Opinion is divided as to whether the religious leader knew any Greek or Latin. Some experts believe he could speak Hebrew. an attempt was made to revive the Hebrew language, but this did not bear fruit as the revolt was crushed by the Romans.
During the Bar Kochba revolt in the second century C.E. Hebrew lost its bastion in Jerusalem and was slipping away. No-one really knows whether Jesus could write. After Jesus was crucified, the Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. So while Jesus’ most common spoken language was Aramaic, he was familiar withif not fluent, or even proficient inthree or four different tongues. It is likely that Jesus spoke a local Galilean dialect and the towns of Nazareth was an Aramaic speaking community.ĭespite the increasing importance of Greek, Aramaic was the dominant language among Jews in the Holy Land and across the Middle East until the Arab conquest in the seventh century.Īramaic words frequently pop up in Biblical text, such as 'Abba, Father, ‘and place names including Gethsemane - the place where Jesus took his disciples to pray before his arrest - are thought to have an Aramaic root. He definitely did not speak Arabic, another Semitic language that did not arrive in Palestine until after the first century A.D. Most Biblical scholars agree that Jesus and his disciples spoke Aramaic, which was the common language of Judea in the first century AD. To which the smiling Pope corrected: ‘Aramaic. He spoke Hebrew,’ in a bid to discuss the strong ties between Judaism and Christianity.
The Pope’s pilgrimage to the Middle East was controversial because of the holy leader’s impromptu prayer session at the West Bank’s barrier.Īnd a playful religious disagreement also took place between Pope Francis and Israel’s prime minister, which revolved around Jesus’ linguistic skills.īenjamin Netanyahu and the Pope had a small, good natured squabble about the language spoken by Jesus Christ.Īramaic! Benjamin Netanyahu (left) and the Pope (right) had a small, humorous squabble (pictured) about the language spoken by Jesus Christ, with Israel's prime minister saying that the religious leader spoke Hebrew, while the Pope said AramaicĪt a meeting in Jerusalem, Mr Netanyahu told the Pope: ’Jesus was here, in this land. No-one knows the language he spoke for sure, or whether he could write. Now, the BBC is looking into just what languages Jesus would have knownand an expert says both leaders are right. Historians believe that Hebrew was the language of scholars and scriptures, so Jesus probably spoke both dialectsĬhrist may have spoken a few words of Latin and Greek What Language Did Jesus Speak Pope Francis, Benjamin Netanyahu disagree. At a meeting in Jerusalem, Israel's prime minister told the Pope that Jesus spoke Hebrew and the Pope corrected him by saying 'Aramaic'