaning, see R. Le Daut, Introduction la littrature
targumique:
Premire partie ( R o m e : Biblical Institute, 1966), p. 29.
3 See . Lifshitz, "Beitrge zur palstinischen Epigraphik," ZDPV 78 (1962) 64-88,
esp. 82-84 ( + pl. 10).
4
This evidence depends on the usual interpretation of Sir 50,27, that "Joshua ben
Sira ben Eleazar, of Jerusalem" composed his book in Palestine ca. 180 B.C., and that
the book of Daniel took its final protocanonical form there within a short time after
the Maccabean revolt, ca. 165 B.C. Parts of Daniel, however, especially the Aramaic
stones about the hero at the Persian court, may well be older, as some scholars have
argued. For an important discussion of this view, see K. A. Kitchen, "The Aramaic of
Daniel," Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel (London: Tyndale, 1965)
31-79. If this is so, it makes little difference to the issue being discussed here.

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often thought that an effort was made to resurrect it (if that is the proper
term) at the time of the Maccabean revolt and that the use of Hebrew became
a token of one's loyalty to the national effort.5 If the origins of the Qumrn
Essene community are rightly related to the aftermath of that revolt, this
may explain why the majority of the Qumrn texts discovered to date were
written in Hebrew and composed at a time when most Palestinian Jews were
thought to be speaking Aramaic. These texts, of course, do not tell us how
much Hebrew was spoken among the Essenes, because they bear witness
only to what is called a "neo-classical Hebrew," a form of the language that
may be only literary. But in any case, the use of Hebrew for such compositions did not exclude the use of Aramaic; the latter is also found in the
Qumrn fragments, but not to the same extent as the Hebrew. The few
fragments of the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament were also
found in Qumrn Cave I V ; they suggest that at least some of the community were reading Greek, and probably speaking it.6 The relative paucity
of the Greek texts in comparison with the Hebrew and Aramaic is noteworthy.
With the advent of the Romans in 63 B.C. and the conquest of Pompey,
Latin too was introduced into the area. Again, the evidence for its early use
is exceedingly sparse.7 Yet it must be considered among the languages of
Palestine at the beginning of the Christian era.
This very brief historical sketch provides the background for the use of
four languages in Palestine about the time when Christianity emerged. The
complex linguistic picture that they created is not easy to draw. Yet that
complexity bears on a number of problems in the interpretation of the New
Testament and of intertestamental writings. It bears too on the use and
5

See J. T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (Studies in

Biblical Theology, 1/26; London: SCM, 1959) 130.
6
See P. W. Skehan, "The Qumran Manuscripts and Textual Criticism," Congress
Volume, Strasbourg 1956 (VTSup 4; Leiden: Brill, 1957), pp. 148-60, esp. 155-57
(4Q LXX Nm [3:40-42[ 4:6-9]; 4Q LXX Lev* [26:2-16]). See also the Greek
papyrus fragments discovered in Qumrn Cave VII, where apparently nothing but
Greek was found (M. Baillet, et al., Les 'Petites Grottes' de Qumran [DJD 3; Oxford :
Clarendon, 1962], 142-47. They have been dated by C. H. Roberts to ca. 100-50 B.C.
7QI is a fragment of Ex 28,4-7; 7Q2 is a fragment of the Letter of Jeremy ( w . 43-44).
For the questionable view that the Aramaic texts of Qumrn are of non-Essene origin,
see S. Segert, JSS 13 (1968) 282.P. W. Skehan informs me that there are also three
pieces of non-Biblical Greek texts in Cave IV; they are as yet unpublished, but are
apparently of literary and liturgical character.
7
The earliest Latin texts from Palestine that I have been able to uncover are all
dated to the first century A.D. L. Radman (The Coins of Caesarea Maritima [Jerusalem: Schocken, 1957]) lists no coins from Caesarea with Latin inscriptions before
the time of Domitian.

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interpretation of the targums. My topic is one that has been discussed many
times over during the last century and the opinions expressed have often
been in favor of one language over another ; the topic is vast and my treatment here can only hope to survey it without going into great detail.
In speaking of first-century Palestine, I would like to include the first part
of the second century too, up to the time of the Second Revolt against Rome
(A.D. 132-135), since this marks a logical cut-off point in the history of
Palestine and is often regarded as the end of the New Testament era. The
sources that I shall be using in this discussion will be both literary and
epigraphic.
I. Latin
I shall begin with the latest language to appear on the scene and work
back to the oldest. The evidence of Latin in first-century Palestine indicates
that it was used mainly by the Romans who occupied the land and for more
or less official purposes. Thus there are dedicatory inscriptions on buildings
and aqueducts, funerary inscriptions on tombstones of Roman legionnaires
who died in Palestine, milestones on Roman roads with Latin inscriptions,8
and the ubiquitous Roman terra-cotta tiles stamped with various abbreviations of the Tenth Legion, the Legio decima fretensis (LX, LXF, LXFRE,
LEXFR, LCXF, LEG X F ) . 9
Two of the most interesting Latin inscriptions have only recently come
to light and both of them are from Caesarea Maritima, the town rebuilt by
Herod the Great between 22 and 9 B.C. in honor of Augustus, which eventually became the seat of the Roman governor. Tacitus called it caput
Iudaeae (Hist. 2.78,10). One of the inscriptions comes from the architrave
of a building in Caesarea and partly preserves the name of the Roman
colony established by the emperor Vespasian. It reads :10
8 M. Avi-Yonah, "The Development of the Roman Road System in Palestine," IEJ
1 (1950-51) 54-60. Some of the milestones were erected in both Latin and Greek; see
B. Lifshitz, Latomus 19 (1960) 111 ( + pi. IV). Cf. Anne pigraphique 1925, #95;
1927, #151 ; 1948, #142.
9
The Tenth Legion was transferred from northern Syria to Palestine (Ptolemais)
by Nero, who put it under the command of Vespasian. See D. Barag, "Brick StampImpressions of the Legio X Fretensis," E. L. Sukenik Memorial Volume (1899-1953)
(Eretz-Israel 8; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1967) 168-82 [Hebrew;
English summary, p. 73*]. This article has an ample bibliography on the subject.
10
A. Negev, "Caesarea Martima," Christian Nezvs from Israel 11/4 (1960) 17-22;
"New Inscriptions from the High Level Aqueduct of Caesarea," Yediot 30 (1966)
135-41 [Hebrew]. Cf. . Litshitz, "Inscriptions latines de Cesaree (Caesarea Pales-

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[COLONIAE] PRIMAE FL(aviae) AVG(vstae) [Caesareae ?]

[CLEOPATRA MATER EIVS HOC F(ieri) I(vssit)
The other is the now famous fragment of a dedicatory inscription on a building, the Tiberieum, that Pontius Pilate erected in honor of the emperor
Tiberius. It reads r11
[Tl(berio) CAES(are) AVG(vsto) V CO(n)]S(vle) TIBERIEVM
[
PO]NTIVS PILATVS
[
PRAEF] ECTVS IVDA [EA] E
[
]'[
]
This inscription thus attests the official use of Latin in Palestine, prior to
A.D. 36, the year of Pilate's recall to Rome. It also records the historical
presence of Pilate in Judea, a fact scarcely doubted,12 but never before attinae)" Latomus 22 (1963) 783-84; Anne pigraphique 1964, #188; . Zangemeister,
"Inschrift der vespasianischen Colonie Caesarea in Palstina," ZDPV 13 (1890) 25-30.
11
This fragmentary inscription was found in the northern part of the orchestra of
the Roman theatre of Caesarea. In the fourth century the stone was used as part of a
small stairway which was then being constructed; the stairway was obviously more
important than the memory of the man mentioned on the stone. See A. Frova, "L'iscrizione di Ponzio Pilato a Cesarea," Rendiconti dell'istituto lombardo, Accademia di
scienze e lettere, ci. di lettere, 95 (1961) 419-34. Also J. Vardaman, "A New Inscription
Which Mentions Pilate as 'Prefect,'" JBL 81 (1962) 70-71; B. Lifshitz, Latomus 22
(1963) 783; J. H. Gauze, Ecclesia 174 (1963) 137; A. Calderini, "L'inscription de
Ponce Pilate Cesaree," BTS 57 (1963) 8-19; A. Degrassi, "Sull'iscrizione di Ponzio
Pilato," ANL Rendiconti, ci. di se. morali, 8/19 (1964), fase. 3-4, 59-65; E. Stauffer,
"Die Pilatusinschrift von Caesarea," Erlangen Universittsreden 12 (1965) [Erlangen:
Palm und Enke, 1966] ; L. A. Yelnitzky, "The Caesarea Inscription of Pontius Pilate
and Its Historical Significance," Vestnik drevnei istorii 3 (93, 1965) 142-46 [Russian] ;
C. Brusa Gerra, "Le iscrizioni," Scavi di Caesarea Maritima (Milan: Istituto lombardo, 1965) 217-20; . . Sherwin-White, Review of A. Frova, "L'iscrizione
JRS 54 (1964) 258-59.
Various attempts have been made to restore line 1: (a) Frova: [CAESARIEN]S(ibus)Pilate would have dedicated the Tiberieum to the citizens of Caesarea; (b)
Lifshitz: [TIB(erio) CAES (are) AVG(vsto) V? CON] S (vie)the date of the
inscription in Tiberius'fifth(?) consulate; (e) Degrassi: DIS AVGVSTI] SPilate
dedicates the building to Augustus and Livia, who were considered theoi sebastoi in
the east.
The name Tiberieum is not attested elsewhere, but it is similar to Hadrianeum (RB
4 [1895] 75-76), Kaisareion, and Agrippeion (Josephus, JW 1.21,1 #402). The accent
in the fourth line was probably over an E (possibly [D][DICAVIT] or [D][DIT]
or [F][CIT].
12 Josephus mentions him (Ant. 18.2,2 #35; 18.3,1-3 #55-64; 18.4,1-2 #87-89; 18.6,5
#177), as does also Philo (Embassy to Gaius 38, #299-305). Cf. Mk 15,1-44; Mt 27,
2-65; Lk 3,1; 13,1; 23,1-52; Jn 18,29-38; 19,1-38; Acts 3,13; 4,27; 13,28; 1 Tm
6,13. Cf. F. Morison [ = A. H. Ross], And Pilate SaidA New Study of the Roman
Procurator (New York: Scribner, 1940) ; Paul L. Maier, Pontius Pilate (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1968).

