What Language Was the Bible Written in?

What Language Was the Bible Written In?

The simple answer to this question is that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew (and some Aramaic), and the New Testament was written in Greek. But the simple answer is not the whole story. Before we get into the nitty gritty linguistic details, let’s look at the historical background of the Biblical languages.

Historical Backdrop

Why would the best-selling book of all time be written in two different languages, especially since Jews wrote both parts of it (Old and New Testaments)? How many other books have you read written in two languages? In the ancient world, languages were generally associated with people. It is the Hebrew people who wrote the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew. The fact that the New Testament is written in Greek by Jewish people (who probably spoke Aramaic and Hebrew as well) makes it different from the norm. It reflects the unique political and linguistic situation in the first century AD. Several centuries earlier, the Greek-speaking Alexander the Great came and conquered everyone–including the land of Israel. As a result, many Jews started speaking Greek, and some even started adopting Greek customs. When the Roman general Pompey conquered Israel in 63 BC, Jews had already started writing religious works in Greek. That’s why the New Testament was written in Greek, even though Israel was under Roman (i.e. Latin-speaking) rule during the New Testament period.

The Language(s) of the Old Testament

First, the earliest characters in the Bible (everyone in Genesis) wrote nothing. The first instance of the Hebrew word כָּתַב ‘write’ (pronounced kathav) is in Exodus 17:14. There is no writing in Genesis. This largely accords with the evidence we have for the earliest alphabetic writing (which Hebrew adopted), which is now dated to around 2,000 BC and which came from the Sinai peninsula. Abraham lived around 1,800 BC and migrated from Ur (a city in the kingdom of Babylon). If he knew how to write at all, he would have known cuneiform (a non-alphabetic script), and he would have spoken Akkadian (also called Babylonian) and probably Aramaic as well according to the description of him as a wandering Aramean in Deuteronomy 26:5. In the Bible, we have no evidence for anyone writing in Genesis, and it is probably safe to assume that Abraham could not write. All the stories from Genesis, then, had to originally have been passed down in oral rather than written form.

This brings us to our second more complex issue: the fact that most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew does not mean that all the people spoke Hebrew. We’ve already said that Abraham probably spoke Akkadian. That was the language spoken in the area where he was from. This means that at least some of the oral stories of Genesis had to be translated into Hebrew before they could be written down in Hebrew.

In fact, we see evidence of linguistic diversity throughout the Old Testament. In Genesis 31:47, Laban speaks Aramaic to Jacob. Pharaoh has his servants yell an Egyptian word (translated ‘Kneel down!’) before Joseph as he rides in his chariot (Gen 41:43). As a Moabite, Ruth would have spoken Moabite (a language very close to Hebrew). The list could go on and on. The most obvious demonstration of this is the parts of the Old Testament written in Aramaic. Besides our one verse in Genesis, Ezra 4:8-6:18, 7:12-26, Jeremiah 10:11, and Daniel 2:4b-7:28 were all written in Aramaic. After the southern tribe of Judah was conquered, Aramaic began to compete more significantly with Hebrew as the language of the Jewish people, and this is reflected in some of the writings being in Aramaic. This is especially true of the “post-exilic” writings, i.e. those written after the southern kingdom of Judah was exiled to Babylon in the 6th century BC.

This brings us to the time when the Old Testament was written. Have you ever tried to read English written a few hundred years ago? It can be pretty difficult. Take, for example, Beowulf: the anonymous poem written between the 8th and 11th centuries AD. Here’s the opening line: Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Yes, that’s English. No, I also don’t know what it says. To be fair, Hebrew was probably more stable than English over the 1,000 years from Moses’ time to the closing of the Hebrew canon, but it was still about 1,000 years, and the language did change. Our earliest texts are archaic poetry and include Genesis 49, Exodus 15, Deuteronomy 32, and Judges 5. All of these have very odd linguistic features that show they are very early. Other texts have late features like Ecclesiastes or the Song of Solomon. Regardless of whether or not Solomon was the originator of the content, the Persian and Greek loan words found in these writings show they are late. There is a lot of diversity even in the Hebrew of the Old Testament.

We could go on and talk about the different dialects of Hebrew (specifically northern vs. southern) and genres, but you probably get the point. The simple answer is true–the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. But the kind of Hebrew that we find there and how it has been influenced by other languages and cultures varies widely from book to book and even passage to passage.