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tested epigraphically. Finally, it confirms the suggestion made by Roman

historians that Pilate's official title was not procurator,13 but rather
praefectus.1*
Such Latin inscriptions as these illustrate the information supplied by
Josephus who tells us that prohibitions forbidding non-Jews to enter the
inner courts of the Jerusalem temple were erected along the stone balustrades
surrounding them, "some in Greek, and some in Latin characters" (hai men
1
hellnikois, hai de romakois grammasin) . Though exemplars of this
16
warning have been found in Greek, none has yet turned up in Latin. Such
a prohibition carrying the death penalty would understandably be erected in
Greek and Latin to warn foreign visitors little acquainted with the Semitic
languages. But one cannot restrict the understanding of them to foreigners
alone. Josephus also mentions decrees of Caesar concerning the Jews which
17
were formulated in Latin as well as in Greek.
All of this makes intelligible the action of Pilate recorded in the Fourth
Gospel, 18 writing the official title on Jesus' cross rmaisti, "in Latin," as
well as hebt'disti and h ellenisti ( Jn 19,20).
This evidence points to an official use of Latin in Palestine by Romans
which might have been expected. From the period between the two revolts
there are four (or five) fragmentary papyrus Latin texts which were found
*3 As Tacitus entitled him proleptically (Annales 15.44,2) ; cf. Tertulian, Apologeticum 21:18, "Pontio Pilato Syriam tunc ex parte romana procuranti" (CSEL 69.
57) ; Philo, Embassy to Gaius 38 #299, Pilatos en ton hyparchn epitropos apodedeigmenos tes Ioudaias. Philo's text may well reflect the shift in title that apparently took
place about the time of the emperor Claudius (ca. A.D. 46).
14
See O. Hirschfeld, Die kaiserlichen Verwaltungsbeamten bis auf Diocletian (2nd
ed.; Berlin: Wiedman, 1905), pp. 382-83; . . Sherwin-White, "Procurator Augusti,"
Paper of the British School at Rome 15 (1939) 11-26; Society and Roman Law in the
New Testament (Sarum Lectures, 1960-61; Oxford: Clarendon, 1963), 6, 12; . . M.
Jones, "Procurators and Prefects in the Early Principate," Studies in Roman Govern
ment and Law (Oxford: Blackwell, 1960), 115-25; E. Schrer, A History of the
Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ (6 vols. ; Edinburgh : T. and T. Clark) 1/2
(1905) 45; H. G. Pflaum, Les procurateurs questres sous le haut-empire romain
(Paris: Maisonneuve, 1950) 23-25.
15
"Proceeding across this [open court] towards the second court of the temple,
one found it surrounded by a stone balustrade, three cubits high and of exquisite
workmanship; in this at regular intervals stood slabs giving warning, some in Greek,
others in Latin characters, of the law of purification, to wit that no foreigner was permitted to enter the holy place" (JW 5.5,2 #193-94). Cf. Ant. 15.11,5 #417; Philo,
Embassy to Gaius, 31 #212; Acts 21,26-30.
16 See below, pp. 512-13.
17 Ant. 14.10,2 #191.
*8 A similar notice is also found in some MSS of Lk 23,38 (S*,C,A,D,W, the Koine
tradition, etc.) ; but it is undoubtedly due to scribal harmonization.

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in the caves of Murabba't. Though they are so fragmentary that one cannot
be certain about their contents, yet one of them (Mur 158) seems to have
been an official, archival copy of a document belonging to the Roman invaders. 19 Part of a Roman name is preserved on it, C. Julius R[
].
There are also a few funerary inscriptions, one of them marking the
burial of a Roman soldier of the Tenth Legion, Lucius Magniu[s] Felix. 20
From the same period come other Latin inscriptions too, e.g., one belonging
to a monument, possibly an altar, dedicated to Jupiter Sarapis and found in
Jerusalem itself. It is dated to the year A.D. 116, and invokes Jupiter for
the health and victory of the emperor Trajan. 21
Such evidence is precious, indeed, because it is not abundant. It says,
however, little about the amount of Latin that might have been spoken in
Palestine by the indigenous population, despite the long time since the
Roman occupation began in 63 B.C.22 But one reason for this is that Greek
was still a common means of communication not only between Romans in
the provinces, but also between the capital and the provinces. Greek was
still more or less the lingua franca in the Near East.
II. Greek
Greek culture had been increasingly affecting the Jews of Palestine for
some time prior to the conquest of Alexander. 23 The influence of this culture
i See P. Benoit, J. T. Milik, R. de Vaux, Les grottes de Murabbaft (DJD 2;
Oxford: Clarendon, 1961), pp. 270-74 (Mur 158-63).
20 CIL 3.14155:3; Thomsen #178 (cf. G. Jeffery, PEFQS 29 [1898] 35).
21 CIL 2.13587; Thomsen #1 (cf. F. J. Bliss, PEFQS 26 [1895] 25). For other
Latin inscriptions of this period, see Thomsen #92, 237; Anne pigraphique 1927,
#151; . Vilnay, PEFQS 1928, 45-47 (cf. D. Barag, IEJ 14 [1964] 250-52), 108-9;
A. Negev, IEJ 14 (1964) 237-49, esp. 244-48; Y. Yadin, IEJ 15 (1965) 1-120, esp.
110.
22
See T. Frankfort, "Prsence de Rome en Isral," Latomus 19 (1960) 708-23.
23
D. Auscher, "Les relations entre la Grce et la Palestine avant le conqute
d'Alexandre," VT 17 (1967) 8-30. Auscher's evidence consists of three things: (a)
the remains of Greek pottery in Palestine ; (b) Greek coins and Palestinian imitations
of them; (c) the problematic Proto-Ionie pillar capitals. Cf. . A. Kitchen, "The
Aramaic of Daniel," 44-50. Kitchen amasses all sorts of evidence for Greek influence
in the Near East from the eighth century on: Greek pottery in many places, Greek
mercenaries, Greek papyri in fourth-century Egypt, etc. But his evidence is drawn from
all over the Near East, and his argumentation about the two or three Greek words in
Elephantine Aramaic papyri says nothing about the influence of Greek on Palestinian
Aramaic. Cf. W. F. Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine (Pelican A199; rev. ed.;
Baltimore: Penguin, 1960) 143-44; From the Stone Age to Christianity (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins, 1946) 256-61. Clear evidence of Greek (and Roman) arts and mythol
ogy in first-century Palestine can now be found in artifacts from the Cave of Letters
of Wadi gabra; see Y. Yadin, "Expedition D," IEJ 11 (1961) 49-64, esp. 52.

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continued after his conquest, especially with the Hellenizing efforts of the
Lagide and Seleucid kings, and even with the Herods. Greek cities were
founded in Palestine and older towns were transformed into poleis. Alexander himself ordered the reconstruction of Gaza. The names of some towns
of the Decapolis, Pella and Dion, reveal the early Macedonian influence.
Under Lagide domination Acco became Ptolemais and Rabbat-Ammon became Philadelphia, another town of the Decapolis. Philoteria was established
under the same influence on the western shore of Lake Gennesareth, and
Joppa was hellenized. Ancient Beth-shan was conquered by Antiochus III
the Great in 218 B.C. and became Scythopolis. The Hellenization continued
under Herod the Great, who transformed the ancient town of Strata's Tower
into Caesarea Maritima, Samaria into Sebaste, and established a number of
other towns and fortresses throughout the country on Greek models (Antipatris, Phasaelis, Antonia at Jerusalem, etc.). Nor did his heirs desist from
such activity, because to them is ascribed the founding of such places as
Caesarea Philippi, Tiberias, Bethsaida Julias. In all some thirty towns of
the area have been counted that were either Greek foundations or transformed poleis.2* These Hellenistic cities dotted the countryside of Palestine
for several centuries prior to the first Christian century and were clearly
centers from which the Greek language spread to less formally Hellenistic
towns, such as Jerusalem, Jericho, or Nazareth. As in the case of the Roman
occupiers of the land, the new language was undoubtedly used at first in
official texts, decrees, and inscriptions, and from such use it spread to the
indigenous population.
However, it is not possible to document the use of Greek in Palestine prior
to Alexander or to indicate what influence it might have had then. The
earliest Greek text found there is apparently the inscription erected by
Anaxikles, a priest of the royal cult of Ptolemy IV Philopator, who was
installed at Joppa shortly after the Egyptian victory over Antiochus III at
Raphia in 217 B.C. It gives clear evidence of the use of the language by
foreigners.
When the Hellenization of Palestine under Antiochus IV Epiphanes began, his efforts were aided by the Jews themselves, as both 1 Maccabees and
Josephus make clear.25 There seems to be little doubt that the use of the
24
See V. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews ( Philadelphia : Jewish
Publication Society of America, 1959), 90-116. Also the monumental study of
M. Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus (Wiss. Untersuchungen zum NT 10; Tbingen: Mohr, 1969).
25 1 Mc 1,11-15; Josephus, Ant 12.5,1 #240 (tn hellnikn politeian echein, "adopt
the Greek way of life" [R. Marcus, LCL, 7.123]). This Jewish support scarcely sub-

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Greek language was part of this assistance.26 Antiochus* reign, however,

lasted only a little over a decade, and in its aftermath, the Maccabean revolt,
the book of Daniel was reduced to its final form. In the Aramaic stories that
form part of that book one finds the first clear instance of Greek invading a
Palestinian Aramaic text. In Dn 3,5 the names of three of the musical instruments, "the lyre, the harp, and the bagpipe" (RSVqayt e ros < Gk. kitharis; pesantrn < psaltrion; sumpnyh < symphnia), are all given in
slightly Aramaicized forms of clearly Greek names.27 Further evidence of
stantiates the thesis once proposed by I. Voss that Greek became the only language
spoken in Palestine since Alexander.
26
For further Greek epigraphic material from Palestine in the last two centuries
B.C., see the graffiti from Marisa (SEG 8. #247-51; E. Oren, Archaeology 18 [1965]
218-24) ; a dedication to Serapis and Isis from Samaria, probably dating from the end
of the third century B.C. (SEG 8. #95) ; a sepulchral poem from Gaza of the third
century B.C. (SEG 8. #269) ; a Gazara (Gezer) graffito, dated ca. 142 B.C. and
bearing on 1 Mc 13,43.48 (CIJ #1184; Gabba #9) ; the dedication to Zeus Soter from
Ptolemais, ca. 130-29 B.C. (SEG 19. #904; 20. #413); an inscribed handle of the
same period from Joppa (SEG 18. #627; cf. SEG 9. #252-60 [Marisa]) ; an execration
from Marisa, dated before 128 B.C. (SEG 8. #246; Gabba #10) ; the dedication to
Herod the Great on a statue from Bashan, dated ca. 23 B.C. (OGIS #415; Gabba
#12) ; the second-century list of priests of the temple of Zeus Olympios at Samaria
(SEG 8. #96) ; a second century inscription about Antiochus VII Sidetes from Acre
(Y. H. Landau, IEJ 11 [1961] 118-26; J. Schwartz, IEJ 12 [1962] 135-36) ; the votive
offering on an altar to Syrian gods, Hadad and Atargatis, from Ptolemais, probably
from the second century B.C. (SEG 18. #622). Y. H. Landau ("A Greek Inscription
Found Near Hefzibah," IEJ 16 [1966] 54-70) has published an unusual inscription
recording orders issued by Antiochus III and his eldest son, the junior king Antiochus,
for the benefit of Ptolemaios, the military governor (stratgos) and high priest
(arc hiereus) of Coele-Syria and Phoenicia, along with the memoranda sent by
Ptolemaios to the king. The documents come from the time of the Fifth Syrian War,
begun by Antiochus III in 202-1, and are variously dated between 202 and 195 B.C.
Part of the orders include the royal instruction to record them on stone stelae or
white tablets in the villages. The foregoing list scarcely pretends to be exhaustive for
this period.
27
Part of the evidence that these words are foreign in the Aramaic text is the
lack of the distinctive Aramaic ending on them in contrast to the names of other
instruments in the same verse. These are the only words of certain Greek origin in
Daniel; it is significant that they are the names of musical instruments and were
probably borrowed with the importation of the instruments themselves. Since they are
isolated instances and technical words, it is difficult to say to what extent they are
a gauge of the influence of Greek on the Palestinian Semitic languages. See T. C.
Mitchell and R. Joyce, "The Musical Instruments in Nebuchadrezzar's Orchestra,"
Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel (London: Tyndale, 1965), 19-27.
Other words, which were once thought to be Greek derivatives (e.g., pitgm in Dn
3,16, allegedly from either epitagma or phthegma), are more correctly recognized
today as of Persian origin. See S. Telegdi, "Essai sur la phontique des emprunts
iraniens en aramen talmudique," JA 226 (1935) 177-256, esp. p. 253.

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Greek influence is seen also in the linguistic problem of the book as a whole ;
in its protocanonical form it is composed in two languages, Hebrew and
Aramaic, but in its deuterocanonical form Greek appears. This influence is
further seen in other apocryphal and deuterocanonical compositions in Greek
by Jews, such as I Esdras, 2 Maccabees, and the additions to Esther (to
mention only those writings that are probably of Palestinian origin).
Though the names of a host of Hellenistic Jewish litterateurs who wrote
in Greek are known,28 and some fragments of their writings are preserved
in patristic authors such as Clement of Alexandria,29 or Eusebius of Caesarea,30 there are only a few whose writings are related to first-century
Palestine. The most important of these are Justus of Tiberias and Flavius
Josephus, both of whom wrote mainly historical works. The first was the
bitter opponent of Josephus in the First Revolt against Rome, a man of
Hellenistic education and noted for his eloquence, the author of historia h
tou loiiddikou polemou ton kata Ouespasianou?1
Josephus tells us something about his own knowledge of Greek and about
his use of it to compose his works. At the end of the Antiquities, he says
of himself :
My compatriots admit that in our Jewish learning (par" hmin paideian) I far
excel them. But I labored hard to steep myself in Greek prose [and poetic learning], after having gained a knowledge of Greek grammar; but the constant use
of my native tongue (patrios . . . syntheia) hindered my achieving precision in
pronunciation. For our people do not welcome those who have mastered the
speech of many nations or adorn their style with smoothness of diction, because
they consider that such skill is not only common to ordinary freemen but that
even slaves acquire it, if they so choose. Rather, they give credit for wisdom to
those who acquire an exact knowledge of the Law and can interpret the Holy
Scriptures. Consequently, though many have laboriously undertaken this study,
scarcely two or three have succeeded (in it) and reaped the fruit of their labors. 32
28
A convenient list of them can be found in C. Colpe, "Jdisch-hellenistische Literatur," Der kleine Pauly: Lexikon der Antike (Stuttgart: A. Drckenmller) 2 (1967)
1507-12; cf. E. J. Goodspeed, J ES 1 (1942) 315-28.
29 Stromata 1. 21-23 #141-55 (GCS 15.87-98).
30 Praeparatio evangelica 922-28 (GCS 43/1. 512-27).
31
Most of what we know about him comes from the not unbiassed account in
Josephus (Life #34-41, 65, 88, 175-78, 186, 279, 336-40, 355-60, 390-93, 410). Josephus
severely criticized his ability as an historian (#336f 357-58), but openly admitted his
good Greek training. Cf. Eusebius, History of the Church 3.10,8 (GCS 9/1. 226) ;
F. Jacoby, PW 10/2 (1919) 1341-46; S. Krauss, "Justus of Tiberias," Jewish En
cyclopedia 7 (1904) 398-99; C. Mueller, Fragmenta historicorum graecorum (Paris:
Didot, 1848-74), 3. 523.
32
Ant. 20.12,1 #263-65. The interpretation of these words of Josephus is notoriously
difficult, and the manuscript tradition in this passage is not firm. For a recent dis
cussion of the problems involved and an interpretation largely identical with mine,
see J. N. Sevenster, Do You Know Greek? How Much Greek Could the First Jewish
Christians Have Knotvnf (NovTSup 19; Leiden: Brill, 1968), pp. 65-71.

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Several points should be noted in Josephus' statement. First, his record

of a popular boastful attitude that the learning of Greek would be an ordinary
achievement for many Palestinians, even for freemen and slaves, if they
wanted to do so. The attitude is at least condescending. Secondly, such
learning was not so much esteemed as knowledge of the Mosaic Law and
the interpretation of Scripture. Thirdly, Josephus testifies about the efforts
that he personally made to acquire a good command of Greek. Fourthly, he
also gives the impression that few Palestinian Jews of his day could speak
Greek well.
From other places in his writings we know that he acted as an interpreter
for Titus, speaking "in his native tongue" to the populace toward the end
of the war. 33 Titus himself had addressed the Jews of Palestine in Greek,
but preferred to have Josephus parley with them hebraizn. This may suggest that Palestinian Jews did not understand Greek very well, and bear out
the comment of Josephus himself cited above. However, J. N. Sevenster has
plausibly noted that we do not know how well Titus himself could speak
Greek.34 Hence Josephus' task as interpreter does not necessarily mean that
little Greek was actually understood.
Again Josephus informs us that he composed his Jewish War originally
"in his native tongue" (t patrio [glosse] ), destining it for Parthians, Babylonians, the tribes of Arabia, Jews beyond the Euphrates and in Adiabene.35
This destination almost certainly implies that it was originally written in
the lingua franca, Aramaic.36 Josephus subsequently translated this composition into Greek (helladi glosse metabaln) ,37 to provide subjects of the
Roman empire with his version of the Palestinian revolt. What a problem
this was for him he reveals in the Antiquities, where he still looks on Greek
as "foreign and unfamiliar."38 And yet, despite this attitude, the end-product
33

T patrio glsse (JW 5.9,2 #361). Cf. 6.2,1 #96; 6.2,5 #129; 6.6,2 #327.
34 Do You Know Greek?, 63-65. Sevenster compares the emperor Claudius' excellent
command of Greek with the halting use of it by the emperor Augustus, who was, nevertheless, greatly interested in it and intensely applied himself to the study of it (see
Suetonius, Vita Claudii 42; Vita Augusti #89).
35 JW 1.1,2 #6.
36 This is also the opinion of F. Bchsel, "Die griechische Sprache der Juden in der
Zeit der Septuaginta und des Neuen Testaments," ZAW 60 (1944) 132-49, esp. 140.
But H. Birkeland (The Language of Jesus [Avhandlinger utgitt av det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo, II. Hist.-Filos. Kl, 1954, No. 1, pp. 13-14) contests this view:
"That Josephus should name Aramaic 'the ancestral language,' when he knows the
difference between this language and Hebrew, cannot seriously be maintained." He
insists that Josephus was using the common language of Palestine, which was Hebrew.
37 JW 1.1,1 #3.
38 Ant. 1.1,2 #7 (eis allo dap en hmin kai xenn dialektou syntheian).

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of his efforts has been hailed as "an excellent specimen of the Atticistic Greek
of the first century." 39
But the real difficulty in this testimony of Josephus is that his Greek
writings were composed in Rome, not in Palestine ; and he frankly admits
that he composed the Greek version of the Jewish War in the leisure that
Rome afforded, "making use of some assistants for the sake of the Greek"
(chrsamenos tisi pros tn hellnida phnn synergois).*0 Presumably, other
Jewish authors in Palestine who might have wanted to write in Greek could
have found there comparable assistants. This may seem to have been essential for literary composition, but it says little about the degree of communication between Palestinian Jews in Greek.
If Josephus' testimony leaves the picture of Greek in first-century Palestine unclear, there are many other considerations that persuade us that Greek
was widely used at this time and not only in the clearly Hellenized towns,
but in many others as well. Indeed, there are some indications that Palestinian Jews in some areas may have used nothing else but Greek. Reasons
for considering the matter in this way may now be briefly set forth.
There is first the epigraphic material. Several famous Greek inscriptions
are extant from this period. There is the Greek inscription forbidding nonJews to enter the inner courts of the Jerusalem temple,41 the Jerusalem
synagogue inscription which commemorates its building by Theodotos Vettenos, a priest and leader of the synagogue,42 the hymn inscribed in the
necropolis of Marisa,43 the edict of Augustus (or some first-century Roman
emperor) found at Nazareth concerning the violation of tombs,44 the Caper39
H. S. J. Thackeray, Josephus, the Man and the Historian (New York: Jewish
Institute of Religion, 1929), p. 104.
4(
> Against Apion 1.9 #50.
41
Two exemplars of this inscription have been found; the better preserved is in
the Istanbul Museum, the other in the Palestine Archaeological Museum, Jerusalem.
See OGIS 2. #598; SEG 8. #169; 20. #477; Thomsen, ZDPV 44 (1921) 7-8; TGI
#52; Gabba #24; Barrett, NTB #47. Two modern falsified reproductions of it have
also been reported; see W. R. Taylor, JPOS 13 [1933] 137-39. See note 15 above for
Josephus* description of such descriptions.
See R. Weill, RE J 71 (1920) 30-34; Thomsen, 261; SEG 8. #170; 20. #478;
Anne pigraphique 1922, #117; CU 2. #1404; Gabba #23; TGI #54; Barrett, NTB
#50.
43 SEG 8. #244; cf. H. W. Garrod, "Locrica," Classical Review 37 (1923) 161-62;
H. Lamer, "Der Kalypso-Graffito in Marissa (Palstina)," ZDPV 54 (1931) 59-67.
44
This inscription begins diatagma Kaisaros; but it is neither certainly attributed
to Augustus nor certainly of Nazareth provenience. See F. Cumont, "Un rescrit imprial sur la violation de spulture," Revue historique 163 (1930) 241-66; cf. S. Lsch,
Diatagma Kaisaros: Die Inschrift von Nazareth und das Neue Testament (Freiburg
im . : Herder, 1936) ; S. Riccobono, Fontes iuris romani antejustiniani, pars prima:
Leges (Florence: Barbera, 1941), pp. 414-16; J. Schmitt, DBSup 6 (1960) 333-63.