The Language(s) of the New Testament

When we come to the New Testament, we have a similar amount of diversity, but the issues are different. The inscription over Jesus’s cross was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek (John 19:20). Jesus’s cry of dereliction from the cross ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’ was probably originally spoken in a combination of Hebrew and Aramaic (see more about this here), and the Gospel writers translate it into Greek. Although Jesus probably spoke Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, most of his words are recorded in Greek. Certainly, a conversation with someone like the Roman Centurion was probably not in Hebrew; they probably spoke Greek. Jesus’s conversations with his disciples were almost certainly not in Greek, though. All of this has come down to us in the Greek we have in the New Testament, and it is not always easy to tell what language the characters of the New Testament are actually speaking.

Another complexity in the New Testament is the use of the Septuagint (abbreviated as the LXX). The LXX is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Many quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament are not from the Hebrew Old Testament but are from the Greek translation. For example, the LXX of Deuteronomy 6:5 has 4 different things you should love God with (usually translated ‘heart’, ‘soul’, ‘mind’, and ‘strength’), but the Hebrew has only 3 (usually translated ‘heart’, ‘soul’ and ‘strength’). In Mark 12:30, Jesus is reported to have quoted the LXX version rather than the Hebrew version. We don’t have to get into the question of what Jesus actually said–this is complicated for a number of reasons (the parallel in Matthew 22:37 reports Jesus giving only 3 of the 4). But Mark clearly quotes the LXX, so his Old Testament Bible is, in some sense, Greek as well as Hebrew.

Although the New Testament is different from the Old Testament in that it was written over a much shorter period of time, we still find a variety of styles and genres. The three main genres are narrative (Gospels and Acts), letters (Paul and others), and prophecy (Revelation). Even within these, the Greek is very different from author to author. Luke’s Greek is a much higher register than John’s. Hebrews is probably the best (and hardest) Greek in the New Testament and John’s epistles are again very different (and much easier).

Jesus’s words often feel very Hebrew-like, and it is still debated among scholars the extent to which Hebrew and Aramaic are influencing the Greek we find in the Gospels. When reading the beginning of something like the Beatitudes, those well-versed in Hebrew immediately recognize that to begin with ‘bless is x’ feels very much like a Hebrew construction (compare to Psalm 1:1). Was Jesus speaking Hebrew or Aramaic or a Hebraicized Greek? Regardless, what we have is a Hebraicized Greek in the text. To experience fully what it would have been like to hear Jesus’s words, we should be familiar with the Hebrew constructions behind the Greek.

All of these examples teach us something important about the Bible: it is multi-linguistic and multicultural. Many parts of the world are still like this, but unfortunately, the “West” has become very monolingual. But it doesn’t have to be. You can learn the languages of the Bible while immersing yourself in the biblical world.

Learning the Languages and Culture of the Bible with Biblingo

Although Biblical Greek and Biblical Hebrew (and some Biblical Aramaic) are unique in that the Bible was written in these languages, they can still be learned like any other language. As we have touched on, the Bible reflects a different world and culture from our own. The only way to tap into this world in its fullness is through the languages that the Bible was originally written in. Don’t get me wrong–translations are great, and they have been a great service to God’s people. But translations will always lack the accuracy and feel of the original. In modern times, the biblical languages are also more accessible than ever before, so why not read the Bible as God originally gave it to us?

Biblingo is a learning software and app that exists to make learning biblical languages easier. We offer a unique, innovative platform that utilizes modern language learning techniques, making it perfect for anyone seeking to understand their Bible on a deeper level. Our comprehensive curriculum provides everything you need to learn the languages of the Bible. Here are some feature highlights:

Culturally-accurate reconstructed scenes from biblical times: Learn Biblical Greek and Hebrew like children growing up in biblical times would have learned these languages. You will be immersed in the culture of the Bible as you pair the biblical languages with the biblical world. By de-emphasizing English, we provide you with an immersive experience that has been shown to be effective in learning languages.

Personalized interactive material: Our innovative app feeds you all the material you need when you need it, so that you can make steady progress in the languages without feeling discouraged. Plus, people tell us that it’s just fun.

Linguistic insights: Did you enjoy nerding out over all the language-related content in this post? Biblingo gives you hours and hours of the latest scholarship in Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Greek linguistics, so that you can have new insights into the text.

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What Language Was the Bible Written in?