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naum dedicatory inscription,45 and the numberless ossuary inscriptions, some

written in Greek alone, others in Greek and Hebrew (or Aramaic) from
the vicinity of Jerusalem.46 In several cases the Greek inscriptions on these
ossuaries have outnumbered those in Aramaic or Hebrew, 47 and it is unlikely that the language chosen for most of these crudely incised identifications was merely the lingua franca of the day. Rather, they bear witness to
the widespread and living use of Greek among first-century Palestinian Jews
as does the adoption of Greek and Roman names by many of them in this
period. H. J. Leon is undoubtedly right when he writes that such "sepulchral
inscriptions . . . best indicate the language of the common people."48 For they
reveal that Greek was not confined merely to official inscriptions. The real
question, however, is how widespread it was among the common people.
Information concerning Palestine during the period between the two revolts against Rome has always been sparse, and information about the use
of Greek at that time is no exception. Recently, however, some new material
has come to light in the Greek papyri from the Murabba't caves and in
copies of Greek letters from the Bar Cochba revolt.
From the Murabba't caves have come examples of grain transactions
(Mur 89-107), IOU's (Mur 114), contracts of marriage and remarriage
among Jews (Mur 115-16), fragments of philosophical and literary texts
(Mur 108-12), even texts written in a Greek shorthand (Mur 164). 49 The
letters from a cave in the Wadi Habra indicate that Greek was also used
in a less official kind of writing. From the period just before the Second
Revolt there is a batch of letters which are communications between Bar
Cochba and his lieutenants, and surprisingly enough written even in Greek.60
45

See G. Orfali, "Une nouvelle inscription grecque dcouverte Capharnam,"

JPOS 6 (1926) 159-63; cf. SEG 8. #4; 17. #774.
46
What is badly needed is a systematic collection of the Greek, Aramaic, and
Hebrew inscriptions on ossuaries from Jerusalem and elsewhere. It is impossible at
the moment to give any sort of comprehensive view of this topic; some examples of
Greek inscriptions from Jerusalem can be found in CU 2; Thomsen #190-97, 199, 201-5 ;
SEG 8. #179-86, 197, 201, 208-9, 221, 224; 6. #849; 17. #784; 19. #922; 20. #483-92.
** M. Smith ("Aramaic Studies and the Study of the New Testament," JBR 26
[1958] 310) says, "Of the 168 published in Frey's Corpus inscriptionum iudaicarum,
5 are illegible, 32 are in Hebrew or Aramaic or both, 17 are in a Semitic language
and Greek, but 114 are in Greek only." But are they all of the first century?
*8 The Jews of Ancient Rome (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America,
1960), p. 75.
** See P. Benoit, et al., Les grottes de Murabba't [note 19 above], pp. 212-33, 24356, 234-40, 275-79.
B. Lifshitz, "Papyrus grecs du dsert de Juda," Aegyptus 42 (1962) 240-56
(4- 2 pis.). The first text is apparently the one that Y. Yadin refers to as Hbr 3 (see
IEJ 11 [1961] 42-43; BIES 25 [1961] 57). Cf. Y. Yadin, "New Discoveries in the
Judean Desert," A 24 (1961) 34-50; "More on the Letters of Bar Kochba," ibid.t
96-95.

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One letter, in particular, merits some attention because of the special bearing it has on the topic under discussion. It comes from the so-called Cave
of Letters in the Wadi Habra and was discovered in 1960. It is written in
the name of one Soumaios. The editor of the letter, B. Lifshitz, thinks that
this is a Greek form of the name of Simeon ben Ksibh, the real name of
Bar Cochba. If it is not Bar Cochba himself, then it is someone very closely
associated with him, who writes to the same two lieutenants to whom Bar
Cochba wrote in other lettersand, indeed, about the same matter. Soumaios
requests of Jonathan bar Ba'yan and Masabbala that they send woodenbeams ( ?) and citrons (the 'etrgirn) for the celebration of Succoth or
Tabernacles. The text reads :
[]
Sou [mai] os to Jonathe
(son of) Baianos and Ma[] .
[s]abbala, greetings !
[]
S[i]nce I have sent to
5 [];; you A[g]rippa, make
[]
h[ast]e to send me
[][]
b[e]am[s] and citrons.
[] '
And furnish th[em]
for the [Cjitron-celebration of the
10
Jews ; and do not do
.
otherwise. No[w] (this) has been writ[] !
ten in Greek because
[ ] a [des]ire has not befen]
[]
found to w[ri]te in Hebrew. De[s]patch
15 [].
him quickly
[]
fo[r t]he feast,
[ ]
an[d do no]t
[ ] do otherwise.
[] .
20

Soumaios.

Farewell.51
Two things are of importance in this letter. First, Bar Cochba's solicitude
to have provisions for the celebration of Succoth is again attested ; a similar
61
Lifshitz takes Soumaios as a Greek transcription of Samay or Sema', which he
regards as a hypocoristicon of $ime'n. In the second papyrus letter that Lifshitz
publishes in the same article, the name is written in Greek as Simon, with Chsiba
clearly written above it (between the lines). For a discussion of the name of Bar
Cochba, see my article, "The Bar Cochba Period," The Bible in Current Catholic
Thought [ed. J. L. McKenzie; New York: Herder and Herder, 1962], pp. 133-68,
esp. 138-41.
The spelling of certain words in this document is defective: thus =
; = ; = ; = ; = ;
= ; = ; = ; =
. The meaning of steleous is not clear ; does it refer to "beams" that might be
used for huts, or to the "branches" (llb) ?

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request for citrons and willow-branches is found in one of his Aramaic

letters.52 Secondly, at a time when the nationalist fever of the Jews must
have been running high the leader of the revoltor someone close to him,
if Soumaios is not Sime<n bar Ksibhfrankly prefers to write in Greek.
He does not find the horma, "impulse, desire," to compose the letter hebrdisti. The cursive handwriting is not elegant and the spelling leaves much
to be desired ; if a scribe were employed for the writing of it, then he was
not very well trained. In any case, this Palestinian Greek is not much worse
than other examples of Greek in the provinces that have been found elsewhere.
A New Testament problem that bears on our discussion may be introduced
at this point. It is the names for Jerusalem Christians recorded in Acts 6,1,
the hellnistai and the hebraioi. I have discussed this matter more fully
elsewhere,53 adopting the interesting suggestion of C. F. D. Moule,54 which
seems to cope best with the data available and seems to be far more plausible
than other attempts to explain these names.55 Moule proposes that these
names designate two groups of Palestinian Jewish Christians in Jerusalem.
The hellnistai were not simply Gentile converts who spoke Greek, while the
hebraioi were Jewish converts who spoke Hebrew (or possibly Aramaic).
The Greek-speaking Paul of Tarsus stoutly maintained that he was hebraios
ex hebrain (Phil 3,5). Rather, hellnistai undoubtedly denotes Jerusalem
Jews or Jewish Christians who habitually spoke Greek only (and for that
reason were more affected by Hellenistic culture), while the hebraioi were
those who also spoke a Semitic language. In any case, it can scarcely be
maintained that hellnizein did not mean "to speak Greek" at all. Moule's
distinction fits in very well with the widespread use of Greek in first-century
Palestine. It raises a further problem of the determination of what Semitic
language would have been commonly used along with it by the hebraioi.
52 See Y. Yadin, "Mhnh D," BIES 25 (1960) 49-64, esp. 60-61; also my article,
"The Bar Cochba Period," pp. 155-56.
63
"Jewish Christianity in Acts in Light of the Qumran Scrolls," Studies in LukeActs: Essays . . . in Honor of Paul Schubert (eds. L. E. Keck and J. L. Martyn;
Nashville: Abingdon, 1966), pp. 233-57, esp. 237-38.
54 "Once More, Who Were the Hellenists?" ExpT 70 (1958-59) 100-102; see also
J. N. Sevenster, Do You Know Greek?, p. 37; W. G. Kmmel, RGGS 6 (1962) 1189.
55 Compare the opinion of C. S. Mann (Appendix VI in J. Munck, The Acts of the
Apostles [AB 31; Garden City: Doubleday, 1967], pp. 301-4); he believes that
hebraioi refers to Samaritans or Samaritan Christians. Older discussions can be
found in H. J. Cadbury, "The Hellenists," The Beginnings of Christianity (London:
Macmillan), 5 (1933) 59-74; H. Windisch, "Hellen," TDNT 2 (1964) 504-15, esp.
511-12. Note the use of Josephus' hebraisn, meaning "speaking in 'Hebrew' " (JW
6.2,1 #96).

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Before we approach that problem, however, two final remarks about the
use of Greek in first-century Palestine are in order. The first concerns Jesus'
use of Greek. This question has been raised from time to time for a variety
56
of reasons, and obviously little can be asserted about it. "Galilee of the
,,
Gentiles (Mt 4,15) has often been said to have been an area of Palestine
where the population was more bilingual than in the south, e.g., at Jerusalem.
Hence it is argued: Coming from an area such as this, Jesus would have
shared this double linguistic heritage. While it must be admitted that there
were undoubtedly areas where less Greek was used than others, nevertheless
the widespread attestation of Greek material in Palestine would indicate that
"Galilee of the Gentiles" did not have a monopoly on it. The general evidence
that we have been considering would suggest the likelihood that Jesus did
speak Greek. Further, his conversations with Roman officialsPilate or the
centurion, and perhaps even that reflected in Jn 12would point in this
direction. This question, however, is related to the others about the Semitic
language that he used, and I shall return to it later. However, what evidence
there is that he used Greek yields at most a probability ; if it be used to insist
that we might even have in the Gospels some of the ipsissima verba Iesu
graeca, actually uttered by him as he addressed his bilingual Galilean com
patriots, 57 then the evidence is being pressed beyond legitimate bounds.
The other remark concerns the researches and studies of such scholars as
S. Krauss, M. Schwabe, S. Liebermann, . Lifshitz, et al., who have done
yeoman service in ferreting out the evidence for the Hellenization of Pales
tinian Jews. In particular, the two books of S. Liebermann, Greek in Jewish
Palestine and Hellenism in Jewish Palestine, are outstanding in this
56
For some literature on the subject, see A. Roberts, Greek the Language of Christ
and His Apostles (London: Longmans, Green, 1888) ; S. Greijdanus, H et gebruik van
het Grieksch door den Heere en sijne apostelen in Palestine (Kampen, 1932) ; S. M.
Patterson, "What Language Did Jesus Speak?" Classical Outlook 23 (1946) 65-67;
L. Rood, "Heeft Jezus Grieks gesproken?" Streven 2 (1949) 1026-35; A. W. Argyle,
"Did Jesus Speak Greek?" ExpT 67 (1955-56) 92-93; J. K. Rssel (same title),
ibid., 246; H. M. Draper (same title), ibid., 317; A. W. Argyle (same title), ibid.,
383; R. M. Wilson (same title), ExpT 68 (1956-57) 121-22; R. O. P. Taylor, "Did
Jesus Speak Aramaic?" ExpT 56 (1944-45) 95-97; The Groundwork of the Gospels
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1946), 91-105.
T Cf. A. W. Argyle, ExpT 67 (1955-56) 93: "The importance of establishing that
Jesus and His disciples sometimes spoke Greek cannot be overestimated. It means that
in some cases we may have direct access to the original utterances of our Lord and not
only to a translation of them."
58
Greek in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Life and Manners of Jewish Palestine
in the II-IV Centuries C.E. (2d ed.; New York: P. Feldheim, 1965) ; Hellenism in
Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Literary Transtnission, Beliefs and Manners of
Palestine in the I Century B.C.E.IV Century C.E. (New York: Jewish Theological

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regard ; but their subtitles reveal that they are largely based on materials of
a much later date than the first centuryon the Mishnah, the Talmud, and
other rabbinical writings. J. N. Sevenster has frankly stated the difficulty in
59
using this material as an indication of the first-century situation. Moreover,
Liebermann has been criticized for neglecting the inscriptional material from
60
the cemetery of Beth-She'arim, and for not using the older Greek materials
from Joppa, Capernaum, etc., that have been known for a long time. The
materials which these scholars have amassed make it abundantly clear that
the Palestinian Jews of the third and fourth centuries A.D. were quite
Hellenized and used Greek widely. This is the sort of situation that the
numerous Hebraized and Aramaicized Greek words that appear in rabbinical
61
literature also suggest. From A.D. 200 on it is clear that not only Hellen
ism but even the Greek language used by the Jews had made heavy inroads
into the Aramaic being spoken; it is the same sort of influence that one
detects in the Aramaic being spoken in the territory of Palestine's neighbor
to the north, in Syriac. This is, by contrast, the advantage of J. N. Sevenster's recent book, Do You Know Greek f For he has sought to sift data from
literary and epigraphic sources and presents an intriguing thesis on the wide
use of Greek in first-century Palestine both among Jews and Christians.
Seminary of America, 1950). Though the latter does go back to an earlier date, it is
largely devoted to a broader topic than the first book and the issue being treated here.
Do You Know Greek?, 38-44.
so See G. Alon, Kirjath Sepher 20 (1943-44) 76-95; B. Lifshitz, Aegyptus 42 (1962)
254-56; "L'hellnisation des Juifs de Palestine: A propos des inscriptions de Besara
(Beth-Shearim)," RB 72 (1965) 520-38; "Yewant wtwant bn Yehd 'eresYisra'l," Eshkoloth 5 (1966-67) 20-28.
For the important Greek material coming from Beth-She'arim, see M. Schwabe and
. Lifshitz, Beth She'arim: Volume Two: The Greek Inscriptions (Jerusalem: Israel
Exploration Society, 1967). These inscriptions date from the first quarter of the third
century A.D., when R. Judah the Prince was buried there. To be buried in the vicinity
of this Jewish leader and compiler of the Mishnah was regarded as a privilege and a
sizeable necropolis developed there up until A.D. 352, when the city was destroyed by
the army of Gallus. These dates are also confirmed by coins found there. See further
B. Lifshitz, "Beitrge zur palstinischen Epigraphik," ZDPV 78 (1962) 64-88; 82
(1966) 57-63; "Les inscriptions grecques de Beth She'arim (Besara)/' IEJ 17
(1967) 194.
For a similar important group of sepulchral inscriptions dated merely to "the Roman
period," see B. Lifshitz* articles on the necropolis of Caesarea Maritima: "La
ncropole juive de Cesaree," RB 71 (1964) 384-87; "Inscriptions de Cesaree en
Palestine," RB 72 (1965) 98-107; "Notes d'pigraphie palestiniennes," RB 73 (1966)
248-57; "Inscriptions de Cesaree," RB 74 (1967) 50-59.
1
See the old, but still useful list in S. Krauss, Griechische und lateinische Lehn
wrter im Talmud, Midrasch und Targum (Berlin: S. Calvary, 1899-1900).

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Unfortunately, the reader is distracted at times by lengthy discussions of

texts from periods prior and posterior to this century. 6 2
III.

Aramaic

If asked what was the language commonly spoken in Palestine in the time
of Jesus of Nazareth, most people with some acquaintance of that era and
area would almost spontaneously answer Aramaic. T o my way of thinking,
this is still the correct answer for the most commonly used language, but
the defense of this thesis must reckon with the growing mass of evidence
that both Greek and Hebrew were being used as well. I would, however,
hesitate to say with M. Smith that "at least as much Greek as Aramaic was
spoken in Palestine." 6 3 In any case, the evidence for the use of Aramaic has
also been growing in recent years.
Evidence for the use of Aramaic toward the end of the first millennium
B.C. has never been abundant. A scholar such as W . F . Albright was led by
this situation to think that its use was actually on the wane, especially during
the Seleucid period. H e writes :
There are no Aramaic literary works extant from the period between the third
or second century B.C. and the second or third A.D., a period of over three
hundred years. There can be little doubt that there was a real eclipse of Aramaic
during the period of the Seleucid Empire (312 B.C. to the early first century
B.C.), since scarcely a single Aramaic inscription from this period has been
discovered, except in Trans Jordan and the adjacent parts of Arabia, which were
relatively freer from Greek influence than Western Palestine and Syria proper.
After this epigraphic hiatus, Palmyrene inscriptions began to appear in the
second half of the first century B.C. ; recent excavations have brought to light
an inscription dating from the year 44 B.C. Inscriptions in Jewish Aramaic first
appeared about the middle of the first century B.C., and became more abundant
during the reign of Herod the Great, just before the Christian era. . . . They
thus help to clarify the actual Aramaic of Jewish Palestine in the time of Jesus
and the Apostles. If the Megillat Ta'anith, or 'Scroll of Fastings', a list of official
Jewish fasts with accompanying historical notations, really precedes the year
A.D. 70, as held by some scholars, it belongs to our period, but it is safer to date
it in the second century A.D., in accordance with its present chronological
content. 64
62
See note 32 above. Cf. M. Smith, "Palestinian Judaism in the First Century,"
Israel: Its Role in Civilisation (d. M. Davis; New Y o r k : Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1956), 67-81 (much of the material used as evidence in this article
is not derived from the first century).

63 "Aramaic Studies and the Study of the New Testament," JBR 26 (1958) 304-13,
esp. 310.
64
The Archaeology of Palestine (5th ed.; Pelican A 199; Baltimore: Penguin,
1960), pp. 201-2. See also V. Tcherikover, Corpus papyrorum judaicarum (Cambridge:
Harvard, 1957), 1. 30.

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Between the final redaction of Daniel (ca. 165 B.C.), in which roughly
six chapters are written in Aramaic, and the first of the rabbinical writings,
Megillat Ta'anit, dating from the end of the first Christian century, there
had never been much evidence of the use of Aramaic in Palestine prior to
the discovery of the Qumrn scrolls and fragments. Before 1947 numberless
ossuary and sepulchral inscriptions had been coming to light.66 But they
were scarcely evidence of what E. J. Goodspeed has called "creative Aramaic
literary writing. ,,7 Except for a few with extended texts, they consist for
65
For literature on this text, see my commentary on The Genesis Apocryphon from
Qumran Cave I (BibOr 18; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1966), p. 18, n. 57.
66
Again, no systematic collection has been made of the Aramaic ossuary inscriptions. Older ones may be found in various publications, such as D. Chwolson, Corpus
inscriptionum hebraicarum (St. Petersburg: H. Schmitzdorff, 1882); J.-B. Frey,
Corpus inscriptionum iudaicarum (2 vols. ; Vatican City : Pontificio istituto di archeologia cristiana, 1936, 1952), 2. 113-339; S. Klein, Jdisch-palstinisches Corpus Inscriptionum (Ossuar-, Grab-und Synagogeninschriften) (Vienna/Berlin: R. Lwit, 1920) ;
H. Grimme, "Inschriften auf Ossuarien aus Jerusalem," OLZ 15 (1912) 529-34;
S. Krauss, "La double inhumation chez les Juifs," REJ 97 (1934) 1-34; R. A. S.
Macalister, "Ninth Quarterly Report on the Excavation of Gezer," PEFQS 1904,
320-54, esp. 336-43; C. Clermont-Ganneau, "Jewish Ossuaries and Sepulchres in the
Neighbourhood of Jerusalem," Archaeological Researches in Palestine during the Years
1873-1874 (tr. A. Stewart; London: Palestine Exploration Fund) I (1899) 381-454;
"Epigraphes hbraques et grecques sur des ossuaires juifs indits," RevArch 3/1
(1883) 257-76 ( + pi. IX) ; G. Dalman, "Inschriften aus Palstina," ZDPV 37 (1914)
135-45; J. Euting, "Epigraphische Miscellen," SPAW Phil.-Hist. Kl. 1885, 669-88;
H. H. Spoer, "Some Hebrew and Phoenician Inscriptions," JAOS 28 (1907) 355-59;
E. L. Sukenik, "Recent Excavations in Jerusalem," Kedem 1 (1942) 61-63; "Jewish
Tombs in the Kedron Valley," Kedem 2 (1945) 23-31; Jdische Grber Jerusalems
um Christi Geburt (Jerusalem: Azriel Press, 1931); "A Jewish Hypogeum near
Jerusalem," JPOS 8 (1928) 113-21; "Two Jewish Hypogea," JPOS 12 (1932) 22-31;
M. R. Savaignac, "Nouveaux ossuaires juifs avec granites," RB 34 (1925) 253-66;
R. A. S. Macalister, "A Tomb with Aramaic Inscriptions near Silwn," PEFQS 1908,
341-42; M. Lidzbarski, "The Jewish-Aramaic Inscriptions at the Tomb near Sil wan,"
PEFQS 1909, 73; H. Husler, "Die Ossuarien des Sionsmuseums," Das heilige Land
57 (1913) 130-34; L.-H. Vincent, "Epitaphe prtendue de N.-S. Jsus-Christ," Rendiconti della pontificia accademia romana di archeologia 7 (1931) 226-31 ; E. Testa, "L'uso
degli ossuari tra i monaci di Siria," La terra santa 39 (1963) 36-41; L.-H. Vincent,
"Ossuaires juifs," RB 16 (1907) 410-14; "Sur la date des ossuaires juifs," RB 43
(1934) 564-67.
67
Goodspeed's skepticism about the "possibility of an Aramaic Gospel" was first expressed in his New Chapters in New Testament Study (New York: Macmillan, 1937),
pp. 127-68, esp. p. 165-66. A. T. Olmstead sought to answer Goodspeed in an article,
"Could an Aramaic Gospel be Written?" JNES 1 (1942) 41-75. Goodspeed replied in
another, "The Possible Aramaic Gospel," ibid., 315-40 (his words quoted in the text
are taken from p. 328 of this reply). The heat of the debate between Olmstead and
Goodspeed produced more rhetoric than clarity; some of the new factors that I have

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the most part of proper names, written in the cursive Hebrew-Aramaic script
of the time. Indeed, it is often hard to tell whether their inscribers spoke
Hebrew or Aramaic. The most important of the extended texts are the
Uzziah plaque, commemorating the first-century transfer of the alleged
bones of the famous eighth-century king of Judah, 68 an ossuary lid with a
qorban inscription that illustrates the use of this Aramaic word in Mk 7,ll, 6 9
and a Kidron Valley dipinto.70 There was also the evidence of Aramaic
words preserved in the Greek Gospels and the Josephus* writings, as well
as the Aramaisms in the syntax of the New Testament in general.71 This
was more or less the extent of the evidence up to 1947.
Since the discovery of the Qumrn material it is now evident that literature was indeed being composed in Aramaic in the last century B.C. and in
the first century A.D. The number of extant Aramaic texts of a literary
nature is not small, even though the fragments of them found in the various
been trying to draw together here would change a number of contentions of both of
these writers. The limited topic of my discussion does not bear exactly on the point
at issue between them.
See E. L. Sukenik, "$iyyn 'Uzziyh melek Y^hdh," Tarbiz 2 (1930-31)
288-92; W . F . Albright, "The Discovery of an Aramaic Inscription Relating to King
Uzziah," BASOR
44 (1931) 8-10; J. N . Epstein, "L*$iyyn 'UssiyOhu," Tarbiz 2
(1930-31) 293-94; J. M. van der Ploeg, JEOL 11 (1949) pi. X V I I I , fg. 29; TGI #55.
69
See J. T. Milik, "Trois tombeaux juifs rcemment dcouverts au Sud-Est de
Jrusalem," FrLA 7 (1956-57) 232-67, esp. 232-39; J. A. Fitzmyer, "The Aramaic
Qorban Inscription from Jebel Qallet et-Tri and Mark 7,11Matt 15,5," JBL 78
(1959) 60-65; J. Bligh, "'Qorban'," HeyJ 5 (1964) 192-93; S. Zeitlin, "Korban,"
JQR 53 (1962) 160-63; "Korban: A Gift," JQR 59 (1968) 133-35; Z. W . Falk, "Notes
and Observations on Talmudic Vows," HTR 59 (1966) 309-12.The word qorbn has
recently turned up again, this time all alone, on a stone jar from excavations south of
the precincts of the Herodian temple ; see B. Mazar, "The Excavations in the Old City
of Jerusalem," W. F. Albright Volume (Eretz-Israel 9; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration
Society, 1969), pp. 168-70. It designates the vessel as an "offering" or "gift" (cf. Mt
15,5: doron), probably indicating that it was marked for service in the Temple.
See E. L. Sukenik, "A Jewish Tomb in the Kidron Valey [sic]," Tarbiz 6
(1934-35) 190-96; cf. T. C. Vriezen and J. H . Hospers, Palestine Inscriptions (Textus
minores 17; Leiden: Brill, 1951), pp. 38-39.
71
The New Testament words can be found in J. J. Koopmans, Aramische
Chrestomathie: Ausgewhlte Texte (Inschriften, Ostraka und Papyri) bis zum 3. Jahrhundert
n. Chr. (Leiden: Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1962), Nr. 68, pp. 209-212 (with
a partial bibliography on the subject). See also A. Neubauer, "On the Dialects Spoken
in Palestine in the Time of Christ," Studia biblica: Essays in Biblical Archaeology and
Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1885) 39-74, esp. 55-57. H e also gives some of the
Aramaic words in Josephus' writings, p. 62. Cf. E. Kautzsch, Grammatik
des
Biblisch-Aramischen:
Mit einer kritischen Errterung der aramischen Wrter im
Neuen Testament (Leipzig: F. C. W . Vogel, 1884), 8-12.

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Qumrn caves may be. Only a few of these texts have been published so far :
the Genesis Apocryphon,12 the Prayer of Nabonidus, the Description of the
New Jerusalem, the Elect of God text ; parts of such texts as the Testament
of Levi, Enoch, Pseudo-Daniel, a Targum of Job, and a number of untitled
texts to which a number has merely been assigned. Reports have been made
on still other Aramaic texts from Caves IV and XI, such as several copies
of Tobit, of targums on Job and Leviticus, of a text mentioning "the Son of
God" and "the Son of the Most High" in phrases remarkably close to Lk
1,32.35.73 All of this points to an extensive Aramaic literary activity and an
Aramaic literature, at least used by the Essenes, if not composed by them.
Objection might be made at this point that this evidence points only to a
literary use of Aramaic and that it really says little about the current spoken
form of the language. True, but then one must beware of exaggerating
theoretically the difference between the literary and spoken forms of the
language. Contemporary with the Qumrn evidence is the ossuary and
sepulchral inscriptions already mentioned, many more of which have been
coming to light in recent years.74 Again, an Aramaic IOU, dated in the
second year of Nero (i.e., 55-56), came to light in one of the Murabba't
72

. Avigad and Y. Yadin, A Genesis Apocryphon: A Scroll from the Wilderness

of Judaea (Jerusalem : Magnes, 1956) ; cf. J. A. Fitzmyer, The Genesis Apocryphon
of Qumran Cave I: A Commentary (Biblica et orientalia, 18; Rome: Biblical In
stitute, 1966), pp. 35-38 (bibliography on this text [a second revised edition of this
commentary will appear shortly]). The other Qumrn Aramaic texts that have been
published so far are listed on pp. 17-18, note 55.
73
See P. Benoit, et al. ; "Le travail d'dition des fragments manuscrits de Qumrn,"
RB 63 (1956) 49-67; "Editing the Manuscript Fragments from Qumran," 19
(1956) 75-96. For mention of the "Son of God" text, acquired from Kando only in
July 1958, see Gnomon 33 (1961) 584 (A. D. Nock) ; CanJT 6 (1960) 202, n. 12
(A. J. B. Higgins) ; TS 25 (1964) 429 (J. A. Fitzmyer). M. Smith (JBR 26 [1958]
304-13) amasses a number of other considerations which likewise point to some sort
of Palestinian "romantic narrative literature about biblical heroes," composed prior to
A.D. 70, i.e., Aramaic works produced in Greco-Roman literary forms.
7
* See E. L. Sukenik, "The Earliest Records of Christianity," AJA 51 (1947)
351-65 (the Talpioth ossuaries; cf. F. Fishwick, NTS 10 [1963-64] 49-61) ; B. Bagatti
and J. T. Milik, Gli scavi del 'Dominus Flevit' (Monte OlivetoGerusalemme), I. La
necropoli del periodo romano (Pubblicazioni dello Studium biblicum franciscanum, 13:
Jerusalem: Franciscan Press, 1958), 70-109; M. Avi-Yonah, et al., "The Archaeo
logical Survey of Masada, 1955-1956," IEJ 7 (1957) 1-60, esp. 59-60; . Avigad,
"Aramaic Inscriptions in the Tomb of Jason," IEJ 17 (1967) 101-11 ; "A Depository of
Inscribed Ossuaries in the Kedron Valley," IEJ 12 (1962) 1-12; "Jewish Rock-Cut
Tombs in Jerusalem and in the Judean Hill-Country," E. L. Sukenik Memorial
Volume, 119-42 [Hebrew; Engl, summary, p. 72*] ; E. M. Meyers, "Secondary Burials
in Palestine," A 33 (1970) 2-29.

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caves,75 and a letter on an ostracon from Masada.75a And from a slightly

later period comes a batch of legal documents, composed in Aramaic as well
as in Greek and Hebrew, from caves in the wadies Murabba't, Habr, and
Seiyl.76 Many of these still await publication.
One of them, which has already been published by H. J. Polotsky,77 merits
some attention here because of its unique bilingual character. Discovered in
1961 in the so-called Cave of Letters of the Wadi Habra, it belongs to the
family archives of Babatha, daughter of Simeon, who at one time lived in a
small Nabatean town called Mahoz 'Eglatain (or in Greek, Mao za), which
since A.D. 106 had become part of provincia Arabia. The main part of the
text, which is a copy of a receipt given by Babatha to a Jewish guardian of
her orphan son, is written in Greek. It is dated to 19 August 132 and acknowledges the payment of six denarii for the boy's food and clothing. The
ten lines of Greek text of the receipt are followed by three in Aramaic that
summarize the Greek statement. This Aramaic summary, however, is immediately followed by four lines of Greek, written by the same scribe who
composed the main text ; they give an almost literal translation of the Aramaic and are explicitly introduced by the word hermenias, "translation."
The text ends with German[os] Ioud[o]u egrapsa, "I, Germanus, (son)
of Judah, have written (this). , , Though this receipt was found in the southern part of Palestine, it was actually written in Nabatean country, to the
75 Mur 18 (DJD 2. 100-104).
75a . Yadin, "The Excavation of Masada1963/64 : Preliminary Report," IEJ 15
(1965) 1-120, esp. 111.
76 See Mur 8, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 72. Cf. S. Segert, "Zur
Orthographie und Sprache der aramischen Texte von W. Murabba't (Auf Grund
von DJD II)," Ar Or 31 (1963) 122-37. The material from Wadi Qabra is still to be
published ; for preliminary reports and partial publication of it, see Y. Yadin, "Expedition D," IEJ 11 (1961) 36-52; BIES 25 (1961) 49-64; "Expedition DThe Cave of
Letters," IEJ 12 (1962) 227-57. Cf. . Y. Kutscher, "The Language of the Hebrew
and Aramaic Letters of Bar Cochba and His Contemporaries," Lesonnu 25 (1961)
117-33; 26 (1962) 7-23. From this cave (official siglum 5/6Hev) came the Nabatean
contract published by J. Starcky, "Un contrat nabaten sur papyrus," RB 61 (1954)
161-81. Yadin (IEJ 12 [1962] 229) reveals that he recovered the scriptura interior of
this "tied deed" and thus established the provenience of the contract. It is also likely
that two other Aramaic documents published by J. T. Milik come from the same cave
("Un contrat juif de l'an 134 aprs J.-C," RB 61 [1954] 182-90; "Deux documents
indits du dsert de Juda," Biblica 38 [1957] 245-68, esp. 255-64). Cf. E. Koffmahn,
Die Doppelurkunden aus der Wste Juda (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of
Judah, 5; Leiden: Brill, 1968).
77

"Three Greek Documents from the Family Archive of Babatha," E. L. Sukenik

Memorial Volume, pp. 46-51, esp. p. 50 (document 27) ; cf. "The Greek Papyri from
the Cave of the Letters," IEJ 12 (1962) 258-62.

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southeast of the Dead Sea. From the same place comes yet another Greek
document, a Doppelurkunde, with the Greek text written twice, but with the
scrip tura exterior endorsed by two men who write, one in Aramaic, the other
in Nabatean.78 It is dated to 12 Oct. 125. Apparently there are other examples of bilingual or trilingual texts still to be published by Yadin or Polotsky.79 Here we have in official documents the simultaneous use of Greek,
Aramaic, and Nabatean; the problem is to say to what extent this might
represent language habits in southern Palestine of roughly the same period.
Given this simultaneous use, the real question is to what extent Greek
would be affecting the Aramaic and vice versa. In the case of the receipt
from the Babatha archive, the main text written in Greek, with an Aramaic
abstract itself rendered again in a Greek translation, obviously attests to the
importance of Greek in the area where such documents were composed. The
woman was Jewish, and it is scarcely credible that she would have legal and
financial documents drawn up for her in a language that she did not understand or read. But the text raises the question to what extent Greek vocabulary and idiom were invading Aramaic. We know that the converse took
place. Aramaic certainly affected the Greek used by Jews. The Aramaic
words in the Gospels and Josephus, and the Aramaisms in their Greek syntax reveal this. A small Greek fragment from Murabba't, containing a
broken list of proper names, gives one of them as Ispos asphr Kta[ ],
"Josephus, the scribe, Keta[ ]." Here a Hebrew title, has-sphr, has simply
been transcribed.80 Even though this is evidence for Hebrew affecting Greek,
it serves as an illustration of the sort of data we should expect in Aramaic
texts of the period : Greek words transcribed into Aramaic, such as we have
in the names of the musical instruments in Dn 3,5.
However, this sort of evidence is surprisingly lacking in the first-century
Aramaic texts that are extant. This phenomenon is still to be discovered in
Qumrn Aramaic texts or in the Aramaic IOU of 55/56 (Mur 18). In all
of the Aramaic texts of slightly later date from the caves of the wadies
Murabba't and Habra that have either been published so far or reported
on with partial publication of texts, I have found to date only five isolated
words and one formula that are clearly due to Greek. These are :
knms', "according to the Law" (Mur 21:11 [a marriage contract with nomos
the date missing; Milik would not exclude a first century
date])
b'sply', "in security" (5/6Hev 1 ar:2 [an Aramaic letter of Bar asphaleia
Cochba])
78 See H. J. Polotsky, "Three Greek Documents," pp. 46-49.
7 See Y. Yadin, IEJ 12 (1962) 246.
so Mur 103a 1 (DJD 2.232).

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syp, "sword" (5/6Hev 1 ar:4 [same letter]

xiphos
rhwmyh, "Romans" (5/6Hev 6 ar:2 [another letter of Bar Cochba]) Rmaioi
'pLtrp'ly "guardian" (5/6Hev 27:12 [receipt of payment from epitropos
Babatha archive, dated 19 Aug. 132; Polotsky's restoration
is certain, because epitropos occurs in the Greek version, line
16] ) 8 1
A date formula in an Aramaic text was taken over from Greek usage:
hptwt lyqys qtylys swrs tnynwf zvmrqs 'wrlys 'ntwnyns snt tit Vwtwqrtwr
qsr tryns hdryns sbsts w'l mnyn hprkyh d' b'sryn w'rb'h btmwz snt 'sr
whms, "in the consulship of Lucius Catilius Severus for the second time and
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, in the third year of Imperator Caesar Traianus
Hadrianus Augustus and according to the era of this province, on the 24th of
Tammuz, year 15" ( = 13 July A.D. 120). 8 2 The date is given by the consul
ship, by Hadrian's regnal year, and by the era of provincia Arabia. Aside
from the proper names, the clear Grecisms are 7 hptwt for epi hypatn,
Vwtqrtwr for autokrator ("emperor"), qsr for Kaisar, sbsts for sebastos,
mnyn hprkyh dy for kata ton tes neas eparchias Arabias arithmon.83 This
is a clear example of Greek affecting Aramaic; it is a stereotyped legal
formula that was undoubtedly often used and perhaps was required in official
documents of that province. Again, it is not easy to say to what extent this
clear Greek influence was also found in first-century Palestine itself.
In sum, there is precious little evidence for the influence of Greek on
Palestinian Aramaic, and none of it certainly from the first century. This is
indeed surprising and may be a sheer coincidence; it is purely "negative
evidence" 84 at this time. It is an argument from silence that could be proved
wrong tomorrowby the discovery of first-century Palestinian Aramaic
texts with abundant examples of borrowed Grecisms. But at the moment we
have to await such a discovery.
The reason for making something of all this is the contention of M. Black,
A. Diez Macho, and others that the language of the Palestinian targum(s)
is that of the first century, and indeed represents spoken Aramaic of that
time in contrast to the literary Aramaic of Qumrn. Black's main argument
for the thesis that "the language of the Palestinian Targum is . . . firstsi See DJD 2.115; Lesonnu 25 (1961) 119, 126; E. L. Sukenik Memorial Volume,
p. 50.
82 See Y. Yadin, IEJ 12 (1962) 242; cf. his article, "The Nabatean Kingdom,
Provincia Arabia, Petra and En-Geddi in the Documents from Nahal Hever," JEOL
17 (1963) 227-41, esp. pp. 232-33.
83
The last Greek formula is taken from the receipt in the Babatha archive, document 27 (see note 77 above), lines 2-3.
84
To borrow a phrase from K. A. Kitchen, used in his critique of H. H. Rowley's
studies of the Aramaic of Daniel (see note 4 above).

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century Aramaic" is this: "The large number of borrowings in it from

Greek point to a period for its composition when Palestinian Aramaic was
spoken in a hellenistic environment."85 But, as we have already seen, the
Hellenization of Palestine stretched over a long period, from at least the time
of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (if not much earlier) well into the first half
of the first Christian millennium. And yet what evidence there is for Greek
words borrowed into Palestinian Aramaic is very sparse indeed up to A.D.
200. There comes a time, however, after that when it is surprisingly abundant, as epigraphic material and the researches of S. Krauss, S. Liebermann,
et al. have shown time and again.86 The same heavy influence of Greek is
paralleled in Syriac tooa form of Aramaic that emerges toward the beginning of the third century A.D. The fact, then, that the Aramaic of the
Palestinian targums contains a "large number of borrowings in it from
Greek" could point really to any period from the third century B.C. (at
least) to A.D. 500 (at least). But when we look for the first-century evidence, it is certainly negative.
There is no doubt that targums were beginning to be written down in firstcentury Palestine, as the discovery of fragments of a targum on Job from
Qumrn caves IV and XI and a targum on Leviticus from Qumrn Cave IV
illustrate. Until these are fully published and the relation of them to the previously known and existing targums can be assessed, we cannot without
further ado assume a genetic relationship between them or believe that they
manifest the same degree of Greek influence as the other targums. J. van der
Ploeg has already indicated in a preliminary report that HQtgJob is unrelated to the later, little-known targum on Job, the origin of which is quite
obscure.87 As for 4QtgLev, which is the sole fragment of a targum on the
Pentateuch, Milik has already revealed some differences in it.88 In my
opinion, the evidence from the borrowing of Greek words in the Palestinian
targums argues for a date after A.D. 200a date that could be supported by
a number of other orthographic, lexical, and grammatical considerations
which are absent from Biblical, Qumrn, and similar Aramaic texts, but
that begin to appear in Murabba't and IJabra texts and become abundant
85
An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (3d ed.; Oxford: Clarendon,
1967), p. 22.
86
See notes 58 and 61 above.
87
"Le targum de Job de la grotte 11 de Qumran [HQtgJob] : Premire communication," Mededelingen der koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen,
Afd. Letterkunde, n.r. 25/9 (Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers M., 1962)
543-57, esp. 552.
88
Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (SBT 26; London: S CM,
1959) 31.

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in the targums, in Syriac, and in dated Aramaic inscriptions from Palestinian

synagogues from the third to the sixth centuries, A.D. 89 A handy catalogue
of such synagogues has now been made available by S. J. Sailer.90
In speaking of the influence of another language on first-century Aramaic
we must not restrict our remarks to Greek alone. For the influence of
Hebrew on it is also evident. This issue is more difficult to assess because
the languages are so closely related. But a number of Hebraisms are clearly
evident in the literary Aramaic of the Genesis Apocryphon,91 and in the less
literary writings from Murabba't and Habra. There are masculine plural
absolute endings in -im instead of -in, the occasional use of the prepositive
article (has-nasi, 5/6Hev 1 a r : l 9 2 ) , the conjunction 'im, "if," instead of
89

E.g., the inscriptions from the 'Ain-Dq synagogue (see E. L. Sukenik, Ancient
Synagogues in Palestine and Greece [Schweich Lectures, 1930; London: British
Academy, 1934], pp. 73-74 [I], 75-76 [II], 76 [III]), the 'Alma synagogue (R.
Hestrin, "A New Aramaic Inscription from 'Alma," L. M. Rabinowitz Fund for the
Exploration of Ancient Synagogues, Bulletin 3 [1960] 65-67), the Beth Alpha synagogue (E. L. Sukenik, The Ancient Synagogue of Beth Alpha [Jerusalem: University
Press, 1932], pp. 43-46), the Beth Gubrin synagogue (E. L. Sukenik, "A Synagogue
Inscription from Beit Jibrin," JPOS 10 [1930] 76-78), the Capernaum synagogue
(G. Orfali, "Deux inscriptions de Capharnam," Antonianum 1 (1926) 401-12), the
Chorazin synagogue (J. Ory, "An Inscription Newly Found in the Synagogue of
Kerazah," PEFQS 1927, 51-52), the Fiq synagogue (S. A. Cook, "Hebrew Inscription
at Fik," PEFQS 1903, 185-86; cf. p. 274), the Gaza synagogue (D. J. Saul, "Von
el-'Akabe ber Gaza nach Jerusalem," Mitteilungen des deutschen Palstina-Vereins 7
[1901] 9-14, esp. 12-13), the Gischala synagogue (G. Dalman, "Die Zeltreise," PJB
10 [1914] 47-48), the Hammath-by-Gadara synagogue (E. L. Sukenik, The Ancient
Synagogue of El Hammeh (Hammath-by-Gadara) [Jerusalem: R. Mass, 1935]), the
Hamat-Tiberias synagogue (M. Dothan, "The Aramaic Inscription from the Synagogue of Severus at Hamat-Tiberias," E. L. Sukenik Memorial Volume, pp. 183-85),
the 'Isfiyah synagogue (M. Avi-Yonah, "A Sixth Century Synagogue at 'Isfiy,"
QDAP 3 [1933] 119-31), the Khirbet Kanef synagogue (G. Dalman, "Inschriften aus
Palstina," ZDPV 37 [1914] 138), the Jerash synagogue (J. W. Crowfoot and R. W.
Hamilton, "The Discovery of a Synagogue at Jerash," PEFQS 1929, 211-19, esp.
218; see E. L. Sukenik, "Note on the Aramaic Inscription at the Synagogue of
Gerasa," PEFQS 1930, 48-49) the Kafr Bir'im school inscription (JPCI #9), the
Kafr Kenna synagogue (C. Clermont-Ganneau, "Mosaque inscription hbraque de
Kefr Kenna," CRAIBL 1900, pp. 555-57), the Umm el-'Amed synagogue (N. Avigad,
"An Aramaic Inscription from the Ancient Synagogue of Umm el-'Amed," BIES 19
(1956-57) 183-87.
90
A Revised Catalogue of the Ancient Synagogues of the Holy Land (Publications
of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum, collectio minor, 6; Jerusalem: Franciscan
Press, 1969) [non vidi].
01
See my commentary (cf. note 72), pp. 21-23. Cf. . Y. Kutscher, Orientalia 39
(1970) 178-83.
92
This is the sole instance of the prepositive article, and may have to be discounted,
because it is the title of Bar Cochba and may be part of a stereotyped way of referring

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hen or 'in, the apocopated form of the imperfect of the verb "to be," yeht ; etc.
This Hebraized Aramaic is, of course, not surprising ; nor is it confined to
the first-century evidence, since it is already found in Ezra and Daniel.93
Two last remarks concerning the Aramaic of first-century Palestine.
The first deals with the Nabatean dialect ; so far I have left it out of consideration for the most part. It is a dialect of Aramaic, which betrays Arabic
influence. There is no doubt that it was being used in Petra and in the
Nabatean country to the south of Palestine. Was it also being used in the
southern part of Palestine as well ? In the Daroma ? In Idumea ? We do not
know for certain and the possibility cannot be excluded. The fragments and
documents written in Nabatean and recovered from the Cave of Letters in
Wadi Habra were obviously brought there by refugees who hid in the caves
of the area. They were written, as we have already indicated, for the most
part in Mahoz 'Eglatain, a town or village in Nabatea. Yet they speak of
relations with En-Gedi and persons who lived on the western shore of the
Dead Sea. When these texts are finally published, perhaps it will be possible
to establish more definitely the use of this special dialect of Aramaic in firstcentury southern Palestine as well.
The other remark concerns the name for Aramaic. It is well known that
the Aramaic portion of Daniel begins with the adverb >arrmt (Dn 2,4b).
This gloss, which at some point in the transmission of the book crept into
the text itself, reflects the ancient name of the language attested in the Old
Testament and in Elephantine papyrus texts. 94 Greek writers of a later
period refer to the language as syristi or syriak.*5 When, however, Greek
writers of the first century refer to the native Semitic language of Palestine,
they use hebrdisti, hebrais dialektos, or hebraizn. As far as I can see, no
to him, even if one spoke or wrote in Aramaic. However, there is another instance of
it on a Jerusalem ossuary, Yhwdh br 'I'zr hswpr (see JPCI #10). Compare the
Greek fragment mentioned above, p. 523.
93
Cf. F. Rosenthal, A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Porta linguarum orientalium,
n.s. 5; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1961), #187; H. Bauer and P. Leander, Grammatik
des Biblisch-Aramischen (Halle: Niemeyer, 1927), #1 t-v (p. 10). This reference to
Daniel (and even to Ezra) should not be misunderstood. It may seem that such
"Hebraisms" were already a living part of Aramaic of an earlier day. This is undoubtedly true ; but it does not make them indigenous in Aramaic. They were originally
Hebraisms, and they persisted in the language because of the more or less simultaneous use of the languages throughout a long period. Cf. S. Segert, "Sprachliche
Bemerkungen zu einigen aramischen Texten von Qumran," ArOr 33 (1965) 190-206.
4 2 Kgs 18,26; Is 36,11; Ezr 4,7cf. Cowley, AP 28:4,6.
95
Cf. the LXX passages corresponding to the OT passages m the preceding note;
also Job 42,17b (syriak) and the Letter of Aristeas #11. This Greek name may be
reflected in the Hebrew (contemptuous ?) name for Aramaic, Ieson surs [bSotah 49b;
bBaba Qamma 82b, 83a].

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one has yet found the adverb aramdisti.9Q The adverb hebrdisti (and its related expressions) seems to mean "in Hebrew," and it has often been argued
that it means this and nothing more.97 As is well known, it is used at times
with words and expressions that are clearly Aramaic. Thus in Jn 19,13,
hebrdisti de Gabbatha is given as an explanation of the Lithostrotos, and
gabbatha is a Grecized form of the Aramaic word gabbet, "raised place."98
This long-standing, thorny question is still debated ; and unfortunately, the
Greek letter of Bar Cochba ( ?) cited earlier does not shed a ray of light on
the meaning of hebrdisti. We know that the author preferred to write "in
Greek" than in it ; but both Aramaic and Hebrew letters belong to the same
cache of documents and the question still remains unresolved about the
precise meaning of hebrdisti. In any case, this problem forms a fitting transition to the consideration of the fourth language of first-century Palestine,
viz., Hebrew.
IV. Hebrew
Hebrew probably was the oldest language still spoken in first-century
Palestine. We may speculate about the language that was spoken by the
"wandering Aramean" (Dt 26,5) who returned from Egypt at the time of
the Conquest of Palestine. Was it Old Aramaic of the form known in the
early inscriptions from northern Syria? Or had this semi-nomadic people
already adopted the sepat Kena'an of the inhabitants who preceded them. In
any case, the earliest epigraphic material points heavily in the direction of
Hebrew, as a Canaanite dialect, dominating the land. It was never completely
supplanted by Aramaic after the exile, when the latter became more commonly used because of its international prominence. It is, however, often
asserted that Aramaic was the only Semitic language in use in Palestine at
the time of Jesus and the Apostles.99 But there are clear indications, both
epigraphic and literary, that Hebrew continued in use in certain social strata
of the people and perhaps also in certain geographical areas. The evidence,
however, is not as abundant as it is for Aramaic.
96

However, chaldaxsti is added in the LXX of Dn 2,26, corresponding to nothing

in the MT.
97
As it certainly does in the Greek prologue of Ben Sira. This exclusive meaning has
been argued for it by H. Birkeland, "The Language of Jesus," pp. 12-16.
9
8 See further G. Dalman, The Words of Jesus (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1902).
99
E.g., A. Dupont-Sommer, Les aramens [L'orient ancien illustr, 4; Paris:
Maisonneuve, 1949], p. 99 ("L'aramen continua longtemps se parler et s'crire
en Palestine. A l'poque du Christ, il tait la seule langue courante pour la masse du
peuple; c'est l'aramen que parlaient Jsus et les Aptres.") F. Altheim and R. Stiehl,
"Jesus der Galiler," Die Araber in der alten Welt (Berlin: de Gruyter) 3 (1966) 92
("Das Hebrische war als lebende Sprache seit dem Beginn der hellenistischen Zeit
ausgestorben und in Palstina durch Aramische ersetzt worden.")

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It is true that the number of Qumrn texts written in Hebrew far outnumber those in Aramaic, and these bear witness to a lively literary productivity in the language. It is not great literature, no more than the Aramaic
literature of the time ; even the War Scroll and the Thanksgiving Psalms are
scarcely exceptions to this, though they are the most literary pieces in the
Qumrn scrolls. However, much of this Qumrn Hebrew composition dates
from the last two centuries B.C. But the peshrim, which exist in only one
copy of each pesher and were written for the most part in the late Herodian
script, may be regarded as first-century compositions.100 They are literary
compositions, reflecting on earlier stages of the sect's history and interpreting
the Biblical books in the light of that history and of the sect's beliefs. Along
with the rest of Qumrn Hebrew, the language of these texts represents a
slight development beyond that of the late books of the Old Testament. It
has been called a "neo-classical Hebrew," lacking in spontaneity and contaminated by the contemporary colloquial dialect.101
The evidence for colloquial Hebrew is not abundant. What is surprising
is that there is scarcely a Hebrew inscription from Palestine in the first
century outside of the Qumrn materialthe inscription of the Ben H e zir
tomb being almost the sole exception.102 There are, of course, ossuaries with
Semitic names that could have been inscribed by Hebrew-speaking Jews as
well as by Aramaic-speaking Jews. The use of ben instead of bar in the
patronymics is no sure indication of a Hebrew proper name, even though
it is often used to distinguish Hebrew from Aramaic inscriptions on the
ossuaries. This is a recognized convenience and no more. The proper name
with ben or bar could have been used properly in its own language milieu or
could easily have been borrowed into the other because of the close relation
of the two ; it is even conceivable that the stereotyped character of the ben or
bar might have been the unique borrowed element.103 Texts from Murabba't illustrate this. 104 Bar is found in Semitic names in a text written in
Hebrew, and ben in a text written in Aramaic. The only noteworthy thing
in the Murabba't texts is that bar is more frequent in Hebrew texts than
ben is in Aramaic texts. The evidence, however, is so slight that one could
scarcely conclude that this argues for Aramaic as the more common language.
The Copper Roll from Qumrn Cave III, which almost certainly had
100

See J. T. Milik, Ten Years, p. 41.

ibid., 130.
102
See N. Avigad, Ancient Monuments in the Kidron Valley (Jerusalem: Bialik,
1954), 59-66. Also the Bethphage ossuary lid may be considered here (R. Dussaud,
"Comptes d'ouvriers d'une entreprise funraire juive," Syria 4 [1923] 241-49).
103
As br is in the Phoenician inscription of Kilamuwa (KAI #24).
104 For instance, Mur 22:1-9 i 3,4,11-12; 29:1,2,10,11-12; 30:1,4,6,9,10,11,17,26,32;
36:1,2,8; 42:12; 46:10. These examples are scarcely exhaustive.

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nothing to do with the Essenes themselves, is "the oldest known text to be

written in Mishnaic Hebrew." 105 Texts from the Murabba't and IJabra
caves, which consist of letters as well as quasi-official documents, are written
in practically the same form of Hebrew. Mishnaic Hebrew, reflecting a still
further development of the language, is usually regarded as a literary dialect.
But it is now seen to have been a development of the colloquial Hebrew of
the first century. All of this points to a clear use of Hebrew in Palestine of
that time, but it is really not sufficient to say with J. T. Milik that it proves
"beyond reasonable doubt that Mishnaic was the normal language of the
Judaean population in the Roman period."106
This leads us naturally to the issue raised by H. Birkeland in recent years
that Hebrew was actually the language of Jesus, because it had still "remained the language of the common people."107 Little can actually be said
about Jesus* use of Hebrew. That Hebrew was being used in first-century
Palestine is beyond doubt, as we have been saying ; but this fact is scarcely
sufficient evidence for maintaining that Jesus therefore made use of it. We
would have to look for further indications of this fact. If Lk 4,16-30 records
a historical visit of Jesus to Nazareth with all its details, it might suggest
that Jesus opened the scroll to Isaiah 61, found his place there, and read
from it, presumably in Hebrew. The Lucan text completely prescinds from
any use of a targum. Literalists among commentators on Acts 26,14 have
also sought to insist that the risen Jesus, appearing to Paul on the road to
Damascus and speaking t hebrdidi dialekt, actually spoke in real Hebrew,
not Aramaic. A similar suggestion is made that the logia that Matthew put
together, according to Papias' statement in Eusebius (HE 3.39,16), were
actually Hebrew, not Aramaic. And the appeal is made to the extensive
literature in Hebrew from Qumrn as an indication of the possibility of
writing a Hebrew gospel. There is certainly some plausibility in such suggestions ; but do they really exceed the bounds of speculation ?
Just as we mentioned the influence of other languages on the Greek and
Aramaic spoken in Palestine, so too one can detect foreign influence on the
non-literary Hebrew of this period. Phoenician or Punic influence has been
claimed for the use of t as the sign of the accusative (instead of the older,
!05 J. T. Milik, Ten Years, p. 130. Here Milik dates the text to "the middle of the
first century A.D."; but in the official publication of this text (DJD 3. 217) he says,
"le document se situe par consquent au premier sicle de notre re ou au dbut du
sicle suivant, entre 30 et 130 aprs J.-C. en chiffres ronds, avec prfrence pour la
seconde moiti de cette priode." He also cites the date proposed by W. F. Albright,
"between cir. 70 and cir. 135 A.D."
loe Ten Years, p. 130.
107 The Language of Jesus," p. 16.

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Biblical 'et). Aramaic influence for the frequent use of -in instead of Am as
the absolute mase. plur. ending (5/6Hev hebr 1:3,4; 2:1), 1 0 8 of the 3d plur.
mase, suffix in -An instead of -Aw (Mur 44:4; 45:7), of the 3d sing. mase,
suffix in -A instead of -w (Mur 44:9 ; 42:8,9 [ktbh, "wrote it"] ) . Is it, again,
sheer coincidence that the only Greek word that I have been able to detect
in this non-literary Hebrew is hap-parnsm, a form that some have explained as derived from Greek pronoos. An Aramaic lexical expression may
be found in Mur 46:7 : bsl s, possibly reflecting the Aramaic bdyl dy.109 In
this case, the evidence is truly negative, because there is so little to go on.
By way of conclusion, I would maintain that the most commonly used
language of Palestine in the first century A.D. was Aramaic, but that many
Palestinian Jews, not only those in Hellenistic towns, but farmers and
craftsmen of less obviously Hellenized areas used Greek, at least as a
second language. The data collected from Greek inscriptions and literary
sources indicate that Greek was widely used. In fact, there is indication,
despite Josephus' testimony, that some Palestinians spoke only Greek, the
hellnistai. But pockets of Palestinian Jews also used Hebrew, even though
its use was not widespread. The emergence of the targums supports this.
The real problem is the influence of these languages on one another. Grecized
Aramaic is still to be attested in the first century. It begins to be attested in
the early second century and becomes abundant in the third and fourth
centuries. Is it legitimate to appeal to this evidence to postulate the same
situation earlier? Latin was really a negligible factor in the languagesituation of Palestine, since it was confined for the most part to the Roman
occupiers. If Aramaic did go into an eclipse in the Seleucid period, as some
maintain, it did not remain there. The first-century evidence points, indeed,
to its use as the most common language in Palestine.
JOSEPH A.

FITZMYER,

SJ.

University of Chicago
108

M. H. Segal (A Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew [Oxford: Clarendon, 1927] #281,

p. 126) is often cited in opposition to this claim: "The termination An [in Mishnaic
Hebrew] is not an Aramaism," but rather "a purely Hebraic phenomenon." Yet the
fact that "-n is common to nearly all Semitic languages" or is "the only one found on
the Mesa* stone" or that it occurs "as early as the Song of Deborah" still does not
rule out the influence of a dominant language of the area (such as Aramaic was)
on Hebrew.
109 See J. T. Milik, ad toc.

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